Windows XP. To buy... or not to buy? Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. With launch of the most significant new operating system from Microsoft since Windows '95... .the company is hoping consumers will buy into Windows XP in a big way. Is it worth your money? 99 dollars for the Home Edition, double that for the Professional. At PC Magazine Labs, Jonathan Roubini has led the team that has been testing the new operating system for the last six months... .

"Well the advantage to consumers is basically the stability of Windows 2000 implemented in Windows XP. Usually if you would run Windows 98 and especially Windows ME, the stability was very, very low. You would crash any time, you would have to reboot maybe a couple of times a day. But with Windows XP the stability is much higher."

For Windows 2000 users, there isn't such a compelling reason to upgrade. For 98 and ME users... the stability issue alone makes Windows XP worthwhile. But it could be more expensive than it appears. Many people will have to add memory or buy new PCs. And some anti-virus software you may already have... .will need upgrading too to work with Windows XP. The labs tested the OS on 86 different systems... ...

"None of the systems we tested really had any issues with hardware. We did try all the hardware we had in the labs, video cameras and other hardware. Mainly it was stuff that was really old that wouldn't correctly install.

What you will find is that Windows XP's pre-installation diagnostics will give you a good idea of what will work and what won't. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.