Operating System SUggestions?

xp? xp pro? neither?

[createErrorMsg]

I realize this question is only obliquely related to 'webmastering,' but I wanted to bring it here to WebmasterWorld because I trust many of your opinions (as opposed to the 'faceless' ones statically available on the web). So...

I'm upgrading my 'business' PC soon and I'm not sure what OS to go with. Obviously, all new packages are bundled with XP, but my limited experience with XP (my wife's computer, bought in 2001, has XP Home and it's the snarliest peice of c*!p I've ever had the misfortune of patching, hard drive scraping and reinstalling) makes me want to avoid it all together. My current machine runs Win98 like a buttery dream and I'm terrified of getting an XP machine and suddenly finding all my work time ate up by fighting to get XP into line.

DOes anyone have any thoughts on this? Has XP improved enough to be worth using? Are there compelling reasons NOT to stick with 98 (like, can 98 still handle the vanguard technology?).

Also, how is XP as a production environment for web design and programming? ANy compelling WEBMASTER reasons (there, I made it on topic) to choose one way or another? What about XP Pro?

Thanks a bunch for any responses you might post.

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[PCInk]

I haven't used XP Home very much, but XP Pro is exceptionally stable (for a Microsoft package!). I have had it crash twice - in 18 months (that's two machines running at least 6 to 8 hours per day).

Unless you want to play games, XP Pro is the best choice (for Windows). XP Pro also installs Apache very nicely in the background, running as a service. Perl is simple to install. But PHP and ASP, I have no experience, so I don't know how simple they are to install.

Two other options worth considering are Apple Macs or Linux. Apple are expensive, Linux is more difficult to find drivers for hardware and if you run specialist software, you may find it difficult to replace with an alternative.

[isitreal]

I'm a fan of windows 2000, that's basically the same os as xp, it's .0 and .1 in version numbers, w2k is minus the consumer junk they throw on xp, cleaner than xp, doesn't have all the stuff you have to turn off to make it useable. Windows xp home and pro are the same os, they just cut out some capabilities from home, like being able to join a domain controlled network, how many laptop users have learned that one the hard way when they try to connect to the office network with the xp home the laptop came with?

It usually takes me about 1 hour to setup xp so it is useable, so much stuff has to be turned off or disabled, but I always miss a few things.

windows 98 is fast, but it's barely able to do real multitasking, crashes a lot more in general unless under very expert hands.

[UDaMan]

I have used, supported and deployed every version of Windows and other OS's that Microsoft has ever produced. 2000 is to me the superior beast, solid as a rock, familiar interface and has more respect than XP in the commercial market place. If XP and 2000 are New Technology, then 9x Me and the others are Old Technology; bearing this in mind I am sure you will be happy with the switch no matter what you choose. Personally though, if I were rebuilding MY machine it would not have one piece of MS software on it.

[idoc]

I would have to agree that windows xp gives very little other than aesthetics over windows 2000. Plus you can reinstall your win 2000 at will... upgrade the machine, etc. and not have the activation hassles that you have with xp. Newer is not necessarily better with MS products in my opinion. I think win 2000 was pretty close to right on for what it is. I wouldn't personally consider Windows 95, 98 and ME for a serious work machine. If I could find a viable linux based replacement for dreamweaver and fireworks for Fedora... I would switch completely to that for myself. Also, the open office for linux is equal at least to office 97 in functionality which is about all I personally need.

[vkaryl]

I've used windows since 3.0 (yah, yah, buggier than an anthill!) Windows is great from the gui POV. I'm a tad bit tired of security silliness though....

I'm retiring 8/26. Right after the long weekend, the first thing I'm doing is backing up EVERYTHING, wiping my hdd, repartitioning and installing XPPro plus a dual boot to linux. And THIS time, I AM going to make linux stick. Which is the point in dual-boot - stuff that HAS TO HAPPEN NOW can still do so (from XP, Firefox, etc.) while I'm trying to get comfortable with linux.

I'll report in eventually if anyone cares.... I'm fairly machine and software savvy, but I've never been able to get comfortable with linux (ONLY a programmer could love it!), but knoppix has shown me that linux is different now from 10 years ago....

[UDaMan]

Knoppix is awesome, not only a superb introduction into Linux but also as a support technicians "necessary toolbox". This distro has saved many hours of work and much amazement from users who have problems with their computer. Within 15 minutes I had backed up to CD all personal files from a computer whose HDD was fried so much that it wouldn't boot!