Review by Carlos Santiago

For the first time in many years I have been pleased with a Microsoft Windows family OS. When Windows XP came out I obtained what I was really expecting, a very solid, stable and enhanceable system.nWindows XP is based on the Windows 2000 code base with several major multimedia, administrative tools and security enhancements among other things.nThis is really the closest you can get to a truly standard OS for all types of users, except system administators obviously. We are getting closer to not having different Windows flavors running around anymore.nThe acceptance of this OS will gradually relieve developers from having to design multi-platform applications, a major headache in the past. As of this writing, Windows 95 has almost been phased out, and almost every piece of software is written for Windows XP (Home and Professional)nI’ve tested this OS on my personal laptop (Thinkpad T-21) and several Pentium family desktops (P-III 750Mhz and P-IV 2.4Ghz) with many different software and hardware combinations without major issues. Software drivers are becoming quickly available for all types of hardware. In terms of software applications, I had to wait a bit longer for a few applications to become XP compatible.nAs with any OS, the compatibility issues were higher when the OS was released, but now you will not find as many, unless you still own very old pieces of hardware and software. This is in my opinion the primary factor when deciding wether to upgrade or to stay where you are.nI will not get into the features of the OS, as they are very well described by Amazon and other reviewers, what I can tell you is what I consider the major highlights of this OS:n* Great multimedia features - MovieMaker, Media Player. Windows Explorer has also been expanded with options to manage digital media such as pictures and music. Multimedia devices are installed and configured easier than evern* CD Burning options built in - Creating a music or data CD is as easy as drag and drop. It may not be the most efficient burning system, but its a good place to startn* Administrative Tools - The Disk administrator, along with the disk defragmenter are two enhanced tools that I rely on with XPn* Windows Update - Microsoft has been updating the OS frequently with many security fixes and tools updates and enhancements. You can set up XP to update your system periodicallyn* Networking - Setting up a network is much easier now. A firewall is also built in as part of the network security features new in XPn* System Help - The help tool has been enhanced to search not only locally on the PC but through the Internet as well. General Help Topics are very detailed and descriptive with many illustrations. Great improvement here.n* Wizards - Many more settings are performed with wizards. Is like filling an electronic questionnaire, then XP takes over the rest of the configuration steps based on your answers.nAnd simply the looks. Icons are more colorful, and they take advantage of higher end video cards with more color options. You can select display settings to look like the old Windows or the new XP look.nIn terms of performance, I admit that Windows by design, does not consider low end machines and it may seem slow on low RAM machines. I would definitely recommend having more than 256MB of RAM and a high end Pentium processor (P3 and up) for acceptable performance. Fortunately, there are options to tweak performance settings by eliminating the sometimes unnecessary display effects.nI think at this time, you may be assured that Windows XP will be the best choice for you. Don’t hesitate to buy it, taking into consideration the points I mentioned above.nRecommended