Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 26-30 of 65
 Best Windows to date, but not the best OS September 6, 2007
Peter Stephenson (San Francisco, CA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Compared to previous versions of Windows (like Windows 98, Windows 2000, etc.), Windows XP is excellent. It's much more stable than those previous versions, has excellent hardware and software support, and generally is pretty good.
But that's all relative: Mac OS X and Ubuntu linux (the latter being totally free) are both excellent in terms of usability, and frequently are easier to use for regular users.
If you need a general-purpose desktop computer for web browsing, word processing, and so forth...Ubuntu's the ticket. Free, secure, wide community support, great hardware support, etc. It's quite usable by average users, and definitely not as "scary" as other versions of linux. Power users can run most Windows programs in Wine (I play World of Warcraft regularly in Wine and love it).
But I digress...
Unfortunately, Windows XP has it's downsides:
- It's expensive.
- It's vulnerable to a huge host of security issues (most are patched quickly, but it seems to be a never-ending process).
- By default, it isn't all that secure -- user accounts are, by default, Administrators, so one can seriously screw up their system by fiddling around with stuff that they shouldn't be fiddling around with. Viruses that execute under an Administrator account have full access to the computer, and can cause significant damage. Internet Explorer and Outlook Express have more holes than swiss cheese.
- Protecting against these security issues necessitates additional expenses like anti-virus/spyware programs. Fixing/cleaning up from virus infections can take hours, if it's possible at all.
- Anti-piracy measures are ineffective at stopping piracy, but effective at annoying legitimate users. If you change more than a few hardware components (such as adding more RAM, installing a new graphics card, etc.) Windows disables itself and requires that you call Microsoft, explain what you did, and get an authorization code to re-enable Windows.
In today's computing world, there are many specific programs that require Windows to operate. But just about any task that's required, such as word processing, web browsing, design, communication, and so forth is also available for the Mac OS or linux, and those systems are (in my opinion) quite a bit easier to learn, use, and interact with and have advantages of security, performance, and in the case of Ubuntu linux, price.
XP's good, 98's superior November 10, 2007
Alexa Danielle (Boaz, AL USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I still have to argue that 98 is far superior to XP if it's treated properly. My 98 box boots up to idle faster than XP can come out of hibernation. Perfectly stable, it'll run continuously without needing to reboot when I let it. While you do need 3rd party software for account-to-account security, that's a minor issue since we're running seperate copies of 98 on the same system (active partition swap, other one hidden). And since it only takes a couple of seconds longer (literally, about 5) to reboot to the other OS than XP takes for logoff-logon, it's no problem to reboot. The only virus I've ever "caught" was one I requested be sent to me. The net's not that dangerous, I routinely browse for a few hours with firewall and AV off and don't get infected; it's more common sense than the OS, the software or the net.
Fast-User-Switching is a joke; RAS becomes unstable and our *security* software (major companies) can't always make the switch without dying. And you can't enable it and make pages available offline at the same time (see what I mean about the security system being crap??).
Several pieces of software I've tried that are supposedly compatible with XP aren't; they need to be installed as an admin but need to be installed for one of the users (admin doesn't need it, user can't install it). Granted, it's as much the software's fault as XP's but if MS could come up with a decent d*** security system, the issue would disappear. And, no, MS did NOT fix this with Vista. I'm not referring to letting a user have temporary admin rights; I'm talking about not consolidating everything in the Windows core files so that nothing can be uninstalled properly and so that a program must get blanket god-rights to the system to drop a dll in the system folder (where MS decided it should go) instead of in it's own (OK, the second one's available, IF you want to be harrassed by the OS for each individual action).
Many settings are per-user but can't be changed by the user. They have to be upgraded to an admin or power-user simply to tell the system to idle down after 15 minutes instead of 30. Or to change the time.
There's no "mini-OS" that can be run off a floppy (like DOS with 98) and give access to a dead system. Why not? For one, MS killed DOS (no, that "command prompt" is not DOS). For two, NTFS can't be read from DOS.
ADS? Don't get me started about the OS actually having a second "strip" of data along each file that only certain programs can get to.
How about the built in you-can't-play-that-media-file parts? That's a good one indeed. My music and, as the RIAA itself said, I paid for "the right to listen to it" so I should *never* have to worry about the next version of DRM breaking it. (let's see, Win98 in VirtualPC? Rip away!)
Finally, I managed to actually BSOD XP one of the first couple of times it booted. While they did fix some of the error traps, you merely get a little box instead of a full-screen BSOD. Big deal. I'm not impressed with that "improvement" in the slightest.
Why would I upgrade if I despise XP so much? Easy, d*** hardware driver companies are scum. 32bit Windows is 32bit Windows. Software calls are the same (yes, I write software), returns are the same. Heck, the drivers probably weren't even modified except to remove an OS from the "accept list". I probably just bought my last piece of hardware that still actually has 98 drivers on it, when a major component of my system next dies, I probably won't be able to properly run 98 anymore and I'm about to run out of time to get XP (much later and I'd use Linux instead).
Why get Pro instead of Home? Decent, granular permissions. I can set folder-by-folder, user-by-user, action-by-action exactly who gets to do what. Can't do that in Home. Grey-area accounts: I can make someone a power-user so they can adjust their own power settings but still can't muck up other accounts. Can't do that in Home.
Rumor has it there's a Win2000 clone built on a Linux kernel. Maybe it'll be ready by the time I'm tired of XP...
 Pleased! February 16, 2008
Robert E. Mckenzie (Redding CA USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I am pleased with Windows XP as I had tried Vista and that system would not run several of my programs and hardware. I do photographic work with scanners and also use digital cameras. Xp works with all of it so I would recommend that operating system currently. As far as Vista is concerned, several hardware makers have not produced drivers for their products so you cannot run them with Vista!
MS Windows XP w/P2 January 9, 2007
JEFFREY SMITH (Los Angeles, CA USA)
3 out of 9 found this review helpful
It ain't easy using WXP after 20 years on a Mac! But, needed the SW to run a PC only package for business.
 I'm so glad Amazon carries this item! December 30, 2007
Rudi Franke
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I just upgraded my Windows 2000 OS to Windows XP after having it recommended as it's capability of being seamlessly integrated with the least problems than if I had gone to Microsofts Vista. I'm going to resist Vista as long as I can and right now it looks as if XP is keeping me on the right track. Thanks, Amazon.
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