When evaluating software or hardware, it makes sense to ignore the popular press, especially the tech blogs and to an extent, consumer opinion. Change is difficult for us humans and the early reviews of XP bear it out. Below is a snapshot of cnet's Windows XP review back in 2001. I got to this page using the web archive. Note that cnet bemoans the fact that a user can only load XP on one computer. Really cnet? And note user opinions: 48% disliked XP after its first several months. Microsoft was roundly criticized for not having an OS that would work across all platforms: computer, tablet and mobile phone. Now Win 8 is negatively reviewed for not having a start button. Anyone remember when the criticism was that Windows had a start button? I use Win7 home premium on this computer and Win7 Pro on my daytrading rig. The next computer I buy will have Windows 8. I am sure it will be fine. Here is a link that might be useful: XP back then

OK everyone, get up off the floor. Yes, it is really me. I have been waiting to return from sabbatical and this thread may be the best reason to return. Now hang on to your seats. I finally entered the 21st century by replacing my old 400mhz HP Win98 OE with a new dual core HP with Vista Home Premium. My experince is almost identical to Bob's. Updated favorite applications and replaced some very outdated hardware. Didn't skimp on the memory as I went two gigs. In two months I have only had two concerns. One was with the trial version of Symantec Internet Security System following a lengthy update. I ended up deleting the application, another saga for another time, and installing AVG. The other was when I broke my own rule, "never install more than two O/S updates at once" as I downloaded six at once. System restore came to the rescue and after following my rule all is well. It amazes me how many diagnostic utilities that are available. Having much experience with Win2000 and XP at work, I still find Vista an improvement and give it a thumbs up. As far as any sound concern, there are many places to control sound in Vista, particularly if you have Real Tek Audio Manager. Perhaps some users have adjusted what they thought were independent settings when in reality they are not independent Hello to everyone. DA

After much debate, I decided on XP because of software compatibility issues and information sharing between the new computer and the older XP. Both computers are used for work and must work together. I purchased the new computer to upgrade, down-the-line, to Vista. One problem I didn't consider was MS Office. The new machine was only sold with Office 07. The older machine has Office 03. All Word docs have to be saved at 03 docs on the new machine in order to be opened on the older machine. I guess it depends on what you use it for. I didn't have time to fool with getting Vista to work with what I need for work.

More memory is good but at some point there is a diminishing return on the investment and that point is a function of what you are doing with your computer. Things like first person shooter games, video editing, photo editing (of very large files) all benefit from lots of memory. Writing an email to Aunt Betty doesn't require very much memory at all because the computer can process information far faster than you can type. Same thing for the Internet, your computer can render pages faster than your connection can supply the information. So if you have a slow internet connection, you're not likely to experience much, if any improvement. With that said, 4 gigs is probably a pretty good number. If you really want a WOW factor, get a solid state drive and use that for your O/S and critical applications. To try and answer some of your questions: - Windows doesn't care about the physical drive or any logical partitions. It does make good sense to install Windows 7 on the newer, faster drive. You'll get the best performance that way. When it comes time to get rid of XP, everything will be on one drive and that, if nothing else, should help you keep things mentally organized. - My understanding is that you have two physical drives, one with a functioning version of XP and the other blank. If that is not correct, say so NOW. - When you go to install Windows 7, it will recognize that there is another operating system (Windows XP) already installed. Windows 7 won't do anything to XP other than to set up the dual boot. Essentially it's computer language that says, "XP is there, Windows 7 is here, which one do you want to use?" - Logical partitions to a drive a largely a function of personal preference. Understand that it is more difficult (but not impossible) to non-destructively repartition a drive after you put data on it. If you, for example, have a partition for music, another for videos, and a third for pictures and find down the road that you have a lot more videos than music, it becomes more difficult to rearrange things. My suggestion is a single, large partition and use folders to organize your data.