since you are upgrading to xp i agree dont upgrade, if you are buying a new computer though, then xp is fine because the company knows that xp will work fine with that hardware they put in xp compatable hardware (hopefully) and you wont need to downgrade. But you will have to haev xp soon cuz teh best os right now (win98) is being phased out of almost all games and software becuase of its oldness. So i would suggest that if you have an older pc get a new one that has winxp and you will be fine.

Also,................................... software.
This, you might think, is pushing it, for XpPro.....:
I install many different types of sftware on one of the pc's.   play, tinker, xperiment, get to know different progs, utilities, enhancements......... doin' it this way for years. (C-64 on up).   Any os becomes unstable.
When i get to the point where i'm satisfied with the pc's software and hrdware setup, fdisk, format, clean full install and stay.

If you hadn't noticed yet, XP is one of those love or hate things. Either you love it or you hate it, no in-between. I love it. (And I have used 95, 98SE, and ME extensively)

First let's take a look at the problems I've had with XP:

1 My 3-4 year old Oki Data laser printer would not work. The old 9x drivers wouldn't work and Oki Data did not put out XP drivers for it. Only option was to upgrade. Now I have a brother multi-function machine that works fine.

2 Couldn't get a few DOS based programs to work.

3 Some aircraft models will not work in CFS2/FS2002 using 2000/XP. There's a utility that will fix these quite nicely.

That's about it for major problems.

XP has lots of useful little details:

It's nice having side menus in each explorer window like this:



XP carries over from ME thumbnails as image icons, something that 98 doesn't have. These are very handy for working with images.



The start menu is divided into several sections. The top left section is made of programs you specify. Explorer and Outlook are here by default. The lower left section is automatically made up of the prorgams you use the most, if they're not in the upper section. This feature is very handy for quickly opening the programs you use all the time. Everything on the right is default.



Can't get a program to work? Try changing the compatibility mode. I've only had to use this once or twice though.



Finding files for uploading is easy with the file browser, you can use image thumbnails in here too. Nice for uploading to the screenshot forum.



About Hardware.

My computer came built with XP. Therefore I have not had to worry about the Mobo, CD-RW, etc. working. I've installed two video cards, a Geforce 2 MX and a Radeon 8500. Both installed flawlessly and work great. I've also installed a sound card and some other stuff. Never had a problem that way. My homebuilt throttle was detected and got caliberated right the first try, more than I can say for 98SE.

There are such things as signed drivers, if your driver isn't XP signed, XP will bring up a little warning message when you install the driver "May not be compatible" etc. I just click ok and install the thing, never had a problem with unsigned drivers.

XP has never given me a blue screen, it is much more stable than 98 or ME in this manner. I'm not suprised to get two or three blue screens a day in 98/ME. I have had the system restart its self for no aparent reason, but this does not happen often.

If you can get XP drivers for your computer components I would recommend that you try it out.

It's 12:30 AM and I'm getting bleary eyed. If you have any specific questions let me know.

kghhd said (among other things!), Quote:

Thanks very much for the detailed information; I really appreciate the trouble you went to, to give me and others making this decision a more complete picture of the comparison....

And thanks again to everybody else for your input.

Knowing me, I'm sure I'll eventually make the plunge to XP, being somewhat foolhardy when it comes to biting off more than I can chew.....but not this Saturday morning .

Doug

Quote:

LOL....  Thanks for the input, Zedman .

I'm still letting indecision be the deciding factor (still have win 98 and Me installed), but I'm hoping to hang on and outlast 98 for a few years .  Uncle Bill is going to stop supporting it soon, later this year I believe.

Wow it still lives (the thread)  <snicker>

I'll admit, I've worked around "some" of my XP issues and do have it running on one PC (no choice,, just too many people use it, and I trouble-shoot/repair a lot)..

However, for FS and GMAX I wouldn't trust it with even a test installation (I'm paranoid and still don't believe that pesky hardware counter/monitor code isn't  lurking about,, waiting for Uncle Bill to activate it).. we all know the lines exist     plus,,  I blew an entire day on a friends machine, trying to get an old Voodo card and cabel modem working (they work just dandy in ME)..  I call it being  "Windowed"  and it's happened so many times, I just go home and stare at a LINUX installation, if for nothing else,, it's comforting to know,, that it will never turn "blue"   

I hope it's only a matter of time before there is a decent slection of games (oh please Linus,, build us a flight simulator) for LINUX, because that is the ONLY thing keeping me from going M$-free....

Tryed XP, Printer, scanner, camara, and joystick
driver not suited for XP, down loaded the "new"
drivers from HP, Mustek and M$, half the "features"
that I bought the hardware for did not work!!
Like photo card reader in printer "not found"
All the enhancement on the scanner, "not found"
Auto download on camara "not found" and the best
my M$ joystick, one year old. Feed back "not found"
I returned the thing to Walmart and had my old
woodburner updated a little and saved about
$2000.00 by not buying new printer, scanner, camara
and joystick!!!!!!!

x

I got nothing against it, in fact, I think it's great.
I upgraded to it recently from 98. So much faster. My load up screen is about 5 times faster than 98. It sped up my computer all together too. Plus the changed icons are all 3dish. If anything, I recommend XP. (Pro)