Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I purchased a new dell computer to replace my laptop and of course it came with XP already installed on it. I was open minded and gave it a chance, but ulitmately, I reformated my hard drive and put windows Me back on it. Hopefully this review can help you decide if this if for you or not.
-IF YOU HAVE NEVER OWNED A COMPUTER AND YOUR FIRST SYSTEM ALREADY HAD WINDOWS XP ON IT, KEEP IT, THIS IS DEFINITELY FOR YOU.
--here is why, this is a great operating system when all the drivers are compatible with it. Of course if your system came with XP on it, all the drivers are pre-installed and thus compatible.
--for those not on the technical side, your computer will be more reliable with XP on it because it doesn't crash nearly as often as 98 or ME.
--it is pretty user friendly in that it doesn't require that you have to read a huge book to learn how to use it. The tutorial in the begginning is sufficient enough to get you started and the overall use of the system is not complex.
-IF YOU HAD A PREVIOUS COMPUTER AND WANT TO UPGRADE TO XP AND YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF WINDOWS IS BASIC, STAY AWAY FROM WINDOWS XP.
--here is why, if you are upgrading your computer, you'll find that a lot of your stuff that worked fine with 98 or me will not work with windows XP. You'll have to download those drivers from the internet and if your modem is not working with XP, your [messed up] because there is no way you'll be able to get onto the internet to download your drivers, unless you have a second computer and a way to transfer files from each other.
--overall it can get very complicated and fustrating to get everything to work the way it did when you had 98 or ME so it requires a fair amount of advanced knowledge to get things to work right. So unless you are comfortable with some advanced trouble shooting, stay away.
-IF YOU ARE WINDOWS SAVY, HAVE A LOT OF EXPERIENCE, STAY AWAY FROM WINDOWS XP.
--here is why, the control you have over XP is very little compared to that of 98 or ME. The whole program is like an airplane that is always on auto pilot that can't be turned off.
--I for one was frustrated with that because I like to have total control over my OS and be able to disable programs, etc that I don't want running or options that I don't need which take up a lot of memory. With XP there is very little control over that. If you try to go to system configuration and look for the start-up tab to disable programs that load on startup, it's not there, for some reason XP does not give you the option to disable those programs loading on startup. If you push ctrl-alt-del and disable them from there, once you restart windows, you'll have to do it again.
--Be prepared to have some of your favorite programs or games to not work correctly with XP, I'm sure enough has been said about that with other reviews.
--Expect some of the new drivers you do download to not fully work, ie. for example I downloaded an XP driver for my scanner's make and model from their site, XP recognized my scanner and the diagnostic on it was successful, but a couple of my art applications did not recognize it.
--many things are forced on you. XP will force you to use that dumb little MSN messenger, which starts up everytime you log onto XP. You can't easily disable it unless you get into the regedit, but good luck.
--lastly is the activation protection, which you must do within 30 days or you can no longer user it. This is the worst feature about XP because if you are like me who is consistantly upgrading your computer, it will cause a problem. I reformat my hard drive at least twice a year to clean up old junk, with XP everytime you do, you'll have to re-activate XP by calling microsoft or going online. If your computer came with XP on it, you wont have to activate it, but if you make a change to your computer (ie. hard drive, peripherals), you'll have to then activate XP. Microsoft put this in there so that people couldn't pirate XP by swapping hard drive with a computer system that doesn't requrie activation and installing XP from there and then swapping back hard drives. XP wont let you, you'll have to activate XP once you put your hard drive back in because windows will start recognizing different hardware.
Overall I gave it a low score based on my personnal experience. I didn't think it offered that much new. Sure it doesn't crash nearly as much, but the minute you try install your peripherals, you may run into problems and then XP will start crashing on you. The last straw for me was XP would not work with my RIO mp3 player. I already sacrificed a scanner and webcam not working but no one can take away my music. When I switched back to ME, life was much better because everything was compatible again and I look back at my XP experience as just a horrible nightmare. XP is not break through, most of it consist of improved media (ie. media player or movie maker) but those are just programs and can be downloaded from microsoft. The actual inner guts of XP is nothing revolutionary that requires you to consider upgrading. In a year or so, everything will be XP compatible and you most likely will be forced to upgrade but for now, stay away until all the kinks are worked out and reliable drivers become available.
-most XP incompatabilities were with USB peripherals, external hard drives, mp3 players and webcams-
-XP seemed to do well with many printers though.
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