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Windows XP Professional Edition
Microsoft (
25 October, 2001 )
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237.99 |
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Reluctant Prasise for Windows XP Professional?  |
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I was forced into buying Windows XP after finding out my new laptops display is only supported under XP, not Windows 2000 as I had originally hoped. Ive always been a bit anti-Microsoft ever since anyone had heard of them, so this product was going to have to work very hard indeed to impress me. It has. Startup and shutdown times seem faster than any previous version of Windows, and system stability seems good too. (Ive only had it a week though)
Perhaps its the little touches which add most of the class; frequently used programs appear more prominently in the Start Menu, and My Network Places is automatically populated with all network shares in a certain hopcount radius. Folders with media or pictures in their name use a new display style by default. The OS has a restore point facility, where you can manually tell it when youre hapy with the system (ie before adding new drivers or hardware) so that subsequent changes can be rolled back to that point should the worst happen, while leaving data files created in that time intact. Overall a worthy replacement for Windows 2000, if you ignore the anti-piracy measures. Some people would say that these would be unnecessary if a reasonable price were charged for the software in the first place, in my opinion the price is nothing short of ridiculous. If my new laptop would have worked with Windows 2000 then Id never have bothered with XP, but if XP were half the price Id already be using it on all my machines. Are you listening Bill?
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Very good and almost there! |
I have now used the Windows XP Professional Edition since mid-June 2002 and is pleased with it. It performs well and it does not (often) go in my way, but actually helps me from time to time - first time that I ever can say that of a Windows-system.My computer is quite new and filled with all the good, new stuff that you can have. I am interrested in video and music editing and also a bit of photographic re-rendering. That requires that the operating system is fast and well integrated with multi-media options. For that I find XP very good, except for the CD-ROM burning facilities: There I would suggest a 3rd-party software with a lot of options. I have had unexplainable situations where I cant burn a CD-ROM using XPs own software (it tells me that I dont have a CD inserted) - but the burn can be done using another software. In terms of network XP Pro is the correct operating system. Do not settle for XP HomeEdition, it is simply not good enough! And if you are going to access Novell NetWare XP Pro can, but HomeEdition cannot - end of story!! However, also XP suffers from time to time from some "hickups" when it comes to network and external ports. It probably comes down to "old drivers" and you must make sure that XP is updated frequently - this is easy done, using the automatic update facility. Make sure that you have enough RAM in your computer. XP will use 128 MB RAM for it self - so dont have less than 256. With 512 MB, you are where you want to be. Also speed: Do not use XP on a slow computer - if that is the case, use Linux instead... I loathe the registration procedure and the .NET / PASSPORT system. I like that whenever a GPF or other errors come, then we can (finally!) send the error report to MicroSoft. What they will use it for we dont know, but anyway its good to click that submit button! My final conclusion is that XP Pro is where we should have been, some 5-8 years ago (when OS/2 was around!!!). But now we are here at last, and thats the way to go!
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Best of both worlds.  |
I have been running the first release candidate of Windows XP professional on a four computer network for a month now and I have been very impressed with what I have seen. The platform is very stable and runs most software without any problems (Norton AntiVirus 2001 and PowerDVD2.55 are notable exceptions and need upgrading). Changes to system and networking configuration is at least as easy as Win2K but there are noticably fewer reboots required. I was particularly happy with the internet connection sharing (which always fowled up with ME) as this was quick and totally painless to set up and it is working perfectly. Multimedia and networking features include the latest versions of MSN Messenger, Media Player - now able to play DVDs (if you provide a suitable Codec) and movie maker but these will be familiar to all Windows ME users and are available for free download from the MS website.XP is best described as Windows 2000 with support for more Windows 9x features and a new look. If you are running Windows 95 or 98, you will benefit greatly by the combination of new features. However if you are running Windows 2000 (or Me) and are not having problems then you are probably best to just sit back and save your money.
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