It just turns me off that I have to spend 30 minutes every time I sit at one just to make it not look totally silly

I understand what you are saying there, and until last week I would have agreed with you without reservation.

However, one of my many personality flaws is the entrenched belief that "...if it isn't what I'm used to, it can't be any good." I recognize this aspect in myself and try to guard against it.

My computer at home died a couple weeks ago, and I decided reluctantly to go ahead and upgrade to Windows XP (I had been running Windows 98). I knew I was going to *hate* that XP interface, and was determined that the very first thing I would do with it would be to switch over to the "Classic" interface that emulates Windows 2K.

That was untiil I talked to the man at the computer store who sold me the XP operating system. He was one of the beta testers for XP, had it for months before it was released. He (and just about all of the beta testers) hated the XP interface -- but in the beta edition, Microsoft turned off the ability to use the Classic interface, wouldn't let them do it. Finally, after a couple of months of testing, they were given the updated version where they could run in Classic mode.

He immediately switched over (along with just about all the other beta testers that he knew and communicated with) and was happy for about a day... until he realized (and these are his words) how unintuitive the Classic interface was and how much easier and more logical the XP interface was. He switched back, and told me that once again all the other beta testers he knew switched back as well and would never consider using the Classic interface again.

This is a guy who knows more about computers (hardware and software) than I will ever learn in my life, so I am willing to give his opinion some weight. As a result, I am sticking with the XP interface, so far hating it, but fully expecting to gain a deep appreciation of it once I get over my "...i'ts different form what I'm used to..." mindset.

Oh... regarding Win ME.... the company that provides the softare that runs our radio stations supports Win 95, 98, 98SE, 2000, and XP. They specifically exclude Win ME from their supported operating systems.

tanstaafl.