Moreover, since virtually every new PC is now supplied with Windows XP pre-installed, 98 users will become more and more in the minority. Although existing applications and soundcard drivers for this platform should hopefully be mature and relatively bug-free by now, Microsoft will be starting to phase out support for it in July 2003, along with NT 4.0. The writing's now on the wall for 98SE users as well. In fact, it was so badly received that some PC magazines subsequently explained how best to uninstall it and return to Windows 98SE. You wouldn't be able to run this many applications successfully in Windows 98SE either, due to finite System Resource limits.Windows 2000 is similar enough in concept to XP to be worth considering as an alternative (see box), but ME is essentially Windows 98SE with some features from Windows 2000 bolted on, including its updated graphic look, and gave musicians particular problems with WDM drivers. Like Windows NT and 2000, XP runs each application in its own section of 'protected' memory, so that even if one crashes the remainder of your PC will carry on regardless.

However, judging by a recent SOS Forum poll, there still seems to be a fairly even split between musicians running Windows 98SE and Windows XP, along with a smaller number of (albeit enthusiastic) users of Windows 2000, plus a few stragglers using the ill-fated Windows Millennium Edition.

Since I first reviewed Windows XP in SOS February 2002, many people have moved over to it from other Microsoft operating systems. So should musicians who have been holding back now take the plunge and upgrade? It's been 12 months since we first evaluated Windows XP as a music platform, and it now seems to be the OS of choice for most manufacturers.

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