Windows XP review

I finally installed my Windows XP Upgrade this week, and I have to say that I’m impressed. The new OS is super-stable. I’ve only had one application crash, Internet Explorer, and I was able to Ctrl-Alt-Delete without a problem. Ironically, it crashed on the Microsoft Windows Official Home Page…hmmm. Anyway, I’ll go over a couple of themes that I think are important and how I think Windows XP holds up. By the way, I’m running the Home Edition, not Professional.

Installation

This was a breeze. I was up and running in an hour, with almost all of my applications working perfectly. The OS itself installed without a hitch. However, many applications are not XP compatible, and I had to get upgrades off of the Dell Support Site and download.com. Luckily, Dell sent me most of the CDs with the upgrade that I needed. If you are upgrading, make sure you have a copy of Norton Antivirus 2002 (2001 doesn’t work…like Symantec doesn’t already have enough money). Roxio, formerly Adaptec, Easy CD Creator must be version 5 or higher. That’s another hundred dollars down the tube. If you don’t need these programs, no big deal then. All of the drivers on my system worked fine except for the ones with WinDVD. Dell provided a patch for free though.

Interface

This part of XP has gotten a lot of flak. I have to say Microsoft really did a bang up job redesigning the interface. I’ve hated the stupid gray rectangular bars for years. When Apple came out with OS X, I was really pleased because I knew Microsoft would copy the look. And of course they did. The new interface looks remarkably similar to Aqua (the default OS X interface). My friends have complained that it is too blue. Well, you can skin the entire interface, so I don’t want to hear complaints. XP even ships with a silver skin, so you don’t have to look at blue if you don’t want to. I think it’s kind of soothing.

The start menu has been heavily revised. It’s now in a two column format, which I think works better than the old one. It just looks less cluttered. All the program menus are there. It’s also much more customizable than in previous versions. The taskbar has gotten a redesign as well. Programs are now grouped. If you have five Internet Explorer windows open, a nice little 5 will appear in the Internet Explorer taskbar icon and when you click on it, a menu appears. You can access all five windows from it. Genius.

Stability

Windows XP is now running on the NT Kernel, making the system much more stable than the 9.x platform. It just doesn’t crash. And it doesn’t crash on an upgrade. That’s unheard of, I know. If you do get a program that freezes, it doesn’t take down the whole OS with you. Microsoft’s claim is actually true.

Overall

If you have 95, 98, or ME, get this upgrade! I hate the old versions of Windows now that I have XP. If you’re on 2000, don’t rush into it. Wait for Microsoft to release XP SP1. You know it’s coming. Make sure you run the Upgrade Advisor before you install and you’ll be fine. It’s a bang-up product that is worth the $100. On one machine.