Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2

 

 

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Operating systems (OS) are difficult. An ordinary app (application) is hard enough to get right but at least it has a limited scope. OS don't have this luxury. They must cover areas the size of Russian steppe. This makes them bug riddled. If you have ever studied programming you will know how hard, how confusing and how encrypted writing anything in Microsoft's C++ or Visual Basic is. This in turn via the unintuitive, anomaly filled Interactive Development Environment (IDE) will only allow for a slow, torturous, production of a software program. Once we consider the interests of business in rushing out the final product we begin to see a little of the reason why many software products are found wanting by some users. OS suffer more than simple apps in this respect. Most markets are not affected by:
1. No competition
2. Crippled components making the product (Language and IDE)

This is what gives rise to all the whining about 98/ME/XP/Vista. The OS market is unique and clearly does not follow the constraints of other markets. Any sort of software can still fail by virtue of another trait in that creating software is not a purely technical exercise. Wording, dialogue box layout and error messages i.e. communication with the user, all have a significant impact on the effectiveness of the OS. In XP the dialogue box layouts are similar to win98 although some changes have been made. Still, setting up an internet account you encounter poor wording, duplication and hardly optimal dialogue boxes at one point trying to connect to a long defunct US server. Communication with the user is still poor. Start Outlook Express the mail program and the following error might appear:

The host 'zzzz.zzzz.net' could not be found. Socket Error: 11004, Error Number: 0x800CCC0D.

No reference is made to the `Remote Access Connection Manager' service which if enabled solves this problem. The fact that a consistent descriptive error system is not present makes this OS very hard to deal with. Programming languages suffer from this problem also. An unexpected error has occurred. Size is another problem with XP: It's too big. System properties have elements that are in the control panel and these are all linked spaghetti fashion. I want a single reference to any function. XP also encompasses the idea that the OS should provide all manner of functions that I consider to be outside the scope of the OS. Media player, CD/DVD burning and a whole host of other packages that don't perform anything like 3rd party apps you can buy. So users will end up with 2 CD burners, 2 media players, 2 zip compression programs. The inability to disable or delete the OS provided functions means wasted disk space and more importantly the risk of crashes due to conflicts. XP therefore becomes like a boom box hi-fi which is OK as long as you're not a purist who wanted a separate amp etc. A lot of elegance is lost by not having a passive OS that concentrates on its function. If you go to the control panel/add or remove programs/add or remove windows components you are presented with a strange dialogue box. Presented is a list of Windows apps and to their left is a check box and to their right a memory size. Many of the memory sizes are 0.0MB! So these apps are here to stay regardless of what the user might require. That Media Player, Outlook, or Internet explorer is considered a vital component of an OS is ridiculous. Microsoft has shifted the user/OS balance with XP firmly in favour of the OS. XP is a little disobedient. Set the Cryptographic Service to disabled but it starts of its own accord. Go to the task manager and stop this service, then wait a while until it restarts. Don't like movie maker, delete all the files, wait and all the files you deleted reappear! XP is quite devious in the way it subtly resets values and adjust things to its liking. Like all software there are multitudes of tiny elements that drag the system down. Go into a window and select File/New folder is at the top, later on it may be halfway down the list. Select a read-only file and another, which is not read-only, then view their properties - it lists them as read-only. The list of these `lack of thought' items must go into the hundreds. Then there's the search facility that has difficulty finding anything. The annoying bubbles that keep popping up. Using the troubleshooters is a waste of time usually, very rarely and only with simple problems will this line of enquiry help you. There are some positives to this OS but the negatives outweigh these. All this wouldn't be so bad if this were an inexpensive package. I have found the perfect analogy for XP. You might have heard of the Republic P-47, an enormous, heavy WWII fighter-bomber. This aeroplane was devised (like XP) on the more is more principle. More fuel tanks, more armour, more machine guns, and more cylinders. In the unlikely event you ever manage to manoeuvre something into your gunsight it will make mincemeat of it. A program designed with a single purpose. One thing's for certain - it's no Bf-109.


For:
Looks good
Relatively easy to use
Large array of software available

Against:
Lacks elegant simplicity
Interfering and disobedient software
Poor communication with the user
Sluggish
Its foundation in programming language
Expensive

Windows dominates the OS market for the same reason that Starbucks dominates the coffee shop market. It's everywhere. And just as Starbucks don't make very good coffee compared to many of its local and global rivals, Microsoft doesn't make good OSs compared to the competition.

I've tried really hard to find an area in which XP beats any of its rivals but to no avail. Yes, it's best for playing games but does that have anything to do wth the qualities of the OS or is it just because XP has the market share and that's what developers target. Furthermore, games are meant to be an aside not the primary selling point of an OS. MS continues to dominate the OS market for one main reason - it comes installed on every PC out there. This is not likely to change in a hurry. Unless Apple starts to sell its OS separate from its hardware.

MS do make quality products. Whatever the anti-MS geek brigade will like to inform us, the truth is that MS Office and even Outlook are very good at doing what they do. XP just isn't one of its better products. For those who are interested in computing and who want a stable, flexible and open alternative, of course, Linux is the best bet (in any of its numerous guises). However, for those who want a true user-friendly alternative, the Max OSx is a must. It's stable, has the security of Unix under the covers and yet offers best OS user interface fine tuned over many years.

The real flaw of XP (like all versions of Windows) is its security. I cannot tell you how many times I've been frustrated by waiting after booting up my work laptop or desktop for the virus scanner to finish doing its thing. It's just so frustrating and so unecessary. The argument that there are so many exploits out there because MS Windows is such a bigger target is really only partial truth. The greater truth is that Windows is based on flawed security principals that encourage exploits. Windows allows non-trusted users of the OS too much access. An OS and its content shouldn't need to be constantly scanned for vulnerabilites. It's just such a bizarre situation the mass public has got itself into when it accepts that this is normal behaviour.

This acceptance takes me to my final point. There is only one explanation for this acceptance. The lack of awareness of what other alternatives there are. Until you've given something else a good go, it's hard to know how different things can be. Put simply, I've never known a Mac OSx user convert back to Windows but I've known plenty go the other way. There must be a reason. Yes, it involves a leap of faith. No new technology can be picked up immediately but, once the initial teething period if overcome, there can be so much reward. It's the same for phones. When you first change to another brand, it's hard to forget the old habits from the last manufacturer and adapt to the new but it can be very worthwhile. Operating Systems are no different in this respect. There are better ones out there and they're cheaper. Two pretty good reasons to consider the alternatives.

The illustration clearly shows the retail pack, which was what I wanted. What I got was the OEM version - just the disk and nothing else. Naughty!
Was it switch selling or just an honest mistake?

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3.0 out of 5 stars Not as advertised
Despite reading other reviews on here stating that they received an OEM copy different to that advertised, I still 'took the plunge' and bought this. Read more

Published 15 months ago by Chris Reid

1.0 out of 5 stars Windows Xp
I purchased what I thought was a new copy of windows xp with sp2 - what I received was an unsealed box with two loose cd's and a prgram thant was sans sp 2. Read more

Published 21 months ago by Mr. Robert R. Nuttall

5.0 out of 5 stars windows xp
It was OK for my purpses as my original Windows XP disc had become scratched and was unusable.

Published on 7 Jan 2010 by J D MOSBY

5.0 out of 5 stars 5 Star
I recantly bought vista and it was beyond slow however XP is fab i bought another XP os as soon as i wiped vista of my top of the range PC

Published on 1 Sep 2008 by Peter Ormesher

5.0 out of 5 stars QUICK EFFECTIVE ON TIME
lovely order came within 48 hours of ordering it online can now boot windows on my macbook

Published on 16 May 2008 by D. Clark

2.0 out of 5 stars Dropped in for a quiet rant
As a software developer of over 20 years standing I would like to say that, while it is clear that Windows is the best personal computing OS we have, by a long way, it is still a... Read more

Published on 10 Dec 2007 by John Ferngrove

3.0 out of 5 stars condescending
I have a Mac, or rather I have several Macs, and decided to try out Parallels Desktop to see whether Windows had anything to offer. Read more

Published on 5 Oct 2007 by Mr. K. Hubbard

5.0 out of 5 stars Win XP the best--at least for the next year
I use my computer for a fair bit of gaming (as far as the hardware allows) and in this respect windows is the only way to go. Read more

Published on 1 Sep 2007 by Wizzwoo

4.0 out of 5 stars BEWARE the anti-MS/personel platform fanatics (AKA 'Mac/Linux fanboys')
To make a good choice you at least need objective balanced information, free from bias, on which to base your decision and in real life things are rarely so (widescale) 'black and... Read more

Published on 9 Mar 2007 by B. Al

5.0 out of 5 stars XP is Excellent...If.
With the greatest respect to those who have remarked that XP is not what it should be.
I find that the majority of reviewers who did not like XP, had either had little... Read more

Published on 13 Nov 2005 by vhackney2

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