I am currently running Windows XP Professional right now, and I must say, it is not a disappointment all around. It is actually very fast on my machine, and it has many improvements over past Windows versions.
I noticed first off, having watched my nerdy friends marvel over Mac OS X, that a lot of the "new features" in Win XP, such as the Luna interface, and the icons at logon were blatantly ripped off from Mac. This seems to be Microsoft's trend.
Some people are complaining about this version requiring some outlandish CPU speed and memory requirements to run. Let me say this: I have a Celeron 600 mhz, and 384 MB of RAM, and this OS boots in about 10 seconds, clickable icons and everything. The speed problem only is inherent when a large popup menu is rendered.
The version of Windows Media Player does leave something to be desired however. It's buggy, and the skins are not asthetically pleasing. Also they changed the keyboard pause shortcut from the Spacebar to Control-P! Now they're ripping off RealMedia!
Pertaining to Plug and Play, this version of Windows detected almost ALL of my P&P devices, including my Voodoo 5 5500, and my generic 10/100 NIC without a glitch. I was able to install without problem. I believe that this OS takes up about 1.2 GB on my drive, which is not too bad for newer machines.
I haven't explored all of Windows XP's new features yet, but I must say that so far, I am impressed with the new version of Windows Mac OSXP. I say, if you can get a free copy, go for it.
UPDATE:
November 22nd, 2001
I have deleted
Windows 2000 from my PC, and I remain with
XP. I must say that this is the stablest Windows
operating system I have ever used. There are a few
caveats (more
useless automation, more requirements), but so far, the majority of the things that
Microsoft did to increase
stablility and
speed are major improvements over even
Win2k.
I had to reinstall WinXP the other day, because my OpenGL settings were not correct, and I wanted it on a different hard drive anyway. I reinstalled without a hitch, and used the settings migration wizard on the XP CD, and Voila! - all of my favorites are still here, my desktop wallpaper got changed, Winamp was in the system tray, MSN Messenger is no longer starting up with Windows, and all of my visual options were set the way I like them. It's really a neat function.
Another feature that is really handy is the Compatibility option. If that Win9x only game wouldn't work for you in Win2K, just right click it's executable or desktop shortcut, and click the Compatibility tab. Windows lets you choose a family of older OS's (above Win95 that is) to emulate just for that game. I was able to play a lot of games that Win2K wouldn't touch, like my Sega Genesis emulator.
I'd say that if you have the chance to get XP, and you liked 2000, but it was not compatible enough, go for the new Microsoft OS. It looks like Mr. Gates is succeeding at making computer usage better for both seasoned Windows pros, and newbies alike.
Not to say that avid Linux users wouldn't puke at the new interface, but...