Windows has never been the most attractive of operating systems but Windows XP is different. Or so Microsoft will tell you. According to them, Windows XP is a MAJOR new upgrade, kind of like Windows 95 was a major upgrade from Windows 3.1. Why is it, then, that only around 15% of Windows users in Japan have upgraded? The figure is slightly higher elsewhere, but is there really any incentive to upgrade at all? After all, Microsoft hailed Windows ME as a major new upgrade to Windows 98 and those who used it found that it was merely Windows 98 all over again with the only improvement being the addition of a rather useless system restore facility!

With the new interface comes a new philosophy of simplicity: everything is far more logically placed now and the new control panel is an example of how Microsoft has attempted to make everything far more easy to access: icons are now grouped into logical categories which makes that diverse option you're looking for that much easier to find. Another example of this new philosophy of simplicity is Microsoft's decision to have only one icon on the desktop by default: the recycle bin. All the other icons that used to be on the desktop are now on the redesigned start-menu which is far more intuitive than before but, like anything in Windows XP, if you don't like it then you can turn it off!

Well, Windows NT has traditionally been for business users and, while it is very stable and robust (although some may argue not so much as Linux) it is useless when it comes to playing games, running multimedia and doing all of those other things that home users so desire to do. On the other hand, the Windows 9.x product range (comprising of Windows 95, 98, ME etc.) has traditionally been for home users and while it had all of the bells and whistles, could play games and could run multimedia it was notorious for being unstable and becoming unusable if it was used for stretches of more than two hours on the trot. This inherent instability stems from the fact that all previous versions of Windows 9.x still had under the over-bloated interface code from the days when everyone still ran MS-DOS.

The disadvantage of all of this is that some things which did run under Windows 98 won't run under Windows XP. When it comes to software, Microsoft has included a special 'compatibility mode' to trick applications into thinking that they're running under earlier versions of Windows so there is little trouble there but it is necessary to be a little more careful about hardware: if you have printers and other hardware which is not OEM and more than around 1 year old it may not be supported under Windows XP. It is wise to check the websites of the manufacturers to check if they are offering any Windows XP specific drivers for download before upgrading to prevent any disasters. Microsoft has usefully included the Windows XP Upgrade Advisor tool on the Windows CD which you can use to do this for you automatically and identify any potential problems. I've had a couple of friends with strange sets of hardware who have attempted to upgrade only to downgrade again because they've found that hardly any of their hardware works under Windows XP but if you're more careful and do your research before the upgrade you can make a more informed decision and, ultimately, ensure a painless installation which brings me onto...

PERFORMANCE
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My system is over a year old and is of fairly humble spec.: 450 MHz PIII, ATI Radeon graphics and 64Mb of RAM. I've noticed that Windows XP sometimes runs slowly but I put that down to my RAM. While 64Mb was sufficient 5 months ago, Windows XP states that 64Mb is the minimum and 128Mb is recommended. While I have noticed this slight decrease in speed, Windows XP certainly makes up for it in other areas. Because applications are more stable and easier to use, it takes less time to finish tasks. Gone are the days of staring at the blue screen of death and under XP I've found that if one program crashes it rarely if ever brings the whole system to its knees like in Windows 98. Overall very good then. One final thing that I noticed, having only a 10 GB hard drive, is that my disk very quickly fills up. This may or may not have anything to do with Windows XP as an operating system, but supposedly the installation takes up 1.5 GB.