I have been using the Beta 2 version of Windows XP for about a week now and I must say this OS is very impressive, by far my favorite product ever produced by Microsoft! I have installed and used this several times on two plat-forms and a Compaq Armada 7800 laptop and (for the real test) a 500IS Emachine desktop! The Emachine is not of factory specs. I have upgraded the RAM to 128 Meg, added a Monster 3D Voodoo 2 card, NIC, and a 30 gig 7200 RPM Western Digital hard drive. This review will actually only cover my experience with Microsoft Windows XP running on the 500IS Emachine, however, I will tell you that with the Compaq Armada laptop, it installed with NO problems at all and is running great. If you have ever used an Emachine then you know that they are extremely proprietary and normally only run properly if you have installed the imaged operating system from the supplied recovery CD. I have actually had major problems trying to install a fresh copy of Windows 98 on this particular Emachine!!

I am going to make this simple. First I will explain the install on the Emachine, what I thought would happen, and what did happen. Below that section will be some bullets, each one is a highlight which I am very impressed and excited about, and below that is a brief description. I hope you enjoy it!