I survived Windows XP
Friday, January 4th, 2002After surviving the switch to Mac OS X, I decided to risk upgrading my PC, too.
I expected the worst - Windows XP would break all my software, delete my email, report me to the FBI, and eat the cat. It didn’t happen. Instead, for the price of the $99 upgrade CD and $39 worth of RAM (watch for specials at CompUSA - they had 384M for $39 earlier this week), I can now run Word 97 just fine with one big improvement: Windows doesn’t lock up under it. And it didn’t require me to buy a pricey, overbuilt MS Office upgrade - I can still use the same version of Word my employer gave me years ago when I began writing columns for Hotwired.
Despite all the scare stories and fashionable I-refuse-to-upgrade essays floating around, XP hasn’t tried to take over my life while I’m working, aside from a few polite prompts when it first booted. Truth is, RealOne’s endless popups and promos (please, please, please just play the music) and MP3.com’s self-resubscribing mailing lists (I finally changed my email address to a fake one) have been much more intrusive and disruptive to my work than anything XP has thrown at me so far.
