[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

If you get XP make sure you get the OEM version without the craplettes — It makes it a bit more bearable on slow systems, and quite snappy on a better machine.

You can uninstall the craplets, can't you? I'm sure I won't need most of them.

[Tarpon]

Sure, but figuring out what is a craplette and what you shouldn’t uninstall is tough. There is a program called ccleaner which helps alot, but is not infallible. I just put together a new install of WinXP on a system that I use for testing that had ‘rotted’ and performance was up substantially over the craplette install. It makes a huge difference with older machines.

I don’t run a virus checker, I use online email (gmail) which I download with Thunderbird, and a hardware firewall NAT router. I don’t randomly download anything on this WinXP system, which I use for software testing.

For web browsing I run Ubuntu Linux.