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Microsoft Windows XP Professional Upgrade [OLD VERSION] | List Price: $199.00
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Platform: Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP
Brand: Microsoft
Binding: CD-ROM
Release Date: 2001-10-25
Features: - Brand new Full Retail box
I'll have to agree with 'A Kids Review' [Posted on 2005-06-17]
Microsoft has been with the technology market for quite sometime, successfully locking technologies, while trying to also successfully create a good, easy to use, compatible, reliable, and secure operating system. Microsoft has gotten to such a point as the years planning, production, and programming of 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, 98SE, ME, 2000 Pro, 2000 Server, XP Home, XP Professional, 2003 Server have gone by.
Microsoft has failed. It's that simple. After a grueling week of working on a small business network of various versions of windows including 2000, 98, and XP, I'm tired of background viruses, I'm tired of hidden malware, I'm tired of worm/trojans and worm/malware... yes, I'm that tired of it. While Microsoft excels at easy compatibility with hardware and walk-in store software(atleast until Longhorn~'compatabilities problems commence!' ~but hey, it's Microsoft, we expect random odd things to go wrong with our computers now and then), Microsoft drops security out the window. Or, perhaps I should say out the Windows. It's not that it won't play the coolest games, and It's certainly not that you can't be productive on it, it's just that it does not make any sense to need a technician to increase you're security on the installation of an operating system! That's crazy... but that's microsoft. Technicians should be spending their time making things work, such as hardware with the operating system, or network issues. Instead, we're all fighting a malware war and finally giving up and making our own primary home operating systems BSD(Unix-NetBSD,FreeBSD,OpenBSD) or Linux(SuSE,Slackware,Red Hat,Knoppix) while not telling our customers. Our customers don't know what it's like to use a system that doesn't get viruses on a user level, and we all have receding hairlines because of it.
However, if you insist on using Windows, buy Windows XP 'Pocket Reference' from O'Reilly and get out you're install disks. Reformat that drive right away and re-install Windows all the while making sure your LAN cables and modem cables are fully unplugged from you're computer. Then, open you're book to pages 175 to 181, and read thoroughly. Do everything it tells you verbatim. Make sure you have less than 10 doors open(also known as ports). After doing all that, and checking your ports, and fixing the various issues, connect to the internet, and proceed to download the 17 billion gigs of 'security' updates over a course of a possible 4 or 5 reboots. Now, if you did all that, you finally have a tolerable operating system. Sure, it'll still get viruses, but at least everybody and their dog won't know all the information in your computer through on a few thousand doors on your computer because of the 23 trojans that Internet Explorer picked up in 5 hours of surfing the web.
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.04 and Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 instead of Internet Explorer and a Microsoft Email client on a daily level will lessen your security risk by mountains. Avoiding using Yahoo Chat and MSN Chat will also. Try Gaim... it's still compromisable, sure, but since it's multi-protocol, if you drop it, you can kill all chat processes.
If you go Mac.. you're going Unix whether you realize it or not, and if you keep you're current hardware, you can go AllLinuxCD.com and pick a BSD for 4 bucks. Before you do that, feel free to buy Knoppix Hacks by O'Reilly, and use the bootable CD in the back of the book to work in Knoppix daily without altering you're current system. Then, when you're comfortable with it, know that Linux and UNIX have a lot of similarities, so whether you go BSD or Linux, you'll see much of the same things you'll see in you're Knoppix CD.
I do hope this review was helpful to some of you. It's not that I don't like compatability... it's the hassle that windows has caused me over the years... or that malware has, I suppose. Good Luck to you all.
Do not buy this -- Remote Desktop is buggy in this version [Posted on 2005-07-24]
I bought this upgrade specifically to use remote desktop -- however it does not work. There are many reports on the web re. Remote desktop black/blank screen no login dialog box.
I have used remote desktop on other machines & connections without problem but there is clearly a problem with many connections using the version in WindowsXP sp2. Microsoft has not acknowledged the problem, produced a KB article or a fix for this yet. My suggestion is to avoid this until at least XP sp3 is issued. Concensus seems to think this is due to a poorly designed/implemented remote desktop protocol -- apparently it does not handle fragmented packets.
[Some have found changing the MTU size from 1500 to 1400 using a third party tool fixes it for them. However this did not work for me.]
What Can You Say, It's Microsoft [Posted on 2007-01-18]
Review not necessary, outstanding product. If you are running Home Edition, I would recommend upgrading to XP Pro, if you can afford it.
Ripped off [Posted on 2007-09-30]
The version of the software was an OEM version that was only valid when installed on a new computer direct from the manufacturer. It required a volume licensing agreement which a stand alone user would not have.
Apparently this company was trying to pull a fast one. Don't buy anything from these people.
What I am using now. [Posted on 2008-06-13]
As much as I like Vista, and I do have Vista-64 on my media computer, I still like using XP-Pro on my work computer. It is solid as a concrete highway without fast running water under it (in other-words, it does have its vulnerabilities), but far better than any other windows product out there.
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