Windows XP Home Edition Upgrade

What happened was this: I upgraded from ME so that my programs wouldn't crash any more, but ironically half of them now wouldn't even start in the first place! Admittedly it wouldn't have been so bad if I had internet access in my flat, (had to download 21 floppies worth of updates to resolve basic problems), so I'll concentrate on that which is regardless of updates. Many of my games no longer worked properly (if at all), including Resident Evil 1-3 and Quake, nor did the software that came with my Sound Blaster Live! Player 5.1, nor some video editing software. I uninstalled and reinstalled programs, but then even when I quit the installation for the Sound Blaster software (it said that there might be problems if I continue), it restarted and told me that a serious error had occurred. I discovered that I no longer had a DVD or CD-RW drive, nor a sound card. The first two were resolved when I reinstalled the drivers, but it was constantly telling me that there was no sound device present even though it's all there in the device manager and it says that it is working properly. After much frustration trying this and that to no avail (I couldn't even use the system restore feature to undo whatever mistake had been made!), a reinstallation of Windows managed to solve that one.

Windows XP has this handy feature where, if something won't work due to being incompatible, you can select which OS it usually works with and it will somehow get the thing working. However this does not work with everything, for example Resident Evil now runs far too fast, and Resident Evil 3 won't start a new game, let alone recognise that I have any saved games to load. I contacted Eidos for RE3, and they told me that they had problems with most of their games, and that although future games will be compatible, most of the current releases/older games are not, and NEVER WILL BE.

So be warned! There's no guarantee that any piece of software will run under XP (unless specifically mentioned otherwise), even if it works under Windows 2000. I'm having to buy a new hard drive so I can choose between booting with XP or ME, just so I can get everything working (not that I need a new drive to do this, but I'd like it all separate).

One further problem I'll mention is that although having different user profiles/settings is all well and good, even this has had its problems. When I restarted once, it told me that it couldn't load my profile, perhaps because it was corrupt. All those customisations I had made would be lost, and maybe more with it. Luckily I managed to restore to an earlier time and it was fine again, so I advise that at least to start with, you create restore checkpoints regularly! (I'm not sure if this was the time that it wouldn't boot afterwards and I had to restore using safe mode, there have been so many problems).

On the plus side, it looks great and has several cool features and new cutomisation options, and other than problems with incompatible software and the aformentioned user profile issue, it hasn't crashed once. I needn't really say more than this, you can check out the features for yourself.

Conclusion: If you're sure that whatever you have will work with XP either now or with an upgrade, it is strongly recommended (unless you have Windows 2000), and don't let what I have said put you off. However, if you are someone who likes their games then either have both XP and whatever you have already, or better still, forget it.

XP displays the stability I've experienced from working with NT and Win2000, it is running much faster that 98 was and includes a bunch of useful little multimedia accessories along with a much slicker look(you can turn this off if you prefer the traditional Windows style).

Be aware that upgrading is not quite the painless operation that Microsoft would have you believe and you will most likely have to download several updated drivers to make sure everything works as it should. I spent about a day in total getting everything up and running although this included a lot of playing around with new features. My advice would be that if you are upgrading from 98/ME then give it a go, especially if you are looking for a more stable system, however users of NT/2000 will probably not find much to scream about by upgrading.