Windows with IMAX effect!!

Introduction
When I finished my graduation, my machine used to proudly have multiple partition sporting various Operating Systems. At one time, my machine had two flavors of Linux, Win 95 and OS/2 Warp. All this changed once I got married as my wife rooted for Windows only!! So finally I decided to buy Windows XP Home Edition as it is dangerous to ignore your wife's demands.

The Goodies
The first and foremost thing about XP would be the look and feel. Windows gets a contemporary UI life and we see things like buttons with some depth giving a three dimensional feel and the color combination on the taskbar is also better than Win 95 series. Of course, each of this is customizable. You can say that Windows now comes in IMAX edition as well.

The next thing is that some special folders are now created for storing your pictures, music etc. Another way of Microsoft to make full publicity of the limited features it provides. These special folders are like simple folders, only that these folders now have names like My Music, My Pictures and feature in the Start Menu.

Apart from these cosmetic changes, one feature which I liked was the switching between users. This is a defacto feature in most Unix flavors, but it has taken a long time for Microsoft to bring in this feature. This for one is a real good feature.

For technically inclined, MS claims to have rebuilt XP on a windows architecture away from the Dos programming on which the Win 95/98 series was built. Thus, if you do have 16-bit DOS programs (I had a lot of DOS based games myself), then you need to download a 16-bit subsystem to run them.

MS also claims that it has Protected mode kernel and side-by-side dll execution available from Win XP, but because I have not technically tested these features I will take their word for it.

Also this is the fastest booting MS operating system. You would say that is one of the major requirements as MS operating systems crash often. But, XP does seem to be more robust and stable than others. I faced crash only once that too while installing Service Pack II, no more.

The baddies
Just when you begin to think that this is the best of the operating systems from the MS stable for home users, the flipside pops up.

First of all some of the devices connected to my system stopped working. For e.g. My scanner Acer 320p stopped working. On further investigation I came to know that this scanner does not have any driver to work with XP. The only option left was to change the device. I heard from other friends that they also faced such issues with a couple of devices.

After this initial hiccups the rest of things worked fine. My games started reaching dizzying heights as the graphics and all looked much better on XP than on my Win 95/98 earlier.

But, alas, all good things come to an end. The end for me came with release of Service Pack 2.

Service Pack 2
My experience with Windows updates was that it is very quick and easy to install. That is, till I encountered XP Service Pack 2.

First of all it is a huge update so took ages to download. After download, the installation begun and took a large amount of time, then suddenly seemed to hang and then crashed. The first time my system had crashed since Win XP installation. After that everytime I tried to start the system, it started crashing. It happened 8-10 times, then finally frustrated I tried to recover from my Win XP CD.

But unfortunately, the recovery also did not succeed and then I had to reformat my drive and reinstall XP fully again. After this I download SP2 and installed again. This time the installation went through smoothly, but the price was already paid, all my data had gone in my formatting :(.

The moral of the story: Don't install SP2 without proper backup.

In SP2, we have a firewall, a security center and auto update mechanism. After a few minutes, I realized that the firewall is very pesky and keeps popping up for every tom, dick and harry action. Also few software like download accelerators etc. stopped working. So I went ahead and closed the firewall.

Security center and Auto update though have been useful to me.

The moral of the story: Shut the firewall and let the Security center and auto update run.

Installation
The installation of XP is very similar to other Windows installation. I was able to easily upgrade from Win 98 to XP, though I also changed the file systems to NTFS as I find that more efficient file system compared to Fat32.

But beware once you install XP, you cannot go back to Win 95/98 until and unless you first format the machine and then start the installation. Otherwise you would be told that a superior operating system exists.

Support
MS extends all possible support for Win XP through its link available at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/default.mspx

Summary
Of course, I have touched on only a small portion of the features in Win XP Home Edition. A full detailed explanation would to be too lengthy and boring.

Coming back to Win XP, it is the best yet out of the Windows stable. Much more stable and robust and with a much more contemporary look and feel. Certain important features like Switching logins etc. are also added. All in all I would like to rate this product a 4 star rating.