Well, I haven't read all the posts in here, but I'll leave a brief synopsis of my stance on the issue. I believe I've already gone into this in another post somewhere, but I'm too lazy to find it right now.
Windows 2000 Professional is more "professional," in my opinion. It's a more aged and widely-utilized platform than XP is. XP is a more modern OS, and has better native driver support than Windows 2000. I personally haven't ever had application compatability problems with Windows XP, but haven't had any with 2000 either. I use modern applications almost exclusively. Windows XP networking is somewhat slower than that of 2000, in my experience. Windows XP has some features that I like a lot, including the network activity monitor in task manager, showing date in system tray, win+L to lock, AIM away message when computer locked, remote desktop. Windows 2000, on the other hand also has some features that are somewhat lost in XP, including good user management, efficient networking, three SP's of support/fixes.
For my purposes, I've gone with Windows XP on my main computer at home. Registration isn't necessary ever, and all that is necessary is "Product Activation." You can either do this online in ~30 seconds, or over the phone with a few automated prompts in a minute or two. If you reformat and reinstall on same machine, same hardware, I think you're alright to go. If something's changed, or a new computer when you reinstall, you just do the same thing again.
Bear in mind that Windows 2000 is 2-3 years old, which has its advantages and disadvantages, whereas Windows XP is 0-1 years old.
My personal opinion is that performance differences are going to be mostly negligable. Stability is probably nearly the same, but possibly somewhat better with Windows 2000 still. The main factor that will influence that, regardless of what OS you run, is how you (ab)use your computer.
Oh yeah, Windows XP has system restore, if that's a big thing for you. Personally? I turn it off.
|