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One Year Later, "Dead" XP Still Going Strong
snydeq writes "Microsoft pulled the plug on Windows XP a year ago today, no longer selling new copies in most venues. Yet according to a report from InfoWorld, various downgrade paths to XP are keeping the operating system very much alive, particularly among businesses. In fact, despite Microsoft trumpeting Vista as the most successful version of Windows ever sold, more than half of business PCs have subsequently downgraded Vista-based machines to XP, according to data provided by community-based performance-monitoring network of PCs. Microsoft recently planned to further limit the ability to downgrade to XP now that Windows 7 is in the pipeline, but backlash against the licensing scheme prompted the company to change course, extending downgrade rights on new PCs from April 2010 to April 2011."
The reason why XP is still strong, honestly, is because people are morons and they are cheap.
Vista is not worth the cash. OSX is $129 when Vista is $300+ thats a giant WTF since OSX is so much better.
On my non-mac PCs I run Linux because it gets the job done. My mac hardware runs OSX (obviously) with a vmware-windowxp. I would upgrade my vmware image to vista if vista was reasonably priced.
I used to love XP.
Not anymore.
Once i installed Windows 7, i have no intention of going back to stupid XP.
Windows 7 for me is more stable, faster and less crashing.
Benefits:
1) Windows 7 installs faster and less intrusive than XP.
2) Windows 7 networking is far more advanced than the usual XP crap.
3) Display drivers crash do not cause a BSOD. Hell my nvidia beta driver crashed when i was running CoH:ToV. Windows 7 quietly told me the situation, restarted the driver and asked me if i wanted to roll back to previous version. I did.
4) Windows 7 is faster than XP in many ways. Multitasking, file operations, USB access, etc., all are much faster.
5) Device Manager shoots XP out of the water. I can pin point exact problems, roll back only those that are needed, and more.
For me, Windows 7 is a god-send. I haven't used Vista, but i love Windows 7 and would definitely pay good money for this.
1. Installs faster?! I don't think so..
2. You get IPv6, sure, but you did under Vista too. Otherwise, I find Vista/7 more annoying. I hate not being able to get to my network interfaces easily; I always have to press WinKey+R and run ncpa.cpl. XP doesn't make me do this... infact, XP lets me have 'Network Connections' right on the start menu. It also let me have an icon PER network interface in the system tray. I liked this. Vista/7 won't let you.
3. I've never had an issue with display drivers crashing... um, maybe your video card is dodgy and unreliable and needs to be RMA'd or you using very alpha-ish drivers... if so, don't do that.
4. I find XP to be faster than Vista OR 7 in many many ways... its a lot smaller, lighter, and less bloated. It gets shit done. FAST! Blindingly FAST!
5. Maybe they improved device manager a bit, it looks the same to me. Your experiences were involving hardware and/or driver failures, which I haven't experienced under Vista or 7 yet.
Maybe XP seemed slow to you because you're running 32bit XP on high end hardware; give 64bit XP a go.
With all the service packs and updates rolled in, installation is a breeze.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.