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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."
First, remember that the "markedly better" comment references what HOME users were using before, Windows ME. For businesses, XP isn't much better (or is much worse).
But let's look at what OS X has done in the past 5 years (I only converted early last year). OS X has hardware accelerated it's GUI. It has gained Spotlight and Exposé, probably the two best inventions in improving computer use in the last 5 years. It has had little touches like spring-loaded folders. It manages to get basic window use right.
The fact that Apple did the first 3 things (OpenGL GUI, Spotlight, Expose) which MS sat around (really: spent all their time on patches) is just sad. MS has improved things (the wireless handling was abysmal compared to today's XP), but not others. I took a job last month that has me using a Windows box for the first time in a year and the result of having to use it for long periods is jarring.
Let's ignore the lack of Spotlight (which I love). Let's focus on something simple. Something that was in Windows 95. Something that was in Windows 3.1. Something that was there before that (don't know which version exactly, probably 1.0). Let's talk about the Z-ordering of windows.
At least once a day I seem to run into this. Let us consider 3 windows among about 10. We'll use FireFox, Outlook, and Calculator. Let's say those windows are all maximized (as are all others) except for Calculator. Calculator has been buried to the very bottom of the windows (or near). Firefox is on top, with Outlook below. Now click on the taskbar button for Calculator. What happens?
What SHOULD happen is you see Firefox with Calculator on top. That is what happens most of the time. But some times, for some random reason I can't find, doing this will bring Outlook to the front window behind Calculator, so you see those two on your desktop (Calculator on top). You can often repeat this 3 or 4 times before Windows "gets it" and things are put correct. By this I mean you can switch back to Firefox (which works), then click for Calculator and have it happen again.
I have NO IDEA how this happens or why, but how hard is it to keep a Z ranking of the windows I have?
I won't even touch on how hard it is to manage 10 windows with your only tools being the taskbar and Alt-Tab. Exposé is so intuitive and simple. From the screenshots I've seen (I haven't looked hard) Vista only seems to have a graphical version of the current Alt-Tab.
There are no spring-loaded folders (terribly handy for moving stuff around).
Windows DOES have a Cut command in Explorer, something that still boggles my mind about the Mac (how can Finder not have a Cut?)
Windows hasn't really improved at all (other than in security) since 1999 (when Windows 2k was released). Look at the changes OS X has made from 10.0 to 10.4. I'm not even including the cool stuff that's coming in Tiger. OS X even gets faster.
I'm glad to be off Windows for my personal use. And since my job is all Java and HTML, I'm going to ask for a Mac when my current Dell is no longer powerful enough. I think Exposé alone will vastly improve my productivity.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
The other feature Redmond needs to work on: "not listening to a single damn thing Adobe Reader says".
Nothing like strolling into the office in the morning and finding your computer still at the shutdown screen... and what is it holding it open, pray tell? Not the IDE. Not the source control client. Not the database browser. Nope. Adobe Reader is sitting there smugly asking "are you sure you want me to shut down?" holding up the whole system from logging off. FFS, it's VIEWING TEXT - it can shutdown when I damn well ask it to.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who's found that drivers can crash Linux perfectly well, too.
Maybe I am in the minority, but I have had huge success with Windows XP Pro in installation, management, troubleshooting, and day-to-day operation. If you have installed Windows XP regularly enough to really understand its quirks, shortcomings, and nuances, the reality is that you can have a viable, stable system up and running in literally minutes. Create an unattended install disk, and on a newer PC, you can be online and productive in a very short time.
It's so easy to disparage Windows XP and Microsoft, but compared to its predecessors, Windows XP Pro really has matured into a decent product. The other night, I helped troubleshoot one of my wife's work computers running Windows 98, and I was frustrated by the lack or "mispalcement" of utilities, settings, and system tools that are always and predictably available in Windows XP Pro.
This is certainly not to say that it is without faults, security and vulnerability being the biggest issue. Microsoft should forget about the whiz-bang Vista approach, and re-write Windows XP Pro from the ground up. THAT would sell.
My only real complaint with Microsoft and Windows XP Pro is that they have never provided cost-effective licensing for home users to legally maintain multiple computers. WIndows XP Pro is really the way to go, but at its original $300+ price, it was far out of the reach of most home users. I bit the bullet and purchased multiple copies, but if Microsoft had provided a more cost-friendly option, I would have promoted it and recommended it much much more.
Here's an honest question: Ignoring the cost, just what is it that you think is so much better about Windows 2000 compared to XP?
Product activation. If I tried to sell you my car, but insisted on keeping the starter-kill remote, you'd tell me to go jump in the lake. For some reason, people don't subject Microsoft to the same scrutiny.
Product activation is bad enough at the application level, where individual programs have to phone home to receive permission to run. It should be absolutely unacceptable at the OS level... which is why it really, really sucks that everybody accepted it.
As far as I can tell, people who still use 2000 by choice are either ignorant or just dumb.
Yeah, OK, that must be it.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
I tend to reinstall my OS every 6-9 months. Swapping hardware, testing drivers, the occasional software that just won't uninstall all adds up and makes all versions of windows glitchy and crufty. The Solution? Reinstall the OS.
I refuse to pick up the phone and explain to MS why I should be allowed to reinstall XP. 2k no suck problems.
My reason for sticking with 2K until I am forced to move? General F'ing Principal.
Place a curse on Microsoft.