I'm wondering what compelling reason there is to move to Windows XP?
Especially for a ham shack computer??
(Heck, even some of the best-known columnists in various PC magazines have
come out recommending against migration to XP, so there must be something
they know that we don't...)
Having been a professional Windows programmer for the last 10 years, I've
learned the hard way to join the "If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It" school
of operating systems.
Though I may be working with the latest operating systems at work, my home
PCs all ran Windows 95 for quite a while after Windows98 came out, and I
only upgraded to Windows2000 on my home machines about 3 months ago, after
determining that there wasn't anything that I would "lose" by moving to the
new OS (like parallel port CW interface, etc.).
For those of you who think you absolutely *have* to upgrade, I'd challenge
you to list 4 or 5 good reasons why you have to move. If the best you can
do is, "It's new," then I'd advise sticking with what works. If there's
some new feature that you have to have, then go for it. But otherwise, for
the casual home user, I don't know of any reason to use a version other
than Windows 98 -- it's stable, well supported, doesn't "take away"
functionality like Win2K and XP, and runs well on modestly powerful machines.
If you *do* upgrade to XP, you should really make sure you're hardware is
up to the task. It was bad enough trying to run Win98 on a Pentium 166; I
wouldn't try to run XP on anything less than a P-III 600 or better (an
arbitrarily chosen minimum). You might notice that they've been giving away
memory sticks with the purchase of WinXP. I wonder why that is...
Sorry if this sounds like a rant, but we went through the same thing here
when Win2K came out.
Bottom line: If you don't know why you need to upgrade, you don't need to
upgrade!
-Marty NW0L
martyt@pobox.com
|