>I will be looking into acquiring a new machine for home use. This will include development work ( VFP, VB, VC++, web stuff, etc. ) and typical home stuff such as running games etc. What are the relative merits of using WinXP or Win2k as the OS in this scenario?
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>We use Win2k Pro at work and I find it very workable and stable. I have heard some stories of WinXP being quite a resource hog and affecting the performance of some games. I would like get as much factual information regarding the relative merits of these two OS's before committing myself to one for home use.

I can't give any facts, just experience. I find just the opposite of what you hear. WinXP is more stable, and higher performance given enough memory (256M+). I find XP is less picky about older software and games than Win2000. The fast user switching is nice for each family member to have their own desktop and other settings. XP also opens zip files natively and has some cool features for graphics since as a thumbnail mode, slideshow and you can create a screensaver from the images in the MyPicture folder. I find that newbies are more comfortable with XP than 2000. How's that for subjective. :-)