mnemonicj wrote:

I feel like you are taking in the Twilight Zone, where everything is backwards. Right now, Windows XP is considered to be the best Windows desktop operating system available by almost everybody.

Yeah, well I get a lot of that

XP is inherently unstable for two reasons that I know of ;

1) It manages hard drives so that in case of I/O failure, it crashes as little as possible. This is a feature BTW However, these I/O errors should not even occur in the first place, and in 2k3 upwards they more or less don't --- but in the long run, the I/O errors can easily accumulate as so much bad data that XP can break down completely, requiring a reinstallation --- if you're lucky/have good, reliable hardware this may of course never happen

2) The other reason is that it makes no truly hard distinction between installed Windows components and installed software, unlike Vista, Server 2k8, and I believe Windows Home Server. Therefore, it is wide open to attacks and to corruption --- and although no widely distributed OS is invulnerable to this, Vista does lock itself down much tighter than its predecessor

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I'm NOT suggesting BTW that Vista/2k8 is the most stable Windows version ever released by MS ---- I would personally award that particular prize to W95

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Again, a lot of this XP vs Vista question here ultimately boils down to personal taste, but I can't help but notice that my OS maintenance tasks are circa 80% less difficult since switching to Vista --- although on the minus side, a perfect Vista config can sometimes be difficult to install, due to the far more rigorous hardware config specs of Vista compared to those of XP --- but I frankly prefer an OS that will BEEP when there's something wrong with my hardware instead of just keeping mum about it...

I do have to admit that I format and reinstall XP about once a year, but more out of habit and organization than necessity. You would be surprised how much time it will save if you to take one Saturday afternoon a year to clean out your computer and start from scratch, rather than dealing with the same headaches year after year.

Someone once said, that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. By that definition, every computer user is truely insane.

Whoo Hoo, 1500!!!!!

LOL That is very very true!