Hi John,

Thanks for the input. This is pretty consistent with what I have been hearing from most ... but, hey ... wait a minute ... you're a Microsofty now ... how can I trust what you say? :-)

Seriously, I figured I'd have to go with some extra RAM and I also figured game support would be overall better than W2K. My main concern was with a few ( in this thread and one individual at work ) reporting some problems they have had with XP, particularly with slowdowns in various scenarios which "seems" to be related to the apparent resource "hogginess" of the OS.

Even tho I will develop on the machine it will be a home scenario with gaming and all so at this point I am leaning towards XP but I will continue to gather info until I make the fianl decision.

Bill

>Hiya Bill,
>
>Seeing as how I know nothing about your home hardware (lol)....
>
>XP *is* a resource (read: RAM) hog relative to W2K ... however, I think it's absolutely more suited to the situation you've described. XP needs somewhat more RAM than W2K - but RAM is cheap these days. If you can get a machine with 384-512MB then you're mich better suited to XP. And, I might add, go with XP Pro.
>
>Regarding games, look at it this way - a lot of games don't even support W2K. XP does.
>
>
>>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?
>>
>>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.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Bill