Upgrading to a new OS is frequently a difficult job. If you think about the heterogeneous nature of PC hardware and software, it's a wonder Microsoft can ever come up with a new OS. Apple has a much easier time of it because they have much better control over both the hardware and software. For some reason, no text appeared when I tried to read Pournelle's column. Could be he's having web server problems (XP?) or his system is being overloaded.

I had planned on upgrading my home PC to XP. My home system was booting slowly, running sluggishly, and dying all too often. I've been running Windows 98 SE on that system since I bought it two years ago. Over the last 6 months, the system's performance and reliability really began to suffer. I never upgraded to ME because there wasn't enough in the upgrade to make it worthwhile. I'd also heard too many horror stories about ME, too. However, when I checked the manufacturer's website, they said they didn't recommend upgrading to XP. They didn't provide any explanation which really annoyed me.

Finally, I got fed up with it and backed up all of my data. I then reformatted my C: drive and reinstalled everything cleanly. The system runs much better now - faster with far fewer problems.

I use Windows 2000 at work and it's great. The system is fast and very stable. I have a CD that will allow me to stress test my system to see if it is compatible with Win 2000. If so, I may upgrade to that instead of XP.

As a side note, I just bought a copy of Mandrake Linux last weekend. Two previous attempts to install Linux on my home systems were dismal failures but I'm willing to give it another shot. I have not tried to install it yet because I'm in the middle of a class I'm teaching and can't afford to risk any downtime. I'm off all next week and don't have class for another 3 weeks so I have some time to experiment.

As another side note, my boss just gave me a new work computer, a Pentium IV 1.5 GHz system. I don't have time to install all of my development tools this week, so he gave me permission to take the system home to play with it next week. The potential downside is that it'll make my home system appear unbearably slow so I'll be tempted to upgrade. Hmmmm.