Pros: It's stable; very fast on good hardware; good software available for free for it
Cons: Ugly as sin; resource hog; security concerns; it's from Microsoft
The Bottom Line: After years of creating trash, Microsoft put out a good (although ugly) operating system. This OS is much better than one might expect.
HawgWyld's Full Review: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Full Version for...
I can't believe it. This operating system actually works as advertised. Microsoft has been putting out one crummy product after another since about the time of MS-DOS 4.0. I can still remember booting up my old 286-based PC clone with a copy of DOS 4-point-something, messing around with it a bit and thinking it was broken because the whole system froze. I'd been around since PC-DOS 1.1 on an IBM-PC and had never experienced a system lock-up. Sadly, computer trouble became a common and accepted part of life from that point on where Microsoft products were concerned.
I, in fact, fought my wife tooth and nail until recently over getting a new computer. She wanted a Windows box, I wanted to get an Apple and run Mac OS X after using the operating system at work. We wound up struggling along with an outdated PC running Windows 98SE because we couldn't agree on what kind of computer to buy.
Well, my wife won that fight and we wound up with something with Windows XP on it. To my surprise, this operating system is pretty good. My only guess is that Microsoft, concerned about challenges from Linux and Apple, decided to put out an operating system that worked well rather than rely on the old, familiar "screw you, consumer!" attitude which has served the company so well for over a decade. It pains me to give Microsoft credit where credit is due, but XP is a pretty good piece of software.
First and foremost, I need to explain why the fact this thing works makes me all giddy. I went out and bought Windows 3.1, Windows 95 and Windows 98SE on various computers because they were standard operating systems and that was an important consideration for the line of work I was in at the time (scumbag lawyer). None of that junk worked well, however, and I just figured Microsoft wouldn't change its ways.
My opinion of the company didn't change when Windows XP came out because I had to configure my mother-in-law's computer under the thing. It was terrible. Not only was it ugly to look at, but the OS crashed regularly and was a security risk. Business as usual for Microsoft, I figured.
I'm currently running Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installed, and I'm pleased to report this thing is very stable and enough third-party virus protection programs exist to cut down on security problems. When you add some other third party software such as Spybot and Lavasoft's Ad-Aware, you cut down significantly on spyware problems. And, let's not forget that adding third-party browsers and e-mail clients such as Firefox and Thunderbird from Mozilla reduce the security risk further. Really, you shouldn't be running Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Outlook Express because both are terribly inferior to the Mozilla stuff in terms of both security and features.
In addition to the very vital additions of virus protection software as well as third-party browsers and e-mail clients, let's not forget the importance of good hardware. The argument has been advanced, time and time again, that Windows is superior to Apple because you can run Microsoft stuff on cheap hardware. That's only true to a degree. If you want XP to run well, stay away from bargain basement computers. Stay away from any of those crummy little Celeron CPUs manufactured by those cheap, greasy criminals at Intel. This thing is a resource hog, and it fits comfortably in my 512 megs of RAM, but I'll probably boost that up to 1 gig before long just in case. I've got a 1.8 gig processor in this system, and that works just fine. If you want to play games, don't even attempt it without a decent graphics card because virtually all of the onboard stuff found in cheap computers is garbage. In short, Windows XP works well, but you'll spend about as much as you would for a decent Mac in order to take advantage of the operating system.
Those who care anything about the way the OS looks will probably need to tinker with Windows XP a bit. Amazingly, the default graphical environment looks like it would be at home on a computer resting in the back of a trailer home next to a portable meth lab. The default icons are big, gaudy and just brimming with primary colors and nasty, cute little designs. The graphical environment raises the genre of "white trash art" to a new level, but thank God it can be customized. One can easily switch to a "classic view" at the click of a mouse, and some other tweaks can be made, too. Unless you plan to surf only wrestling and free porn sites, you might want to configure a classier graphical environment.
One very nice thing to mention is the automatic update feature which allows Windows XP to call home at a specified time and automatically download Microsoft's patch o' the week. For whatever reason, anyone running Windows has to be worried about security, and downloading updates to the OS is crucial. That can be done automatically for those of us who are too lazy to check in very day and see if a critical security patch has been released. Good stuff.
Microsoft is to be congratulated on developing a system through which multiple users can configure settings with ease. My wife and I each have a profile on XP, and I can choose my default Internet browsers and the like while she can choose her's. That is to say, she uses Internet Explorer and I sue Firefox, but we really don't get in each other's way because we have different profiles on the same system.
For those Linux fans out there howling about free software, Windows isn't a bad choice these days in that regard. Don't want to pay for Microsoft Office? The folks at www.openoffice.org make a very good office suite, and the version for Windows is outstanding. Don't want to hand those rascals at Norton your money for virus protection software? Head over to www.free-av.com and download a version of AntiVir. That one provides good protection, is updated regularly and the program which runs to scan files from the Internet while one is online doesn't take up much RAM. The point is, there's a heck of a lot of good, free software for Windows, too.
I've heard a lot of people whine about compatibility issues. "XP won't run my software from Windows 2000! XP won't run my DOS stuff! XP has trouble with (such and such) that ran just fine under Windows 98!" Phooey, phooey, phooey! Two things. First of all, you'll have the same trouble with Mac in that OS 9 stuff runs horribly under OS X unless you want to wait for that "classic" shell to load. Second, one of the many, many reasons all editions of Windows prior to 2000 were horrible is because they were based on the old MS-DOS architecture. That stuff has been around for over 20 years now and was originally intended for computers with no more than 640 kilobytes of RAM. Thank God Microsoft decided to move past that and outdated slop put together an operating system which is suitable for today's use.
All in all, I'm still no fan of Microsoft, but the company deserves credit for putting in some very good work on Windows XP. Perhaps competition from Linux and Apple prompted the company to rely on a good product rather than monopolistic power in order to generate sales. I'm very pleased with this fast, stable operating system.
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