Consensus opinion has been that Win98SE was the first "good" (by standards at the time) Windows, and that WinXP was the first "better than Win98SE," unless you had server function needs that justified the hassles of Win2K or NT4 - both a bit questionable.

WinXP SP2 should have approximately 5 years left in the "supported" category, before it goes in the trash with Win98SE. Without SP2, WinXP is already "not supported," like Win98SE. The only thing keeping Win98SE able to get critical updates appears to be that it is the most recent version that can be legally exported to "questionable" places like China, and a few million Chinese users (with mostly pirated copies?) are sufficient to keep it barely alive.

Vista does include some new "features" that even Symantec agrees will make it a little "safer," at least 'till the mobs figure out how to crack in.

For those with a real interest, PC Magazine Report on Symantec Analyses reports a Symantec analysis of the new "security features" in Vista.

The Symantec "White Paper" cited in the PC Mag article is at Symantec Security Analyses of Vista. It's readable enough maybe to be of interest to general users, but likely will be more interesting to those with "systems" to support.

Given Symantec's rather vociferous complaints about Vista in recent weeks, it's hard to call this an "unbiased" report, but it's almost certainly a competent one - by someone other than Mickey and crew. It's not entirely unfavorable.

John