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Windows XP Professional Edition Upgrade
Microsoft (
25 October, 2001 )
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£
158.59 |
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subject to change. |
usually dispatched within 24 hours. |
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Windows XP - worth it or not?  |
The presentation of xp is very solid and nice to look at. After xp windows me and 9x just looks and feels old fashioned and harder to use. Xp also boasts loads of software with it and new features that i found very helpful. It is also much more stable than previous windows oss and if a program did happen to crash the close program dialogue was very good. It is a great operating system but the matter of compatibility is a different matter; i found that some of my programs and hardware didnt work under xp even after using the compaibility wizard. And i couldnt install my ntlworld internet which was one of the biggest problems. That is why i went back to windows ME but only until i get a new hard drive (it takes quite a lot of disk space to install) and manufacturers have brought out compatibility drivers for my hardware. Im not saying its bad, i actually thought it was very good but im going to wait a while until i install it again. It is worth buying... but you may encounter some problems with it and some of your perephirals may not work under it.
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Finally! A stable OS from Microsoft!  |
I have always been a Windows user, and know all too well that when Microsoft claim to have improved software, you have to take it with a pinch of salt.When Windows95 came out, I hated it from the start. (admittedly, I wouldnt now go back to Windows 3.11 if you paid me!). It was as unstable as 3.1 and unfortunately, this problem was inherited right up to and including ME. So along comes this "XP". I installed it first as an upgrade on my 1100mhz (448 ram) pc. I was shocked to find, that, after 2 weeks I didnt get any "fatal exception" "VxD Error" blue screens that we all remember from the 9x series. In fact, I didnt get one single major crash. Ive now had XP for a year. Ive used the reset button on my pc twice in that time, when it used to get daily use. XPpro is definitely worth getting as the new design looks cool, though it does hog some system resources, it is far more stable (one program crashing wont bring the entire system down), there are loads more features, dial up networking has been vastly improved, windows media 8 (or 9 as i have now) now gives you a progress bar in full screen mode (for some reason the ME version doesnt?), power management is better, and it just feels like it is at last its own Operating system, rather than a pretty GUI for DOS. The only program that seems to crash continually is OutlookXP when connected to IMAP mail. Outlook express copes fine though. What I will say is that ALWAYS perform a clean installation. I encountered problems with my CD ASPI drivers after upgrading, even after downloading more drivers. If you dont do a clean installation, you wont get a key benefit of XPpro, the NTFS filing system which is far more efficient. If youre going to upgrade your FAT32 system, then buy XP home; its cheaper. Windows XP comes with Windows Messenger, which is actually very annoying, as Windows Messenger doesnt have the benefits and new style of MSN Messenger 6, so you end up with two messengers as its almost impossible to uninstall windows messenger. But its not a major fault ;-) The new features are too much to list, but for your sanity, Windows 98/ME users, upgrade to XP. No more illegal operations, no more random death messages, greater hardware compatibility (as long as its newish hardware!), and you can set it to not let you on to the pc without a password, which is great if you have guests round with fiddling children! I do reccomend at least 256RAM with XP though. Well done microsoft, its been 15 years, but youve managed it at last.
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You only need to buy this as its got everything |
Ive been using Windows XP Professional for quite a while, as I got a trial copy. I was astounded to find all the software that comes with it. Its got an integrated firewall, CD recording software, DVD reader software. This is stuff youd have to buy if you had win Me, and therefore adds to the value for money of this excellent software. It also is the most stable Windows ever, Ive been using it for some time now, and its not crashed once. I dont remember the last time I ran scan disk, because I had to turn the machine off prematurely. It boots up much faster, and before you know it, youre ready to log in and begin work. RAM is utilised properly, therefore meaning the more RAM you have, the more powerful your system will be. Under Win ME this wasnt the case. If youve got a compatibility problem, Win XP will allow you to emulate another OS, therefore if youve got software that will only work in Win 95 you can tell Win XP to emulate Win 95 and get the program running.
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