What is the best one?

[Genesis15]

I'm using Windows XP Home Edition SP1, What is the best OS and SP to use with it. I was thinking SP4 w/ Windows 2000 but I don't know. I currently use JUST the upgrade for Home Edition, is that bad? And is Professional any good? I want the best Stable OS for my computer because so far after time my computer gets slow and i can't blame any of my hardware thus far.

 

[spherrod]

I would use XP with SP2 installed on it for your hardware - could go 64 bit but you could run into software issues. Differences between XP Home and Professional are well documented

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_home_pro.asp

Basically, for standard home users - XP Home will suffice, upgrade to SP2 (ensure no Internet connection till this point) and then start installing drivers for your hardware. I've been very happy with my XP build (now 3 years old!) and not noticed any slowdowns.

 

[Genesis15]

hmm, could it be possible im having hardware problems then?

 

[TGS]

Well two things stand out if this is in regards to the system in your sig. You are using 333DDR instead of 400, for what thats worth. Also you are using a 2MB cache single drive. Both are bound to lower your overall performance a bit. What's your memory usage like? Any heavy disk operations going on? Frankly since Windows 2000, I've never had any problems with the OS, unless there was a hardware issue.

Basically need to know if you are having BSoD, or just an overall system unresponsiveness. Also, what activities are you doing while you notice the slowdowns? If it happens while the computer is idle, could it be a problem with a program memory leak?