Wow, this thread is pretty useless.

"XP home suck"

"XP home is useless"

"only use XP pro"

WTF guys. XP home is probably the best OS for 95% of computer users (excluding corporations). If your gonna bash it, back it up with something. I know some people did, many did not.

I'd go with W2k over XP Home. XP Pro would be my preferred choice.

I'd like to point out that sometimes new computers have the option of XP home or XP Media Center Edition for about the same price. The media center edition supports file sharing the same way as XP Pro.

I am totally confused but at the same time wonder why my XP home running at 1.73 Mhz with a gig ram seems so slow. I just dont get it. If I go to pro will it get better?

No.

XP Pro.

ok every windows os sucks. they all have huge flaws.
no matter what version, they all suck. convienent, yes. user friendly yes.
unless you can get an oem version for 10 bucks then buy it. if you can't
download a free version of linux, knoppix and linspire have bootable disk
won't install to your HD. try it, if you like it, i suggest cent os 4.0. it is the
free version of red hat server edition i believe. i've used it and unless you
want to play games, that is the way to go. it has a easy to use GUI kinda like
OS X. it has all the features of windows, just more secure. whatever way you
go just make sure you have a good AV and a good AS and enjoy your computer

Media Center version cannot join a domain, so if you need that on your network, it'* no-go. (Not that this is likely at home, but good to know.)

And no offense to the Linux guys, I like it too, but that wasn't his question, and I think it'* prudent to answer his quesion: Which, of W2K or XP Home, should he use? I could go on all day about why he should use a Mac, but I presumed that if he wanted Mac advice, he'd have asked.

One reason I'd go with W2K over XP Home is that it requires less resources and should give him better performance on the same hardware than XP Home.

Well, I'm all done now. 2k is installed and just finished the SP4 install.

Anyone reccommend a good firewall? I was using Norton'*, but I need a new subscription.