It's ridiculous for people who upgrade to XP to then waste time on a forum criticizing people who don't upgrade. Are you guys paid by Microsoft? (Maybe you are...I don't know. It sure sounds like it.) If a computer setup works well for someone, there is NO URGENT NEED for them to have the latest and supposedly greatest stuff on his computer. Oftentimes upgrading means giant headaches, reinstalling, sometimes fixing major problems, often getting used to a new OS that may or may not work better for what he has to do. People that insist on having all the latest stuff will certainly want to upgrade to XP, but people who use a computer as a tool and do not feel any great obligation to create new headaches for themselves may be satisfied with what they have. Neither 98 nor XP are great operating systems, to be honest with you. Both are adequate, and each is better for certain things. For most mainstream uses, they are also both pretty similar, and upgrading can mean great expense, a lot of time and effort invested, and sometimes major unwanted hassles. People who would rather be productive than spend days, weeks, or months getting a new OS going might be better off sticking with what they have. I have a 98 system that is set up well as an all-purpose tool for what I need to do on a computer. Switching to XP would cost me a lot of time for very little benefit. There would be a few benefits -- I'd be able to run a FEW more NEW things, and my system would at the very least crash in different ways or have DIFFERENT security holes. But the overall setup would not be all that much better than what I have now. I would gain a little forward compatibility, lose a little backward compatibility. The computer could stay running for days on end, but probably a lot slower and with more potential glitches than what I have now. (For instance, XP is susceptible to some of the more annoying new security threats. And for all the talk about it being more stable than 98, I know many people who have to frequently reimage their XP machines because of weird conflicts, software problems, new spyware, etc. 98 has its problems too but XP would be a bigger hassle in this regard on my setup.) I also am not a fan of Microsoft's XP registration scheme. Microsoft has accumulated more cash than virtually any company in history, and how does it repay its customers? By trusting them LESS. They should not be rewarded for that kind of unattractive behavior. I don't like forking over any more money to that company than I have to for a variety of reasons, and it's the principle of the thing. I don't hate Microsoft, but I am not a fan of many of their business practices, and I don't like the cold way they often treat their customers. They take us for granted. They EXPECT me to simply pump a few hundred dollars into their coffers every few years by buying a new OS. Yet their new OS's consistently underwhelm me. If I could transform the setup I have now to XP at no cost, with no loss of performance, with no time invested, I'd probably do it. But considering how little I will gain and the potential hassle I will have to go through to upgrade, I don't exactly see the point. In other words, when I buy a new computer I will not go out of my way to uninstall XP and reinstall 98. But I will not go out of my way right now to install an OS that offers barely measureable improvements over what I already have.
