Microsoft Windows XP Professional w/ Service Pack 2 Review

While I am no longer make my living as an IT guy, I think I can say I am qualified to say something about Microsoft Windows XP (w/service pack2) Operating System (OS). I started using computers when Windows 3.1 was around and the only good thing I could say about windows 3.1 was that it was something you could run on any old low cost computer. And although apple's Macintosh was more stable and faster it was way out of the price range of most average guys trying to buy a first computer.

As systems got faster PC's were still second rate compared the Apple OS 7, 8, and 9.

Windows NT was a solid OS but back then the system requirements and the general clunkiness of the interface made it useful only for geek types who liked technical manuals.

With WinXP Microsoft had a winner!! It is robust and almost never crashes. It was designed to be backward compatible with older software and could handle all the newer programs.

Unfortunately it was so good many a user like myself are unwilling to move on to Vista.

I will probably move on to Vista long after Microsoft stops supporting XP, but even then I rarely find the need to go to Microsoft for fixes. So I won't be leaving XP until you pry it from my cold cramped fingers.

A warning to you out there who do business on ebay using Internet explorer I have found that after the last update my browser is now much slower when displaying the ebay pages. I wasn't sure if it was the XP OS, the Microsoft browser (Ie 7.0), or eBay's changes that were causing the slowdown. Recently I installed Google's brower on my XP system and now the screens load in a jiffy!

I would suggest that if you have XP stay with XP, and if you get a souped up dual processor type PC with Vista good luck.