Word: xp
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...XP simplifies computing. Start with the "desktop" that welcomes you when you boot your machine: it's bare except for a Recycle Bin to trash unwanted files. Your eyes are drawn to a fat Start button, as luminescent as a hard candy, that opens the Start Menu, the key to everything on your computer. The menu is arranged sensibly, with frequently used programs grouped on the left and file folders (organized by media type--text, pictures, etc.), settings, search and other utilities on the right. You can still drag favorite programs onto the desktop screen. But in a kind...
...dislike some other things too. The installation took an hour, and unlike previous upgrades, you actually have to sit there for most of it, answering questions. Also, you can install XP on only one machine. If you have other PCs, you will need to buy more copies. (Microsoft is coming up with a multiuser pack; pricing hasn't been announced...
More evidence that XP is smart: plug in a digital camera, and the operating system "knows" you probably want to store photos. The My Pictures folder is automatically called up. Retrieve a photo from it, and at the click of a button, make it e-mail ready; this is what we do with photos on computers, after all. Even error messages are simpler...
...biggest change in Windows will remind users once again of Microsoft's corporate muscle: you will be forced to log in to XP. At home, where I share my PC with my three daughters, we now all have our own "accounts" that arrange our desktops. Ella, who has a thing for cows, has a bovine motif, for instance; Zoe prefers a King Tut theme. When I'm allowed on the machine, I hit Windows-L and instantly hot-key into my own account (a desktop built on a Daniel Clowes comic). Whatever programs my daughters are running continue...
Sometimes, simplicity didn't work. I was running a home network that linked my wife's machine before installing XP. But after I tried to upgrade to XP's home network, my connection to the Net disappeared. I had to spend 90 minutes on the phone with Microsoft's pros untangling the thing--a courtesy that civilians...