Xp isn't that slow. I have 256megs of ram on my new computer, I load XP and always load Red Hat on virutal pc, and run all kinds of things, like IRC, a few different browsers, and lots of little programs and batch files that I made that run on startup. And even with all this, XP does a stellar job, I use XP Pro but without most of the extra business oriented extras. XP loads faster than my win95 or my win98 ever did, it does a good job managing my ram, or so it seems. I don't see much sluggish performance from it. I really like XP, I did try win2k for a while, it wasn't as good as it seemed to be cracked up to be. It seemed kind of bulky for me, because I used it for personal use. The only thing I liked about win2k was running a server, it seemed to be stable and fast and didn't seem to slow down my system much, but XP does the same thing, so I have to say XP rocks. And BTW I use a win95 layout. I just like it a lot. Win95 rulz.
