Anyone ungraded to Windows XP?

Member said:

Whether you need the full version of upgrade version of Windows XP
depends on whether you want to install your hard drive as a second
hard drive or a new primary drive that will contain your new
operating system...
... I think the Windows XP setup program will allow you to use
the upgrade version of Windows XP, as long as it can see your old
copy of Windows on your second hard drive.

Click to expand...

The upgrade version does not require you to have any previous version of Windows installed on a hard drive. It will look for one, but if it doesn't see one it will ask you to insert the CD from your old version of Windows to verify ownership.

-Mike

I have used Win 98 Second Edition, and put all the updates on it, and I had a ton of problems.

Then I had Win 2000 for a week, until I discovered my modem wouldnt work, my scanner wouldn't work, and a ton of other problems, that were happening.

I used Windows ME, and I have to say it run a lot better and more reliable.

And now I am using Windows XP, and it runs great, no crashes so far, or any other strange things happenings. But I am now waiting for the first fix/upgrade, because MSN Messenger, is now in version 4, so you cannot use voice chat with anyone who hasn't upgraded to XP (my girlfriend, who lives in a different country wasn't too happy when I told her, but there are other chat things out there, so I had to get PhoneFree, which always thought was better than MSN anyway). Even you can find a way round the problem like above, in some cases you may not.

If you do not have too much computer knowledge I wouldnt recommend upgrading just quite yet, seen that it isnt released until Oct 25th, no one has drivers listed for XP (even though old ones do work) if you find one that doesn't you cannot do much about it, apart from do a lot of messing around to put your old system back on, or just play a waiting game.

Admittingly, yes it looks, brighter, funkier, and newer, but personally that is about as far as it goes.

I have used Windows 98SE for a year and a half and have never had a crash or any other problems. I have had as high as 17 gigs on a 20 gig HD used with no problems at all.

I sometimes wonder if a lot of these problems or crashes are user or cpu related... Also found it interesting that you have had no problems with Windows ME when it is noted my multitudes to be the worst piece of junk Microsoft ever came out with...

I personally do not see an immediate need to upgrade to XP. If it ain't broke, don't fix it... I think I will wait a good while before I donate more money to Uncle Bill... When you find out the true cost of upgrading your software and hardware to be compatible with XP, you might not find it to be so sweet...

Next month it will be XPSE...

Andrew said:

I have used Win 98 Second Edition, and put all the updates on it,
and I had a ton of problems.

Then I had Win 2000 for a week, until I discovered my modem wouldnt
work, my scanner wouldn't work, and a ton of other problems, that
were happening.

I used Windows ME, and I have to say it run a lot better and more
reliable.

And now I am using Windows XP, and it runs great, no crashes so
far, or any other strange things happenings. But I am now waiting
for the first fix/upgrade, because MSN Messenger, is now in version
4, so you cannot use voice chat with anyone who hasn't upgraded to
XP (my girlfriend, who lives in a different country wasn't too
happy when I told her, but there are other chat things out there,
so I had to get PhoneFree, which always thought was better than MSN
anyway). Even you can find a way round the problem like above, in
some cases you may not.

If you do not have too much computer knowledge I wouldnt recommend
upgrading just quite yet, seen that it isnt released until Oct
25th, no one has drivers listed for XP (even though old ones do
work) if you find one that doesn't you cannot do much about it,
apart from do a lot of messing around to put your old system back
on, or just play a waiting game.

Admittingly, yes it looks, brighter, funkier, and newer, but
personally that is about as far as it goes.

Click to expand...

John,

Microsoft and the Microsoft development team have always considered XP to be a consumer product. So it's something of a downgrade from 2000, which is still the industrial strength OS, along with NT. Therefore I don't think too many 2000 users will want to move to XP given that it's sort of the sizzled up dumbed down version of 2000.

And I don't see any real reason anyone else should move either. Unless you're a teenager or someone who wants to chat, XP has few compelling features. I can't name one. Some which might seem like a good idea, like the networking benefits, strike me on closer examination as ephermeral given that most are second best solutions to those already out there.

Finally, the "more stable" claim strikes me as very odd. As at least one post indicates, some peoople have few problems with 98 or ME. And if you have lots of problems, there are probably all kinds of issues at work, including buggy drivers from the manufacturer, which aren't going to be resloved by introducting another set of issues with an upgrade. And if you have only a problem now and again, it's a lot faster to spend a few minutes rebooting your computer once every few weeks than to spend hours messing with the installation of a new OS. Especially since the new OS is not going to be without it's own set of issues, including crashes.

On the downside you have to spend money for every computer and then deal with the intrusive activation process. Yuck!

But beyond all that, those who upgrade will find themselves in one of three classes: 20% will take a day and have few problems; 60% will take from 2 to 10 days and have some problems which will be resolved in the most part; and 20% will find themselves in upgrade hell. The problem is until you do the deed you don't know which group you'll find yourself in.

Unless you have a business reason or like to fool around with computers as a hobby, and some do, this seems to be one of those situations that reminds me of the proverb about fools rushing in where angels fear to tread.

John Swenson said:

I stand by my earlier statement. I don't think everyone should rush
out and buy Windows XP. I only recommend it for Windows users who
have a fairly new PC (built in the last two years) with at least a
Pentium III 500 (or equivalent) processor and at least 128 MB of
RAM. And I don't think anyone already running Windows 2000 needs to
upgrade, since Windows 2000 is already very stable and contains
almost as nice a user interface as Windows XP.

Click to expand...

I subscribe to an excellent email newsletter called the "LangaList" - it's published twice weekly by Fred Langa. Fred has provided a lot of information on Win XP. His latest newsletter - dated Oct 22 - stated the following from a reader:
"Fred: A friend of mine just bought a new Gateway PIV system
with 256 MB of ram and windows XP. He has ran all the tests at
PcPitstop several times, and, the results aren't very good!
The very worst thing is the uncached drive performance, it is
lower than 1%, I think, about .84%! Also, his video
performance is under 50% and his cable connection performance
has gone from around 40KBPS to around 16KBPS!

Now, I do realize, that, out of the box, that most of the
windows OS's aren't tweaked for maximum performance, but, this
is really really bad! One of the things that I really don't
understand, especially on XP consumer is why, by default, MS
has it set up for the NTFS rather than the FAT32? yes, I know,
NTFS is much more secure, but, does the average home user
really need it? The down side to NTFS is, that, from what I
have been reading, substantially slower than FAT 32! Also,
related to that, apparently, by default support for ata66 and
100 is turned off! I really don't understand that at all! Most
drives today do go at least ATA66 if not 100!

I am going to have to do a lot more research on how to get Xp
up to the 98 operating speeds, if what I see now is any
indication, then, no thanks!

We'll be covering more about XP in the weeks and months ahead, but my
take is that there's extremely little in XP to make it a "must" upgrade
for anyone. If it arrives, unbidden, on a new PC you buy, then you more
or less have to live with it (or pay to replace it); but I can't see
anything in XP that would justify rushing out to upgrade an existing
system.

Specifically regarding performance: It will be a short while before off-
the-shelf retail versions of XP can be put through the wringer, but the
beta test results were more or less along the lines of what Dan reports:
It's slow.

Reader Bryce Welkin sends along some specific tests:

Fred, You might want to peruse the performance review at the
link below comparing the performances of various OS and Office
version combinations including WinXP and OfficeXP:
http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.html?i=1501

Thanks, Bryce. That site says, in part:

"...If you plan to upgrade to Windows XP/Office XP, and if
you've already qualified new PC platforms based on your
experience with Windows 2000/Office 2000, you'll need to
revise your minimum system performance levels upwards by 25-
30%...."

That's right--- as, tested above, XP is 25-30% slower/more-resource-
hungry than even the already-demanding Win2K. Yikes!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another reason NOT TO UPGRADE is the famed "Windows XP Product Activation" - if you don't know what this is, see: http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20010831S0009

BTW if you use PC's and you don't get the "LangaList", you are missing out on a lot of good info. There are two versions - free and premium. See: http://www.langa.com

Member said:

And I don't see any real reason anyone else should move either.
Unless you're a teenager or someone who wants to chat, XP has few
compelling features. I can't name one. Some which might seem like a
good idea, like the networking benefits, strike me on closer
examination as ephermeral given that most are second best solutions
to those already out there.

Click to expand...

If you have a notebook or other TFT display, ClearType is a huge improvement. The readability of small text on my ThinkPad A21p with the 15" 1600x1200 display is much better than it was without ClearType.

The new taskbar is a big improvement for me. I routinely open 20-30 IE browser windows at once, plus half a dozen folder/Explorer windows. The old taskbar was pretty useless in a case like this, even if I expanded it to 2-3 lines of buttons. Now, all those IE windows share a single taskbar button that pops up a menu with the full titles of each window. And the way it hides unused tray icons saves a bunch of space too. For the first time, I can use a single-line taskbar.

There are lots of other little improvements. For example, I no longer have to "stop" my PCMCIA compact flash adapter before ejecting it.

Whether or not any of these are "compelling", a lot of little improvements can add up to a worthwhile upgrade.

Note that I'm comparing XP with Windows 2000 here. For someone running Win9x, the most compelling feature in XP is simply that it is the latest version of Windows NT. Running out of "system resources"? Doesn't happen. Applications crashing the OS? Doesn't happen.

Member said:

Finally, the "more stable" claim strikes me as very odd. As at
least one post indicates, some peoople have few problems with 98 or
ME. And if you have lots of problems, there are probably all kinds
of issues at work, including buggy drivers from the manufacturer,
which aren't going to be resloved by introducting another set of
issues with an upgrade. And if you have only a problem now and
again, it's a lot faster to spend a few minutes rebooting your
computer once every few weeks than to spend hours messing with the
installation of a new OS. Especially since the new OS is not going
to be without it's own set of issues, including crashes.

Click to expand...

My experience doesn't match this statement at all. The people I work with who run Win9x are always complaining about it crashing. Those of us who are running Win2000 or XP just sail right along.

Member said:

On the downside you have to spend money for every computer and
then deal with the intrusive activation process. Yuck!

Click to expand...

Philosophically, I agree with you about activation. Practically, it's just not going to be an issue for very many people.

Member said:

But beyond all that, those who upgrade will find themselves in one
of three classes: 20% will take a day and have few problems; 60%
will take from 2 to 10 days and have some problems which will be
resolved in the most part; and 20% will find themselves in upgrade
hell. The problem is until you do the deed you don't know which
group you'll find yourself in.

Click to expand...

I could ask you for evidence to back up those numbers.

But I'll just say that people should take sensible precautions: Check the hardware compatibility list. Back up your hard drive. Pay attention to any compatibility messages the XP upgrade displays. Leave the file system as FAT32 when first upgrading, so you can uninstall XP if it doesn't work out for you. (Convert to NTFS later to gain its greater reliability.)

-Mike

You raise some good points, Don, but it's important to note that there are two versions of Windows XP: Windows XP Home Edition and Professional Edition.

The Home Edition is, indeed, targeted a consumers, and is missing some key features in the Pro edition. But it's just as stable as Windows 2000 and Windows XP Pro, since it's built on the exact same code base.

The Professional version of Windows XP is just that -- for professionals and business users of all kinds. It's a clear upgrade to Windows 2000 Pro, and even slightly more stable, reliable, and "industrial strength." It also has many user interface enhancements.

I keep hearing people say Windows XP "has no compelling enhancements" or improvements compared to Win 2000, but that's just not true. I've been using Windows XP for the past 9 months on several different PCs.

Details are on the Windows XP Pro Web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/

Check out these nine articles that summarize what's new in Windows XP Pro from a technical standpoint:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/techinfo/technologies.asp

• John Swenson

Don Cooper said:

Microsoft and the Microsoft development team have always considered
XP to be a consumer product. So it's something of a downgrade from
2000, which is still the industrial strength OS, along with NT.
Therefore I don't think too many 2000 users will want to move to XP
given that it's sort of the sizzled up dumbed down version of 2000.

And I don't see any real reason anyone else should move either.
Unless you're a teenager or someone who wants to chat, XP has few
compelling features. I can't name one. Some which might seem like a
good idea, like the networking benefits, strike me on closer
examination as ephermeral given that most are second best solutions
to those already out there.

Finally, the "more stable" claim strikes me as very odd. As at
least one post indicates, some peoople have few problems with 98 or
ME. And if you have lots of problems, there are probably all kinds
of issues at work, including buggy drivers from the manufacturer,
which aren't going to be resloved by introducting another set of
issues with an upgrade. And if you have only a problem now and
again, it's a lot faster to spend a few minutes rebooting your
computer once every few weeks than to spend hours messing with the
installation of a new OS. Especially since the new OS is not going
to be without it's own set of issues, including crashes.

On the downside you have to spend money for every computer and then
deal with the intrusive activation process. Yuck!

But beyond all that, those who upgrade will find themselves in one
of three classes: 20% will take a day and have few problems; 60%
will take from 2 to 10 days and have some problems which will be
resolved in the most part; and 20% will find themselves in upgrade
hell. The problem is until you do the deed you don't know which
group you'll find yourself in.

Unless you have a business reason or like to fool around with
computers as a hobby, and some do, this seems to be one of those
situations that reminds me of the proverb about fools rushing in
where angels fear to tread.

John Swenson said:

I stand by my earlier statement. I don't think everyone should rush
out and buy Windows XP. I only recommend it for Windows users who
have a fairly new PC (built in the last two years) with at least a
Pentium III 500 (or equivalent) processor and at least 128 MB of
RAM. And I don't think anyone already running Windows 2000 needs to
upgrade, since Windows 2000 is already very stable and contains
almost as nice a user interface as Windows XP.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Windows XP is faster than Windows 98, Win 2000, and Windows ME. Here are the performance details:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/techinfo/planning/performance/default.asp

Bob said:

I subscribe to an excellent email newsletter called the "LangaList"

• it's published twice weekly by Fred Langa. Fred has provided a

lot of information on Win XP. His latest newsletter - dated Oct 22

• stated the following from a reader:

"Fred: A friend of mine just bought a new Gateway PIV system
with 256 MB of ram and windows XP. He has ran all the tests at
PcPitstop several times, and, the results aren't very good!
The very worst thing is the uncached drive performance, it is
lower than 1%, I think, about .84%! Also, his video
performance is under 50% and his cable connection performance
has gone from around 40KBPS to around 16KBPS!

Now, I do realize, that, out of the box, that most of the
windows OS's aren't tweaked for maximum performance, but, this
is really really bad! One of the things that I really don't
understand, especially on XP consumer is why, by default, MS
has it set up for the NTFS rather than the FAT32? yes, I know,
NTFS is much more secure, but, does the average home user
really need it? The down side to NTFS is, that, from what I
have been reading, substantially slower than FAT 32! Also,
related to that, apparently, by default support for ata66 and
100 is turned off! I really don't understand that at all! Most
drives today do go at least ATA66 if not 100!

I am going to have to do a lot more research on how to get Xp
up to the 98 operating speeds, if what I see now is any
indication, then, no thanks!

We'll be covering more about XP in the weeks and months ahead, but my
take is that there's extremely little in XP to make it a "must"
upgrade
for anyone. If it arrives, unbidden, on a new PC you buy, then you
more
or less have to live with it (or pay to replace it); but I can't see
anything in XP that would justify rushing out to upgrade an existing
system.

Specifically regarding performance: It will be a short while before
off-
the-shelf retail versions of XP can be put through the wringer, but
the
beta test results were more or less along the lines of what Dan
reports:
It's slow.

Reader Bryce Welkin sends along some specific tests:

Fred, You might want to peruse the performance review at the
link below comparing the performances of various OS and Office
version combinations including WinXP and OfficeXP:
http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.html?i=1501

Thanks, Bryce. That site says, in part:

"...If you plan to upgrade to Windows XP/Office XP, and if
you've already qualified new PC platforms based on your
experience with Windows 2000/Office 2000, you'll need to
revise your minimum system performance levels upwards by 25-
30%...."

That's right--- as, tested above, XP is 25-30% slower/more-resource-
hungry than even the already-demanding Win2K. Yikes!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another reason NOT TO UPGRADE is the famed "Windows XP Product
Activation" - if you don't know what this is, see:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20010831S0009
BTW if you use PC's and you don't get the "LangaList", you are
missing out on a lot of good info. There are two versions - free
and premium. See: http://www.langa.com

Click to expand...

John Swenson said:

Windows XP is faster than Windows 98, Win 2000, and Windows ME.
Here are the performance details:

Click to expand...

John,

Are you somehow affiliated with Microsoft? I looked at your profile and you have had a history of singing the praises of XP and Microsoft for quite some time. Whenever someone knocked some version of Windows or Microsoft in general, there you were to rally support for Microsoft.
What gives?
Show me performance stats that didn't come from Microsoft.

As Fred Langa states: "there's extremely little in XP to make it a "must" upgrade for anyone. "

Honestly I'd say XP is sort of like a Millenium Edition upgrade of windows 2000. Yes Windows 2000 was aimed at businesses but eventually through the SP's (Service Packs) Microsoft added consumer support for games and updated directx and so on and so forth. So in some way Windows 2000 really turned into a half business/half consumer OS. Its almost like having a Canon EOS-D30 or Olympus E-10 or hell even a D1 over lets say a coolpix 950 or 990. Sure they're high end equipment but more and more consumers that want something better can afford it and afford to run it and learn it.

I think XP is a definate step up in terms of stability since Windows 2000 would crash (not blue screen) but just give up after 2-3 days of use which was gaming/web design/printing out photos/syncing with PocketPC pda. I like the new interface to XP giving it more of a "I am NOT Windows 2000/Me/98" look to it in case your friends dont know the difference between 2000/Me/98. I like it but some of you might not so you can disable the interface with it. I also like how XP recovers from glitches when running directx based games. I had a few games that would crash and take out my display driver. The only thing I can complain about is in XP Pro networking is quite user friendly but when something goes out its hard to say what is really happening.

I'd say XP is worth the upgrade IF your computer has the specs to support it and you're upgrading from 98(SE) Me but if you're going from Windows 2000 Pro its hard to say if its really worth the upgrade. For me it is worth it since I got it for free ;-) without having to deal with the activation feature.

I know people have gotten past the activation feature now on every build/release of XP so if you're truely worried about the activation feature I'd suggest a google search for XP activation hacks or something of that nature and following the directions.

Bob said:

I subscribe to an excellent email newsletter called the "LangaList"

• it's published twice weekly by Fred Langa. Fred has provided a

lot of information on Win XP. His latest newsletter - dated Oct 22

• stated the following from a reader:

"Fred: A friend of mine just bought a new Gateway PIV system
with 256 MB of ram and windows XP. He has ran all the tests at
PcPitstop several times, and, the results aren't very good!
The very worst thing is the uncached drive performance, it is
lower than 1%, I think, about .84%! Also, his video
performance is under 50% and his cable connection performance
has gone from around 40KBPS to around 16KBPS!

Now, I do realize, that, out of the box, that most of the
windows OS's aren't tweaked for maximum performance, but, this
is really really bad! One of the things that I really don't
understand, especially on XP consumer is why, by default, MS
has it set up for the NTFS rather than the FAT32? yes, I know,
NTFS is much more secure, but, does the average home user
really need it? The down side to NTFS is, that, from what I
have been reading, substantially slower than FAT 32! Also,
related to that, apparently, by default support for ata66 and
100 is turned off! I really don't understand that at all! Most
drives today do go at least ATA66 if not 100!

I am going to have to do a lot more research on how to get Xp
up to the 98 operating speeds, if what I see now is any
indication, then, no thanks!

We'll be covering more about XP in the weeks and months ahead, but my
take is that there's extremely little in XP to make it a "must"
upgrade
for anyone. If it arrives, unbidden, on a new PC you buy, then you
more
or less have to live with it (or pay to replace it); but I can't see
anything in XP that would justify rushing out to upgrade an existing
system.

Specifically regarding performance: It will be a short while before
off-
the-shelf retail versions of XP can be put through the wringer, but
the
beta test results were more or less along the lines of what Dan
reports:
It's slow.

Reader Bryce Welkin sends along some specific tests:

Fred, You might want to peruse the performance review at the
link below comparing the performances of various OS and Office
version combinations including WinXP and OfficeXP:
http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.html?i=1501

Thanks, Bryce. That site says, in part:

"...If you plan to upgrade to Windows XP/Office XP, and if
you've already qualified new PC platforms based on your
experience with Windows 2000/Office 2000, you'll need to
revise your minimum system performance levels upwards by 25-
30%...."

That's right--- as, tested above, XP is 25-30% slower/more-resource-
hungry than even the already-demanding Win2K. Yikes!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another reason NOT TO UPGRADE is the famed "Windows XP Product
Activation" - if you don't know what this is, see:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20010831S0009
BTW if you use PC's and you don't get the "LangaList", you are
missing out on a lot of good info. There are two versions - free
and premium. See: http://www.langa.com

Click to expand...

I must point out that if you're modem drops from 40kbps to 16kbps (or 4.0K/sec to 1.6K/sec + - the TCP/IP overhead) then dont go blaming MS for poorly written drivers from 3com or at&t or who ever wrote the driver for XP. Its probably NOT optimized for XP and just some 2000 driver hacked to work in XP. I have a wireless ISP for my internet and I get well above the 384kbps (or 38.4K/sec + - TCP/IP overhead) cap they put on my lucent/orinoco RG-1000 WiFi box. I'd say it hovers around the 400kbps-450kbps or (40.0K/sec-45.0K/sec + - TCP/IP overhead).

Bob said:

John Swenson said:

Windows XP is faster than Windows 98, Win 2000, and Windows ME.
Here are the performance details:

Click to expand...

John,
Are you somehow affiliated with Microsoft? I looked at your
profile and you have had a history of singing the praises of XP and
Microsoft for quite some time. Whenever someone knocked some
version of Windows or Microsoft in general, there you were to rally
support for Microsoft.
What gives?
Show me performance stats that didn't come from Microsoft.
As Fred Langa states: "there's extremely little in XP to make it a
"must" upgrade for anyone. "

Click to expand...

Um... improved stability over 2000 and a definate stability boast over the POS Windows Me OS. Lets see new interface/remote desktop/remote help (which is IMHO VERY COOL AND NIFTY). Lets see startup and shut down times are a blessing over 2000's start times, as well as hibernation is quicker to write the full 128-384MB+ to a hard drive. Driver roll back feature and save point (Me had it but it was very poor at best). Drivers are ALOT more stable once they're XP certified. Scanners being recognized in the OS without manufacturers drivers (works on my POS UMAX 2200U but your milage may vary).

Some of these things MAY not qualify as upgrade points to you and if they dont I'd suggest going on the underground and getting a free copy of XP since its really WORTH the upgrade. I'll probably end up buying XP Pro either full or upgrade when I go shopping for a new PocketPC/XBOX/and MAYBE a digital camera. I dont have money to burn but there always IS the no payment for 12 month options

TZZDC said:

Um... improved stability over 2000 and a definate stability boast
over the POS Windows Me OS. Lets see new interface/remote
desktop/remote help (which is IMHO VERY COOL AND NIFTY). Lets see
startup and shut down times are a blessing over 2000's start times,
as well as hibernation is quicker to write the full 128-384MB+ to a
hard drive. Driver roll back feature and save point (Me had it but
it was very poor at best). Drivers are ALOT more stable once
they're XP certified. Scanners being recognized in the OS without
manufacturers drivers (works on my POS UMAX 2200U but your milage
may vary).

Click to expand...

Here's a link to a performance evaluation from a site other than Microsoft:
http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.html?i=1501&p=4
For those that don't bother to click the link, here is an excerpt:

"Interesting numbers, to be sure. However, the real story only becomes apparent when you compare the data on a combined OS/Application generation basis. Viewed in this light, the move from Windows 2000/Office 2000 to Windows XP/Office XP translates into a performance hit of from 30-37%, depending on the workloads involved. This is a huge drop in overall system throughput and a chilling testament to just how bloated the Windows/Office code base has become.

Disclaimer: The above results are based on an analysis of the Beta 2 build of Windows XP Professional. Microsoft will no doubt incorporate significant optimizations as we draw closer to the RTM date. Still, 37% is an enormous delta, and it has been our experience that late build OS optimizations are worth, at best, a 10-15% improvement over an otherwise polished Beta.

The net result is that customers will need to budget for a 25-30% performance loss per client PC when transitioning from Windows 2000/Office 2000 to Windows XP/Office XP. Put into real-world terms, this represents the equivalent of a 500MHz performance delta – i.e. you’d need to crank-up the processor clock on our test bed by 33% to 2GHz in order to compensate for performance lost to OS and application “inflation.”"

I'm a little sorry that I asked this question since it's developed into religous war rather than a reasoned discussion.

It's pretty clear to me that XP is a step forward but it still needs work. This is the way it always is with software. The first version is often slow and buggy, but if the engineering is done correctly in the first place, the bug-fix version has fewer bugs and runs just as well, if not faster, than the first version.

The problems that have been reported tell me to wait until the service pack arrives. It's possible I won't have problems, but it's more probable that I will have success with Windows 2000 than with XP.

I want to upgrade because my W98SE system has problems. It won't deal with more than 512MB (I don't need it for Windows right now, but I dual boot Linux and having the extra RAM helps when I'm running data-bases, web browsers, and doing program development and debugging). It has problems when doing multiple things at the same time (I've had problems scanning and printing at the same time). It hangs quite often.

So, I'll upgrade to 2000. In 6 months or so the drivers will be there, support programs (like anti-virus programs) will be available, and more of the bugs will be fixed.

Thanks again to everyone.

marty65441 said:

So, I'll upgrade to 2000. In 6 months or so the drivers will be
there, support programs (like anti-virus programs) will be
available, and more of the bugs will be fixed.

Thanks again to everyone.

Click to expand...

You sure you're not talking about XP in that sentance because 2000 already has hardware and software support from EVERYONE around. Norton AV and McAFEE AV already have 2000 support for at least 1-1.5 years now. As far as bugs fixed theres ALOT thats been fixed in 2000 with SP1 and SP2 (Service Pack 1&2).

Dont wait 6 months to go for 2000 just go out and get it and get drivers before you upgrade/clean install.