I agree with koby. Win2k is rock stable for me and supports any hardware I've tried to use. It also has a good GUI (XP's is no better) and support for almost everything XP supports. Almost every game out there has a Win2k patch by now, and I've run many DOS games (like Doom, etc) in Win2k just fine - with sound.

As for comparing Windows to Linux, well, the Windows GUI is about 10X better than XWindows...even with the latest Gnome/KDE. However, if you NEVER use a GUI, then Linux is better and more stable. Hence, Linux is a good server/developer platform, but Windows is much better for end users; especially gamers.
So who is WinXP for? Well, those people that don't really know what they want in an OS...but the salesman can pitch that its the newest, prettiest, most virus friendly OS yet. Ok, thats a little harsh, but is at least partially true.

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TBird 880 (oc 110 x 8) /
ABit KT7 (YH) VIA 4.29 /
256 MB PC133 RAM /
TNT2 16MB (oc 160/160) Det 7.58 /
Maxtor 5.1GB 85120A8 & 40GB 5T040H4 /
ESS 1869 & NetGear FA311 10/100 NIC /
Win2k Pro SP2