Windows xp key features and advantages.

[johnnr892]

Hi, finally i have ditched the old 98se and upgraded to windows xp home. I was just wondering if anyone could tell me what features there are in xp that I might not be aware of that are really cool or are really helpful and can enhance my windows experience(as chessy as it sounds) I'm relatively new to windows xp as i've had win98se for about 3 years now so any information would help me greatly. Thanks again, john.

[yamangman]

Hmmm, none that I can really think of, except for the obvious and that is 98 isn't supported anymore, and people have stopped making software for it (not saying that software won't work). Hotplugging is the only usefull 'feature' off the top of me head really, that and it purportedly crashes 'less often'... It depends what you consider usefull, or indeed 'cool'

[GreenPiggy]

http://www.tweakxp.com/
Download the demo of that.
It gets you 30 free go's which is all you need and there are some very good tweaks in it.

[Flibb]

From my experience its much more stable than 98SE and can handle application crashes without rolling over. If you download service pack 2 from MS site it has upgraded security including a reasonable firewall. Unlike 98 XP also supports CDR/RW without having to install 3rd party applications, I still use Nero for most of my writing but its there if you want it. Networking is a lot easier with XP using the setup wizard it will happily sort out networks between XP or other windows boxes.

On the "cool" side some of the visual styles and tweaks look great, have a look here
http://www.themexp.org/

SOme people have posted visual styles before hopefully one will wonder in and post.

[mr_anderson187]

yeah as yamangman said, the hotplugging of usb things is really nice, and usefull, its what i find best about it anyway