I’ve been converted to a Windows XP Professional user! I’ve run XP on my desktop for a couple of months now, and I finally rebuilt my laptop (for the 5th time) in the hopes of making it work better. The install procedure needs some cleanup, but for the most part that will have to wait until something breaks enough to require re-installing.
My laptop troubles began when I tried to install XP on it — the wireless LAN would no longer work for more than 30 seconds. Unfortunately reinstalling Windows 2000 Professional did not result in the same reliable system that I had before.
Since I’m already planning on 802.11a I won’t spend time in fixing the old infrastructure (especially with one of the Airports dying on me), but instead get the new gear running with XP. More about that later…
Running XP on the desktop has been a good experience. It runs faster and smoother than Windows 2000. Some of the major winning points:
- much better CIFS (or SMB) performance
- system snapshots for recovering from bad software installs
- device driver rollback capability
- support for more (modern) hardware
Seems like this was — for once — a worth-while upgrade.