So, I’ve spent my afternoon upgrading my desktop machine to Windows XP, and so far, I love it. The things that I love most about it? (Note: this list will most likely change as I find new things throughout the evening…)

• ClearType
• finally, built-in ZIP file handling
• the incredibly fast start-up time
• less crap on the Desktop!
• a System Tray that collapses to hide seldom-used stuff
• a Taskbar that groups similar apps together
• a fast, fast UI
• built-in CD writing, including automatic creation of multisession discs and use of CD-RW discs (finally, both are useful!)
• Terminal Services, even on the Professional level installation

Things I wish I could love about it:

• Fast User Switching (it doesn’t work if your machine is part of a Windows domain, which mine is)
• the Active Directory administration tools (which don’t exist yet for the XP client side, although I am about to install and try out the beta versions that came with my MSDN membership)