FiringSquad has posted an article about Windows XP's performance
When operating our testbeds with the older OSs, there hasn't been much to worry about. Prior methodology required us to install the OS, install the drivers and then run the benchmarks as we would any program. With the advent of XP, our usual testing procedures developed a little kink. Microsoft actually has a section on their website explaining how to run tests on XP. It seems that WinXP has some interesting disk caching, or disk arrangement, features that run in the background. The purpose of these tasks is to speed up the programs you use on a daily basis. This is akin to the way defrag works, only these processes startup whenever you aren't doing anything on your computer.Read more
