Best Microsoft OS Ever
Pros:
Stable, efficient, lower hardware requirements than Vista
Cons:
Discontinued, lack of current driver support by manufacturers
The Bottom Line:
If you're just going to be surfing the internet, sending emails, and the like use Windows XP.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
Sadly sales have been discontinued as a side effect of the release of Windows Vista (mainly to boost sales of Windows Vista, of course), but Windows XP (both Pro and Home) had an excellent run.
Great in both the performance and reliability departments, wide range of supported hardware and a lot less power hungry than Windows Vista, Windows XP was groundbreaking for its time. And even though it might have had a similar reception to Windows Vista in the IT community at its inception, Windows XP has certainly matured over the years (we can but hope Windows Vista will follow suit).
And now that Windows XP has hit Service Pack 3 it is better than ever, faster overall performance, improved stability, better networking support, minor functionality updates, and more.
If you can still find a copy on the market and your hardware manufacturer supports it, I would highly advise "downgrading" from Vista to XP. At least until Vista matures a little more.
The one area that Windows XP is lacking in is the Media Center department, even Windows XP Media Center Edition had quite a few shortcomings, and required quite a bit of third party software to bring it up to par with set top recording devices like Tivo. Also it ships with limited tuner card support.
