Customer Reviews

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2 - Full Version

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(35)

 

 

If you're reading this. You're thinking of buying Windows XP home edition here are a few things to keep in mind.

First thing is, you might be able to get away with buying just the upgrade edition. The upgrade edition allows you to do a full install. It just asks you for the CD of a previous version of Windows. Also remember you can download service pack two from the Windows update web site. So no need to buy it integrated with XP.

These are what I consider the minimum system requirements:

256 MB of RAM. I have found is adequate more equals better.
500 MHz or higher will do.
7200 rpm hard drive will help a lot.

If you're running Windows millennium edition, or 98 upgrade now the stability is vastly improved. Gone are the blue screens of death.

Frequently asked question: is Windows XP Pro better than home edition?

Windows XP Pro has a more high-end networking features that most home users will never miss or would even know were missing. So for most users Windows home edition is fine. They both are based on the same code and are almost identical.

If you're thinking of upgrading from Windows 2000, I did, because I like the GUI interface better. But Windows XP is as stable as Windows 2000. So it's your call.

The plug-and-play ability of Windows XP is totally great! Windows XP will by default find most drivers for video card sound cards, network cards, etc. that is such a bonus gone in the days of having to search for CDs with drivers.

I recommend upgrading to Windows XP be it professional or home edition. It is a great operating system

Have some fun and get it done

I took the plunge and downloaded Apple's Boot Camp for the Intel based Macintosh. I had some old PC games so I thought this was worth giving a try. Apple's setup process was seamless for partioning a seperate drive I installed just for Windows XP. Then you get to the Windoze part of installation with the famous blue screen. It does look antiquated, but I followed Boot Camp's instructions to install. Windows XP took about 90 minutes via the "standard" insall method. Apple's OS X as I remember installed in about 10-20 minutes!

Since my installation about four months ago, Windows XP has been running just fine. I have actually gone onto getting additional PC games of my Windows XP disk. So this is great for those who want to have a Mac OS X side for work and a Windows XP side for play. Plus it looks like there won't be many games available in the future for OS X.

Apple's latest version of Boot Camp includes Windows Vista support, however I think I will hold off given the written reviews here on Vista. Windows XP does just fine for gaming.

Edit:

A little update here in 2009. I forgot to install Windows with "quick method" and in reality it takes about 10-15 minutes for the install. Fortunately Apple has mentioned this in their updated Boot Camp guide which is complete with version 2.0. As far as Windows XP 32 bit and Boot Camp go, there are no problems. It's been an excellent system for gaming. And the open source software that I do have works perfectly on the installation. XP is the best that Microsoft has to offer.

This is great for Mac users who want to add Windows to their computers. Please note that you will also need to either download Apple's "Bootcamp" software, or purchase Parallel software (which Amazon also sells) and install it before installing the Windows XP software. It's worth the money.

Last year at this time I was a died in the wool Mac person who believed everything Microsoft came from the dark side. Then along came a program I needed to run and they didn't make a Mac version.

What to do? What to do?

Do I buy a new machine, maybe one of those inexpensive Dell laptops or do I try to run Windows in emulation on my new iMac. I decided to give the latter a try and ordered Parallels and Windows XP from Amazon. I installed Parallels without a hitch and when the program asked me to install my Windows' discs I did, followed instructions and I just cannot believe how easily everything went.

But an easy install does not necessarily make for a happy computing experience. It's been several months now and I can't praise XP and Parallels highly enough, because I've had no, none, zero, nada problems with either program on my iMac. They just work. XP has never crashed. Not once. And Parallels has never failed me either.

I've read some of the Parallels reviews and seen that several people are unhappy with their customer support. I've never had occasion to call `em, so I wouldn't know. Likewise with Microsoft, I've never had to pick up the phone, call `em up and ask for help.

I'll admit that most of my work is done in the Mac operating system, but I do use my Windows only database program quite a bit, plus I've also loaded WordPerfect, Corel Draw and Painter a few other Corel programs and they all work swimmingly.

So, three cheers from me for both XP and Parallels. They make quite a team as far as I'm concerned.

Reviewed by Vesta Irene

I recently bought the full version windows xp with sp2 for my mac notebook due to the fact that many of the programs I needed do not have mac versions. I found the installation with Bootcamp(already equip with new apple notebooks) and absolutely seemless transition. I split my hard drive between mac and windows xp(I did not go with parallels) and have found no issues as yet except my computer once stopped in the middle of an application and just rebooted itself and it hasn't happened again. When my desk top is ready to replaced, I will use the windows xp version again on the apple desk top that I plan to purchase. Great buy....Also very easy to uninstall off apple notebook and start over... We all know how windows gets jammed up after a while and regardless of all the disk cleanups and defrags etc it starts to run slow and needs to be redone.

Like many other PC geeks, I looked at Windows XP and its eye-candy UI with suspicion when it first came out, but I've come to love it. It's rock solid -- I've never had a single system crash in the last two years, even though as a gadget freak I install and try out new hardware a lot -- it's fast, and its plug-n-play feature is so much better than any other operating system. Service Pack 2 makes XP even better, esp. in the security arena. It now comes with a better firewall and turns off some default settings that used to be on which could invite security problems. (The flip side of this increased security meausre is you constantly get warnings.)

XP Home is great for home use. If you want file system-level encryption, true file permission settings and more networking options, opt for the Professional edition.

I highly recommend teh book "Windows XP Inside Out, 2nd edition" if you are interested in optimzing your XP system and/or learning advanced techniques.

Consumers need to know this before making a decision to buy!!!!

I bought my copy of XP Home SP2, three weeks later I tried to install it again on my other computer that has a new hardrive. I got the error message saying "Not registered to this computer blah blah". Because I was required to register it first on my original computer it won't work on any other. There is a product activation key that is required to register online in order to use Windows XP SP2 OS after 30days. However, this particular key code sends intentional hardware information about your/this specific computer to Microsoft and will only work on your/this particular computer with the exact hardware specifics you registered with intact. So this means, after you just installed the OS, activated the key then the computer goes wacko your then forced to make significant changes to it, example... new Mother board, Hdrive, Processor etc. you may very well have to go out and purchase another $200 copy of XP!!! You think costumer support will give you support?? Think again, they are very skeptical to even help or cooperate with another product activation key. Most of them don't even speak English good and no matter how calm you are, they deliberately put you on hold just to hang up on you so someone else can deal with your issue. How is this fair to the consumer, I should be able to install this expensive OS on any of my computers as I wish. Why should I have to suffer for their piracy problems? Do your research first please!

To clarify S. McCrea "s_mccrea"s post, a pentium 4 with hyperthreading is not "two chips on one chip". It's a single chip that simulates dual processors.

Microsoft XP Home Edition does NOT support multiple processors. Microsoft XP Professional Edition does. So if you need multo proc support, go with Pro.

December 13, 2008
By James Smith "The Truth"

Beware my my friends of old (Xp Professional 2002 oem) copies of bogus software being sold on Amazon. By the likes of PBJWorld. Not only that, they let him lie and claim it was unopened. I purchased a copy and found it had a fake key. It was made by a key generator. They want me to return it to the guy who sold it to me. Mircosoft now has the case. Gave them what they needed to go forward. He want me to return it , to make it disappear, I would guess this to be so . By the way he refuses to deal with me. Shame on Amazon too, for letting this guy sell bogus software.
Buy for only those you know. Amazon will not back you UP! I for one will not ever shop on Amazon again. Burned by this. Never NEVER AGAIN . They lost me as a customer. Amazon make false statements that they care . They do not . I have not made false statements'. Pbjworld sold me a copy of Xp Professional that was not what they claimed . It had been opened, used and packaged with a fake key . Beware buyers of this site'. Trust only those you know and no site that gets 5 stars from most buyers . No one that perfect .

Amazon customer service sucks .There is no real support .

Windows is good for several things. But being flexible is NOT one of them. The issue with this product is you can't use it on all of your PC's if you have more than one. You have to buy this for each and every one of them. Its a rip-off to have to do that.