Hi Ian,

I want to comment on your comments;

"XP needs a LARGE amount of work to fix it's bad behaviour. And,
incidentally, I don't know that throwing in the SP1 pack does much good,
from the moans I've seen about it on the net.
I've just supplied two new Compaq D380 1.7 Ghz machines to a local
businessman, running prepackaged XP Pro, and frankly, their performance
embarrasses me. So I don't intend to make them any worse with SP1."

I work in IT phone support for a 130-franchise chain in Australia, and
also support on-site the Western Australian-based head offices' LAN of 5
servers (3 x ageing NT4, 2 new 2K) & around 30 users.
For the office we recently purchased 2 new Compaq Evo D510's (P4) and a
Compaq laptop (I forget which model, as it is in use in Sydney now, but
a very nice unit) which came bundled with either 2k or XP Pro. We opted
for XP. One of the desktops was for a user who is in hers 50's and was
well set in using her Win95 & Lotus Notes. Hers was the only PC still
running this OS as she had objected to upgrading - others are on NT4,
Win2k and 2 of us on XP (with SP1). Once I had proven to her that a good
proportion of our local LAN 'incidents' were coming from her office, I
squeezed some money out of the bean-counters and got her one of the
above-mentioned desktops with XP.
We've also just undergone a conversion from a Notes mail system to
Exchange (and Outlook XP). So she lost all she was familiar with. She's
been using XP/Office XP for a month now, and after an initial flurry of
panic calls for the first week or two, she now has full control and
finds things "so much easier" (her actual comment).
Each franchise that my small team supports has at least 2 PC's, up to
the largest centre who has 18 PC's & Macs. Admittedly, Win2k & XP are in
the minority by a long shot, but we haven't received a "why does it do
this?" or "how do you do this?" type support call involving either of
these OS'es for some time (we log and analyze all our calls). And those
who still run Win95 are well aware that they should upgrade. Win98 is a
little harder to justify the expense of an upgrade to 2k/xp, but once
one PC is upgraded in a centre, the other PC's are usually upgraded
fairly quickly thereafter. This says something in itself.
I have been using XP Pro on my work PC since it was released earlier
this year and I have no problem with it. It gets a hammering, too. I do
de-frag it regularly.

I build and sell PC's to work associates as an intermittent occupation
as well, and have supplied 3 XP PC's (not brand name) in the last 3
months (one Home, 2 Pro). The only fault/complaint has been an AOpen CD
burner that died after a month.
One of the centres I do work on the side for purchased two off me, then
later upgraded an existing PC to XP from '98 because they liked it so
much more. Their line of work involves the use of DTP software such as
CorelDraw, Photoshop, etc. The owner commented to me only last week that
it was so nice since replacing and upgrading. Lost time due to crashes
and other issues, particularly with the graphics PC, had been cut to
zero. 100% satisfaction. He was highly satisfied with his decision to
spend on computers, particularly because cash flow was tight for him (he
recently purchased the business) and it hadn't been budgeted for so
soon. But he had been able to see how much of a distraction his
temperamental computers were to his business. Now they don't even think
about their computers, they just use them, which is how it should be.
The other PC, with XP Home, I sold to a friend who has never had or used
a computer (except maybe an Atari!). A 2 - 3 hour tutorial of how to use
the games, email and internet, and I have had one call from him (in 7
weeks) for help.

So I don't understand your comments. What do you mean by 'bad
behaviour'? How can it's performance be 'embarassing'? Performance-wise,
it is the best performing OS Bills Mob has released. The average Windows
user should take to it like the proverbial duck to water.
I will admit that coming from Win9x to XP can be a bit of a mindset
change, but this is merely a retraining issue.

I don't mean this to be a pro or anti Microsft issue, I also use Linux.
I am simply saying that I disagree with your comments, and from my own
extensive experience this year of XP, I give it 2 thumbs up. I would
upgrade my home PC, but don't see the need to spend as I am 110% happy
with it's current Win2k (on an Athlon 1800+, MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU, 512Mb
PC2700, ATI Radeon 8500DV, in an AOpen H600 300w case). It stays on
24/7, as does my work PC, unless I'm away.

Regards,

Rick P

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