Well Windows XP is out, I was considering to upgrade (possibly) since its supposed to be based off Win2k and is "more stable" (hope so). I'm not totally sure about the "big brother" activation wizard and how it works though, which is another one of my main gripes.

What I was wondering, is if any of you have it and your PC and noticed if everything runs ok, games, etc? I heard a couple of people who tried running quake 3 or MS word after they upgraded and it always reboots their comp. I don't want that to happen to me, its not cool

I've been using the beta version of XP Professional for three months and am now using the retail version of XP Home and it runs every program and game.

The only things it wouldn't run were my old CD burning software (I had to upgrade) and my old Norton Anti-Virus (I had to upgrade).

But all my games, from Hasbro board games to Max Payne, work flawlessly.

I don't know about the rebooting thing. I had that happen to me once, after I installed a driver it told me might make my system unstable--and it did. My bet would be that your friend has a piece of hardware or driver installed that aren't compatible.

But for the most part, I think XP is a very worthy upgrade--especially for gamers.

I've had a couple problems...most noticeably with High Heat 2002.
I tried setting the system to run the game off of the Win 2000 platform (using System Compatibility, I believe) and while it did enable me to load and perform some of the game functions it usually ends up shutting the game down and taking me back to the desktop.

I have a brand new Sony Vaio 1.7Ghz system so it's not a performance issue with the PC itself.

A lot of magazine like MaximimPC and PCWorld, as well as online sites have discussions about how activation works. Definitely check on it before you decide to jump. Overall it's a fair policy, and if you read up, I'm sure you'll agree. XP is a grat thing for games. I've used 2K since it came out, and although I sometimes had troubles with classics, all the newer PC games I wanted to play, I had no problem with on 2K. XP brings a friendlier interface with some great stability, security. The speed might not be there now, but within the next 6 months, drivers are going to start getting a lot better, because driver support will focus exclusively on XP. Well I mean much more in comparison than with 2K (being more of a business/workforce orientated OS).

Thanks for the info guys, I am reading those articles they are very helpful, still haven't made up my mind but I'm sure after I read about it and test my system for compatibility I'll have a good idea.

Here's the deal with activation: When you install your product, you MUST activate it, which is totally painless. Then, you can actually choose NOT to register if you don't want them having your info, so you can stay anonymous. That's what I did.

Theorhetically, activation just keeps you from copying WindowsXP to more than one machine by sending a unique code to MS based upon the hardware in your system. If you try to install WinXP on another system, the hardware code will be different and activation will be denied.

HOWEVER, Microsoft has given in on several points within the past couple weeks. Now, they say only HUGE changes would make them question your activation and if they do make you call them, they'll usually give you the benefit of the doubt that you're not copying. The best thing is that now activation resets after 90 days, so as long as you don't completely change your system more than once a quarter, they couldn't care less.

My Quake 3 froze almost everytime I played it over an hour, so I had to make a dual boot system. Also my cd burning software and portable mp3 player would cause the entire thing to crash and would fail to reboot unless I chose "used last good save" or whatever. I think I'm going to reformat nd go back to win2000 I've already had way too many problems with this "upgrade". win2000 has NEVER crashed on me in 2 years yet winxp crashes at least 3 times a day. and it's not a performance problem here either as I have a 1.8 with w/ 512 PC800