bit-tech Shopping: Microsoft Windows XP Professional w/SP2

Rating: 8

Time with product: 14 Days

Strengths: The WXP CD included SP2, and installed fine on my daughter's new Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop.

Weaknesses: Like many new laptops, hers has a SATA drive, and no floppy, and this creates a problem. (Microsoft issue). See comments.

Summary: The WXP CD included SP2, and installed fine on my daughter's new Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop. (This came with Vista, which I do not like. Dell refused to ship it with XP, so I purchased this and a new HDD and installed it myself). WXP activated fine, including WGA. I now have SP3 running great. I found the XP drivers on the Dell website.The laptop has a SATA drive, and no floppy, and this creates a problem. XP prompts you to insert the SATA drivers in A: - it does not allow you to look at a USB drive, for example. The solution is to create a new WXP install CD, using nLite, with the SATA drivers included. See the excellent procedure for this in http://maxeasyguide.blogspot.com/2008/04/preparations-for-winxp-installation-cd.html. Thanks Max Ting, and also the creators of Nlite!

Rating: 8

Time with product: 3+

Strengths: This is a replacement for Vista SP1. Operates faster and has a crisper re3sponse.

Weaknesses: Won't be supported for much longer. However, seeing that MS support for Vista isn't very good either, this may be a small weakness.

Summary: Have used XP for many years. At first there were problems with drivers. But these problems soon disappeared. The hardware manufacturers weren't too far behind the XP release. More than a year after the Vista release, I am still waiting for drivers for a linksys NIC (mid 2007 purchase)and Netgear NIC (they won't develop drivers for a selling unit). Incompatibilities still exist with some of my graphics and video editing software. XP appears to be faster than both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Vista SP1. Doesn't have the slow file transfer characteristics of Vista SP1. Gave up on Vista when SP1 didn't address problems that MS said were covered in SP1. Am seriously studying Linux too.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 5 Years

Strengths: Powerful, Mature, Reliable Operating System

Weaknesses: None - Even the 64 bit now has a good array of drivers.

Summary: When I found out that XP was still available, I jumped on it like a bunny on a carrot. I had installed Vista on my new AMD 64 bit processor and found everything I had (programs, hardware, etc) broken. With XP, everything worked again! If Microsoft has any sense at all, they will continue to support XP, and with the release of SP3 it looks like they are doing just that. XP is the answer to the Vista problem. Support XP... buy it.

Rating: 8

Time with product: 30 Days

Strengths: Easy install, does what it promised, drivers available, wide rage of applications available

Weaknesses: Nothing particular discovered yet

Summary: Why should I enter "at least" 30 words ? What can I talk about an OS ? Could it be better ? - Of course. But we live in a world where inferior companies like MS rule. Digital Equipment's OS was much better, robust; and the company still went down. By the way, NT and the follow up OS are also based on Digital's OS, which was developed by Dave Cattle, - most people do not know this. It was done for the first RISC processor PRISM of Digital, which has never seen the sun. Enough ?

Rating: 10

Time with product: 30 Days

Strengths: 128-bit IE7, no blue screens of death, secure and stable

Weaknesses: 256-bit Internet Explorer in Vista would be better & adding SP3 to OS is very much past due.

Summary: For users on dial-up, having SP3 included in product would be a great boon as it would save many hours of Windows Update sessions. The addition of tabs on IE7 pages is helpful for organizing online research.