Windows XP: AnandTech Readers Speak-Out

Do you have any favorite features?

In order to draw users to the store to purchase Windows XP, Microsoft has to prove to the consumer that there are features that are worth the cost of upgrading. However, Windows XP has another hurdle to overcome. It has already found some moderate opposition from privacy advocates and power users who dislike the product activation technology and copyright protection who deem these too intrusive.
AnandTech users may tend to take their upgrades more lightly than other users simply because they are technically proficient enough to recover from many common problems. However, AnandTech readers are also more likely to carefully weigh the benefits against the competition, creating an interesting situation where users may like certain features but choose not to upgrade or where users may choose to upgrade without noticing all that many improvements.

"I didn't see any features that made much difference in my view"
--Charlie Gilsten (Gil11542)

Despite this interesting situation, readers generally had a wealth of knowledge to share about the real-world improvements built into the system. Users reported a wide variety of positive features, however; several stood out, including the window-theme capabilities of the GUI, faster boot-up and the stability of the NT kernel.

"I liked the built-in theme feature but I feel like it's not going to be utilized all that much without a 3rd party app(WindowBlinds). I like the fact that it boots up as fast as Win ME"
-- PepperBreath

"Driver rollback. Saved me once so far."
- Chris T. (Ctho9305)

"Look and feel more like a mac."
-- Teves Zimmermann (CarbonylXP)

"Windows on toolbar stack according to category when there are too many windows open"
-- (cvlegion)

Users also some features that were present in Windows 2000 or Windows ME, but not in Windows 98 SE such as the ability to apply some driver and TCP/IP changes without a reboot and the ability to control user access and permissions via logins and NTFS file permissions.

"like 2k, you can change a lot of settings (like network settings) without having to restart your computer. also, the fact that you can run executables in past (win9x) compatibility mode is really nice"
-- Brad Halpin (Spike2756)

"I like the new interface and the fact that it can be modified in ways that were previously impossible … For the first time Microsoft released a multi-user OS for home use. Every member of a family can have their own settings and levels of access (with NTFS anyway)."
-- Kenn de Mello (Vadatajs)