I suggest that people do a fresh install of XP rather than an upgrade but I know that many people will prefer not to do that and will upgrade from their prior setup. Before you attempt either an upgrade or a clean install make sure you have downloaded the Windows 2000/XP drivers for your hardware unless upgrading over a Windows 2000 system.

1) I suggest that if people are doing an upgrade from Windows 98/Me to XP that they make sure they do not skip the compatibility check and that they use  the "Full Report" option. If you are advised  to discontinue the upgrade to uninstall applications and/or hardware drivers DO SO. Reinstall these apps again after the upgrade. The Windows XP registry is different that Windows 98/Me so entries have to be added correctly to the new registry. Failure to follow this advice may mean that you will be unable to uninstall an app after the upgrade so do it now.

2) Uninstall your Antivirus and firewall programs BEFORE you try an upgrade. The Windows 98/Me version generally will not work with XP. Make sure that your Antivirus is compatible with XP. Presently only the autoprotect function on the very latest versions of AV programs are compatible. This includes Norton AV 2002. Generally speaking if your current AV has not been upgraded to a new version within the past month you will have a ton of grief with the autoprotect features.

3) The above also holds true for most low level disk management tools like defrag programs, repartitioning tools, disk imaging programs etc. If your install of XP is to an NTFS formatted partition then programs like Partition Magic, Norton Ghost, Diskeeper etc will not work unless you have the very latest versions.

4) Direct CD causes XP to have a lot of trouble right now. You can use the 5.02b patch from www.roxio.com  but it will still cause shutdown problems for your system. Roxio promises a free upgrade at the end of October.

5) XP's native UDF reader can't read packet formatted CDs from early versions of Direct CD and InCD, or disks created by Packet CD. Therefore you should make sure you have finalized these disk to make them readable in any CD-Rom before you upgrade to XP. Nero's InCD 2.xx works with XP but it still can't read these early versions of packet formatted CDs.

6) AMR modems are not recognized during an install and the Windows 2000 drivers must be installed following the upgrade. This can hamper the activation process. (However if you upgrade Windows 2000 you are OK)

Here is a list of the software that has worked and what I've had trouble with.

1) What works - these should be reinstalled after XP is installed
- Easy CD Creator 4 with the 4.05 patch
- Easy CD Creator 5 with the 5.02b patch
- Nero 5.xxx as is
- InCD 2.26 as is
- Diskjuggler 3.xx as is
- Fireburner requires third party ASPI Layer
- CDR-Win 4 requires third party ASPI Layer
- Sony CD Extreme as is
- Clone CD 3.xx as is
- NTI CD Maker 2000 as is
- NTI Backup Now as is
- ISOBuster as is
- CD-R Diagnostic as is
- WinImage 6 as is
- Total Recorder 3.22 as is
- MS Office 2000 all components
- MS Office XP all components
- Express Assist as is
- WS_FTP Pro 6 and 7 as is
- Partition Magic 5 and 6 with XP formatted as FAT32 only
- Partition Magic 7 with both FAT32 and NTFS
- Norton Ghost 6 and 2001 with XP formatted as FAT32 only
- Norton Ghost 7 and 2002 with both FAT32 and NTFS
- Norton Antivirus 2002 as is
- Norton Internet Security 2002
- eSafe Desktop 3 as is
- ZoneAlarm latest version as is
- WinProxy 4 as is
- WinZip 8 as is
- WinRar 2.8 as
- KaZaa as is
- CDex ver 1.4 as is

Here is what I found does not work:
- Direct CD all versions (however DCD 5 only causes minor problems if you install the 5.02b patch)
- Take Two
- WinOnCD 3.8 (there is a set of patch files here but they don't work unless you already have ECDC 5 installed too.)
- Packet CD all versions
- Partition Magic 6 and lower on NTFS systems
- Drive Image Pro 4 on NTFS systems
- Norton Ghost 2001 and lower on NTFS systems
- Norton Antivirus 2001 and lower
- Norton Internet Security 2001 and lower

The list is not inclusive but I hope this helps.