Well sorry cyrax. but i dont know what you've been smoking.
WinXP is right up there with Win2k, as the 2 best windows versions.
both stable as hell. hardly ever crashing.
If XP does crash, its HIGHLY doubtful it will take down the entire system. more then likely it will simply close the program that caused the error.
XP manages RAM WONDERFULLY.
using everyting exactly the same, nothing new instealled or deleted.
win98 used 50% ram on my system out of 384 mb ram.
winXP used about 20% of that same ram.
XP runs by far faster then others. (excluding 2K cuz 2k also runs quite fast)
And to further support this. XP actually runs off the Win2000 code. (states that somewhere on the MS webpage)
There are bugs with it of course. But they are getting fixed with every new upgrade.
It does have secutiry holes. which is why i use 2k still on my main system.
The GUI can get a bit annoying. but is easily switched to a normal Windows look. so that issure is like nothing unless your too stupid to change it if you dont like the look. (and actually aftering seeing that look so much now i hardly notice it anyway.)
XP has problems with certain games. but i can remember when win2000 also had problems with games and all that.
XP comes with a lot of extra stuff. that maybe some people might use but i really dont want or need.
So my fav is actually Win2000.
If i were to rate them on thier OS alone, how they work and stuff.
Win2000 / XP (2000 maybe slightly above)
Win98
win95
win3x
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***10 minutes later down the list***
WinME
...
But out of the windows section. Mac OSX owns them all. :P