Software : Microsoft OEM Windows XP Home Edition Inc. Service Pack 2 b- 1 Pack

Rating: - XP on Leopard
I bought the OEM disc to use on my Intel Mac also. The disc worked perfectly with no problems. I simply registered the product online with none of the problems the previous poster mentioned. I think there may be a problem if you attempt a second installation using a program like Parallels of VM Fusion as you are technically trying to register the product for a second time and this causes alarm bells to ring at Microsoft. But if you simply want to install on Bootcamp, this product is highly recommended.

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Rating: - Well, it's better than Vista
Buy it while you still can, or pay for major hardware upgrades in order to run Windows Vista (arguably the least successful Windows since the woeful Millennium Edition).

XP is generally very stable and will run OK with 128MB of RAM in an older computer, but it likes as much memory as possible. Microsoft have made it quite hard to avoid paying for their software these days, with the interestingly-named "Windows Genuine Advantage" nagware, so if you want full access to updates, £50 to go legit doesn't seem too bad.

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Rating: - Windows XP Home Edition
So, it's here at last. Microsoft's much-hyped new version of Windows is available to new and existing PC owners and claims all kinds of improvements over its antecedents. Windows XP isn't the latest in the Windows 95/98/ME line. Nor is it a continuation of Windows NT and 2000. Although it's based on NT technology, as 2000 was, it's an amalgam of both types of Windows and has one common code base. It may be available in Home and Professional (business) versions, but it is basically one product. XP Pro is a super-set of XP Home. We've reviewed the latter here.

This has been Microsoft's strategy for several years and is intended to make it easier to maintain and to keep new releases of home and business products in line for the future. Making use of NT code, designed for the more rigorous business and networked environment, should benefit everybody, as the new version is claimed to be more robust than any previous incarnation.

Windows XP looks different from previous versions, with a much cleaner appearance to the desktop. Apart from the Start button, there's little extra to confuse the newcomer. Click on Start, though, and the two-column menu that pops up is re-ordered and points the way to other changes in the operating system.

The colour scheme suggests a bigger, brighter approach to PCs and this idea is strengthened by the bold icons and the way it's harder to get at the nuts and bolts. You're encouraged to stay on the yellow brick road of applications and their documents, rather than delving into backwoods on your own.

The operating system, which supports both FAT32 and NTFS filing systems, offers a lot of fun extras, too. A new Wizard for printing that arranges photos to make the best use of expensive photo paper and a video editing applet which, while not Adobe Premier, provides the basics for cutting and pasting digital video, are just two highlights.

Others include easier home networking and the ability to allow a service technician to temporarily take over your PC to provide technical support. This isn't quite as worrying as it might sound, as you can specify how long that person can have access.

Much has been made about product activation, the need to contact Microsoft over the Net or by phone to receive a code to activate your copy of Windows XP. While it may be an irritation, more so if you make frequent changes to your PC, it's hard to deny Microsoft the right to stop people buying one copy of Windows and passing it round to all their friends - it happens.

You'll need quite a substantial PC to run Windows XP. The minimum recommended is a 300MHz Pentium with 64MB memory and 1.5GB of hard drive space. Double all those figures to be comfortable.

From our experience, the pre-installed version is likely to be more popular than the upgrade pack. We installed Windows XP on a Sony Vaio notebook as an upgrade. The resultant report of software that had to be removed or reinstalled (including Microsoft's own Outlook 2000) ran to four pages of A4. So it's probably best to let the PC builders install it from scratch.