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Looking Back on Five Years of Windows XP
david.emery writes "In an article in the Washington Post entitled If Only We Knew Then What We Know Now About Windows XP, post technology columnist Rob Pegoraro points out the 5 year legacy of Windows XP. The article starts 'Windows XP is turning five years old, but will anybody want to celebrate the occasion?' This is (IMHO) a very well-reasoned critique of WinXP, although it does fail to credit XP as being markedly better than its predecessors." More from the article: "Consider stability, the single biggest selling point of XP. The operating system was meant to stop individual programs from crashing the system, and it succeeded. It takes an especially malignant program to send my copy of XP to a 'blue screen of death.' But that's not the only way XP can crash. Drivers, the software that lets XP communicate with hardware components, can still lock up the system. If you've seen an XP laptop fail to wake up from standby, you can probably blame it on buggy drivers."
The early 21st century saw an unprecedented array of attempts to dislodge Microsoft from its dominant position in PC operating system market share. From Linuces of may sorts to Apple's new OSX, word was, the time for Microsoft's fall was at hand.
Then came Windows XP.
Right away, Microsoft's revolutionary new revision of the Windows operating system was a hit with home and business users. It is no exaggeration to say that the modern computing world as we know it, the innovations of bittorrent, the deep and involving fun of World of Warcraft, the wide ranging social networks of Myspace and Facebook, none of these would have been possible without Windows XP.
From the stylish new interface, to the easy-to-use features, to the vast improvements in security and reliability, Windows XP has proved to be worthy of the title Greatest Operating System of All Time.
"(1) This is (IMHO) a very well-reasoned critique of WinXP,
although it does fail to (2) credit XP as being markedly better than its predecessors"
IMnotsoHO, these two statements contradict each other. Not making myself popular around there, I'd say that WinXP, about the third greatest thing to happen to PC users (after MS DOS and Windows 3.1). Finally a real operating system for PC's without serious limitations, with enough backwards compatibility for the enormous installed base of Windows software. I can race through Need for Speed Most Wanted while downloading the latest, errr, content plus webserving my site. Without ever crashing. Sure, I have to reboot every week or so with some patches, but that's the price of any main-stream OS. Lunix-ers will have to pay later too... So: Hooray for the Borg! Cheers, Richard
The early 22 century saw the fall of the Washington principality and its vassal state of Neo-Patriota. When the outsourced nations of new Canada and Greenland launched their massive offensive, the Redmondites placed all their hope in their new integrated Office 2109 communications software, running on Server 2104 with Microsoft SQL Server Warfare edition as a backend. This mighty system would integrate and focus the now awesome firepower of the mighty MS battle fleets into one precise and deadly, continent spanning living engine of death.
But fate was against the principality. And the plans of Emporor William Gates, the fifth of that name were all foiled. For it is said, the outsourced attack came at the very cusp of the next hardware upgrade cycle, and moreover, due to a great ion storm knocking out 802.11zzid coverage over half of eastern EU, the desperately needed hardware upgrades from CzechaMichDellia were delayed by over an entire release cycle.
And so, while the battle fleet was equipped with the latest interoperability software, it ran too slowly on the previous cycle's hardware, and by the time the first stirke was tallied and the volleys made ready, the war was already three weeks over.
And so the principality was defeated, but not destroyed. For instead of destroying Microsoft, the victors instead only broke the kingdom into seperate divisions, each responsible for a different part of their foul business. And, while there was much confusion and compatability issues for many a long year after, still the Windows OS ran deep and black withing the viens of the world; and the kernel source the victors did not take, for it was now completely written in x86 assembly, and had become terrible to behold.
May the Maths Be with you!
Here I am, Jerking off to Microsoft hate/Linux love, and then you bust out with your Linux can crash too bullshit. It is like I was just staring down Jenna Jamisons tits, as they delightfully flop back and forth, when, just at the moment of climax, the camera focus shifts to sweaty balls slapping her ass hole. Except this was worse.
You take it, I don't want it...
But what if you lost your place? What then, smarty pants? The end of the freaking world, that's what!
You should hear me cursing as I *attempt* to shut down an entire lab only to have all the computers hang waiting for me to confirm that they can close whatever program is too stupid to close at shutdown. There are a few of them that have hung me, Adobe is the most frustrating.
And Linux is like a house, but you used to have to build it yourself, but not so anymore! Because every two weeks some company or other makes a new house that is always so much better than the other companies houses, and the other houses made by that company, but it's usually designed so that only scientists or people with 500 children or people who keep angora rabbits can use it because it's the angora rabbit house distribution.
Anyway, the house is free and you don't even have to build it yourself anymore, the company comes around and arranges everything perfectly depending on the size of the land you have and the available power and water. It looks really great! Then you try to get in the house, but the doorway is bricked up. You look for an easy way to open the door but it just isn't going to happen. Turns out the only way to get that door happening is for you to wander up and down the street looking for other people in Linux houses to find someone who knows enough about masonry to teach you how to rebrick the area around the door so you have a doorway that works right. One all-nighter with a bunch of bricks and cement you've gotten yourself into your new house!
So you go out and you buy a sink for your new kitchen, it's a really popular sink and everyone in the Windows rental houses has one. You try to install your new sink and the pipes are all wrong! But your neighbour has a linux house and he had a similar sink, it's easy, all you have to do is get a metal pipe and an oxy-acetaline torch...
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Because it's not done ye.
Acutally, I bought my copy of XP Pro from Office Max in the golden days. I got a free scanner, a free Mic, a free printer, a free joystick, and free antivirus. I sold them all on Ebay, and made $15 for "buying" Windows XP Pro upgrade.
Maybe that was an isolated case?
[I went to a party at one of these places, and it was quite a surreal experience walking into a bathroom that just like an ordinary bathroom, but with all dimensions doubled!]
Good god... how did you avoid falling in?
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Pasty-white elitist nerd slap-fight at 12 o'clock!!
Ok. Who mentioned candlejack agai