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10 Years of Windows XP
Julie188 writes "Windows XP – the XP stood for 'Experience' — was released October 25, 2001. With Windows XP, Microsoft hoped to have one codebase that would span everything from consumers to corporate desktops. Microsoft was fairly ambitious with XP. There was an embedded version that went everywhere, from phones to information kiosks. Banks in particular embraced it as a way to migrate off IBM's dead-end-but-once-great OS/2. Consumers have been quicker to ditch XP for Windows 7 while businesses hem and haw and slowly test a decade's-worth of custom apps on Windows 7. Some estimates show that XP still has a hold on 48% of the Windows market."
Bah, everyone knows "XP" stands for "Xtra Problems"
(I Am an OSX user... I do not share your pain)
"You have liberated me from thought."
XP was for eXperimental Prototype as in test aircraft. The kind that crashed a lot.
btw.. last post
but that was all they had at the store; I was perfectly happy with XP; my hardware died and I didn't see anything I like with XP on it, so got one with windows 7 IMO, and in the opinion of everyone here at my office, XP was MS's best OS; most of us like it a lot more then windows 7 ymmv
And yet, those recycling kiosks at the grocery store are still running Windows 98.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Compared to previous versions of Windows (especially those that ran on 9x codebase), XP was much better. Compared to Windows 2000, it ran games better.
Vista compared to XP is worse, or at least it was worse just after the release. Windows 7 is about the same as XP, just a new UI, but it is not that much better for people to buy it (and probably upgrade their PCs), because XP is stable and does everything they want. The computer is fast enough for hat they use it for, so no need for an upgrade until it breaks down.
They added the X in the title, because everyone knows, if you have an X in the title, you get better ratings.
Fight Spammers!
Of our four most used machines at home, the media center is running Windows 7 because I was told Media Center works better than in "Windows XP Media Center Edition". (Only partially true -- the surround doesn't work right.) My machine is running Windows 7 because I thought I needed more than 4 GB of ram. And then I found that the machine wouldn't boot with more than 4 GB of ram, so that was kinda a bust. (Maybe with a different motherboard?) The others are still running XP and the programs wife and child use still load up and work fine.
That's the point people seem to forget. The OS isn't important. (Well, maybe for Windows 2000 and up -- nobody in their right mind, except for the people who designed those can and bottle recycling kiosks, still runs Windows 98.) What's important are the applications the OS runs. Sometimes these applications need resources unavailable to that particular OS (sometimes for marketing reasons) and then an upgrade may be unavoidable. But until then, why bother? The OS is not the application.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
...it's just about ready for release now.
I still miss Windows 3.11 (for workgroups) on the desktop, and Windows NT 3.51 on the server. Sigh.
I once got fired by a client because I didn't downgrade a windows 7 laptop to xp. No, they didn't have any custom _anything_. They just had a policy.
Stupid is as stupid does.
The story content was "XP wont die in the Enterprise", no it wont, and is you are in the Enterprise, you or your vendor can do a spin for your hardware ... no fuss.
I stayed with Windows 2000 for the longest because XP's UI was beyond ugly. Not until you could get the Media Center themes that it became a good looking UI and I finally settled on XP.
---- GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I thought it was a pun on Cairo, the vaporware, or head-fake, or whatever it was that Microsoft claimed would be so great but never released... and that the claim that it was a reference to user "x-perience" was a later concoction.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The last windows I actively used was XP, and I kind of liked it. But when I jumped the Linux bandwagon, the productivity of multiple desktop got me crying every time I had to use windows thereafter. Ten bloody years have passed, and only now is windows getting something that resembles multiple desktops. It can't possibly be that hard.
I'm pretty sure XP stands for Xtra Proprietary.
What happened to the bill gates borg icon?
I have two laptops and three desktops in my household that are probably going to be running XP for at least another year. I don't want to upgrade one of them to window 7 until I'm ready to upgrade most/all of them to 7.
Kind of the same reason I still use DVDs instead of Blurays, I guess.
Many people don't give XP any credit. The UI was BIG BUTTANS! ms blaster shred some of its reputation. but it was a huge leap from Microsoft previous operating systems.
I would definitely pick it over any other OS Microsoft currently has. Disable unneeded services, use Wehntrust, Sygate, Kaspersky. It was decent.
-Slackware, Red Hat, OSX user.
I remember when XP came out everyone was complaining about its online activation requirement. They said they would stay with Windows 2000, which didn't have that requirement. Nowadays, barring Windows 7, it's everyone's favorite OS. Funny how things change.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
XP is still a good OS, and will probably still be popular in the mid 2020s. But IE needs to go unless Microsoft relents and releases version 9 and above for it. Unless you have a corporate web app that requires IE, you should be using Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari or any other updated browser.
Discovered two boxes running Warp on my network today, still being used in a mission-critical capacity.
So yeah, good luck getting rid of XP!
Light, gets work done, all games run on it, this that.
The gaming underground loves it even more. Xp Sp2 is the preferred version for seeking max fps on 3d games it seems. There are 'stripped/edited' slipstream versions of xp sp2 being traded in underground, which apparenly consumes only 84 mb of system memory or something.
it seems its here to stay for a loong loong time with its huge software base.
Read radical news here
"2000-like" is not the Win2k UI.
The only reason I moved from Win2k to XP myself was due to gaming and the requisite driver/Direct X/et cetera support.
Hell, that's pretty much the way of Windows. My only reason for moving off Win 3.11 (For Workgroups! Woo!) was that 16-bit executables were dying, and the h4x that Microsoft enabled to allow 32-bit programs on 3.11 weren't as awesome as indicated. Still, I managed to skip the abomination of Windows 95 entirely, going directly to 98. I stuck with 98 for years after its lifespan, because everything worked awesomely except for the need to reboot once every three months. win2k solved that, was perfectly cromulent for awhile (and most importantly, allowed me to avoid the abortion that was ME), but then driver/peripheral issues started happening with more modern hardware (ohgodRAIDsupportorlackthereof) - so it was off to XP.
XP was decent - but it had a short viable lifespan left at the time I switched. I had one of the original socket 940 Opterons, and damned if I was going to run a shitty 32-bit OS on my glorious 64-bit processor. XP x64 Corporate solved this solution (and got around a lot of other XP problems) - but driver support never materialized. The basis worked well enough, but good fucking luck if you didn't want to buy a new printer. Or even if you did want to buy a new printer.
That and Direct X drove me to Windows Vista, which I've been quite happy with. Yes, I know, hurr, durr, Slashdolt rage, but Vista is no worse than XP was in terms of stability and annoyance. As for UAC, I'd like to know why it's a horrible thing on Vista, but perfectly acceptable to have idiot proofing on OS X and Ubuntu. Vista's UAC nonsense is no more intrusive than any other operating system that has an equivalent.
I suppose I'll be moving to 7 soon, as my current workstation is getting long in the tooth and I need something to run VMWare's management bullshit on. But this is it. I've seen Windows 8, and I will not partake in that frothing, chair-throwing monkey's dream. My kingdom for the return of Gates.
Windows 7 is the new XP windows 8 is the new vista.
windows 8 will bomb big time.
...for Experience Points. This version was supposed to have AD&D natively encoded into it.
Look, I'm typing this on a WinXP machine. I've got a WinXP laptop at home.
Sure, I make quad-core or octo-core Win7 dual boot machines for playing WoW, but why bother downgrading to a slower OS like the "upgrades" from WinXP?
We have Linux if we want real additional features.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The reason XP will continue to hold on is the Internet Explorer dependence that some large organizations have (IE 6 & 7 in particular). Microsoft really set internet development back by not continuing to keep their browser current, and when they finally did it was too late.
It was replaced with Flying Chair Ballmer.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Everything that came after is just dumbing down for the clueless masses.
business machine works. Windows 7 is resource heavy and would require a new machine. For now, will stay with XP. In a couple of years, when I get a new machine, I will get Windows 7 with it.
On *MY* slashdot?
Come you lame assholes. At least make a Steve Ballmer Borg logo.
Whoever made this decision has single-handedly caused slashdot to Jump The Shark, if this is not undone.
Windows 8 will bomb, but not for king of technical reasons that ME and Vista had. Win8 will bomb because MS decided to change shit around so much, that people still stuck XP may say something along the lines of... "I was going to replace my XP computer with Win7, but now that Win8 out, fuck it. I'm going Mac. I'm tired of MS moving the bar". I really think MS is slitting their own throat here with such an early release of -yet- another OS overhaul.
Life is not for the lazy.
Funny this story came out today. I just put a new hard drive in my desktop today and installed Windows 7 on it. I have
been using XP since beta. Now its going to be a bit of a pain to migrate my data over. There's no 1-step upgrade path
from XP to 7. Yes, I know about Windows Easy Transfer and will use it to copy the profiles over.
The primary, and just about sole reason for the new OS?
Battlefield 3.
No XP / directx 9 support. It also supports Vista, but I tried it in the past and hated the performance.
I have a feeling there are going to be many more "no DX9" games soon, including M$'s own "Flight".
Indeed, some of our lab's test equipment (specifically the Agilent oscilloscopes and network analyzers) use Windows XP embedded. When I saw what they were running it was a bit of a shock as I was conditioned to believe Linux was king on embedded systems and Windows didn't have anything to compete, but I guess that's what you get for reading Slashdot/Linux sites too much. Still, seems to work reasonably well.
Although I admit it's funny to turn on a AUD$50,000 network analyzer and see a system tray balloon complaining that automatic updates is not enabled. :)
To all newcomers - people here are very close-minded and can't handle complaints about Linux. Keep this in mind.
of about 15-20 Euro for an XP Professional license, its an excellent price/performane ration when it comes to selecting something for your VM to browse occasionally under IE. Most Software still supperts XP and the Hardware requirements are modest, so that its not a pain in the ass to run it just for printing, scanning, browsing incompatible websites, updating my phone, programming FPGAs or microcontrollers where the SW primarily supports windows.
It was a great operating system. I used to dual-boot between Win98SE and the original XP (in the pre-service pack days) on a 200mhz machine with 64MB of ram. 98 had the performance at the time, but XP had this rock-solid feel to it. I used it for development to avoid crashes, and played all my games and stuff over in 98.
But times change. It's not safe to run as administrator anymore, and XP handed that out by default. Doesn't matter how safe you think you are about running potentially bad stuff or opening attachments like in the old days. The vector for attack is the web, and any vulnerabilities your software will offer are going to get taken advantage of sooner or later. Didn't matter if you had IE or Firefox, they were both riddled with holes over the years. Even Opera, the security pro it was, had its share of problems too.
Vista introduced new technology to help with that, but was obviously a P.R. flub, allowing Windows 7 to come in and save the day. 7 is their greatest operating system to date. Granted, I disabled their OSX-wanna-be style of launcher and reverted it to the XP style quick launch icons. But the fact that they left me do that speaks to the configurability Microsoft still offers to people. You won't see Apple letting their users do anything to change the overall appearance like that. Hell, aside from adding a dock, even Apple themselves haven't really changed their appearance from the earliest Macs. Talk about being scared to try anything new.
Anyway, as someone who deals with Linux on a daily basis, and has every personal machine multi-boot to a Linux distro, Win7 is still my primary OS. But XP still set the bar for what I look for in a stable desktop operating system. My main PC can even still boot to XP, because on occasion I need hardware access I can't get in 7 as easily, for interfacing with custom electronics with Windows-based software. I have a feeling many other people will still find it useful for years to come, too.
Still waiting for a convincing reason to "upgrade" to Windows 7. Lots of flash but no speed increases a bunch of built in apps I didn't want + tons of annoying little changes that feel completely pointess (End Task - End process instead of End Task - Yes)
No one cares, but IMHO XP was (is) not really too bad.
I use Mac OS X––after having used DOS, and all of the previous Mac Systems thru 9––and frankly I don't like it so much.
Apple's hardware––regardless of what anyone says about it––is the best, but OS X is the least of the BSD's and ought to be replaced with a real one of those.
That's not exactly true. Or rather, it's spun in this sentence in such a way that suggests consumers are choosing 7 over XP -- they are not. They buy a new computer, it comes with whatever it comes with. There's no informed, nor conscious, choice for the most part. Most consumers don't have the skills to find an old copy of XP, wipe off 7 and re-install XP.
Businesses are making a conscious, informed decision. For the most part, there is no compelling business reason to upgrade to Windows 7. It adds very little utility, it's mostly an eye-candy shell for XP.
The "borg" Bill Gates was much better than just the Microsoft name.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to yoooou
Happy birthday dear XP
Happy birPAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
Windows 7 is the new XP windows 8 is the new vista.
windows 8 will bomb big time.
It will if Microsoft tries to cram that new Metro UI down user's throats. Methinks that sooner or later, they'll see the light, and Metro will be optional rather than the first thing you see.
MS has made some really good things, but this reminds me of their past efforts to start trends that just didn't ring with the public (remember Win 98 first edition's "Active Desktop Channels"?).
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
There are two types of operating systems.
Ones that age ,and ones that mature.
MS operating systems age.
It's pretty sad the 10 years is a long time for an operating system.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It gave me many hours/years of joyful biased windows/microsoft bashing. :) Not as good as when Windows 95/98 were still mainstream, but it was all I had. :{
James
You really think people using a (potentially) decade old computer are willing to put down more than $1k for a Mac which comes with a rather foreign stock interface and may not run software they already own because Microsoft 'raised the bar'? Really?
"Win8 out, fuck it. I'm going Mac"
In my case it will probably be, "I'm going Linux." I'm already looking at how many legacy apps my clients will be able to run through Wine on Linux. So far it looks like almost all of them will (unless the clients decide to upgrade their legacy software to the newest, greatest $10,000 version, which in their case will probably not happen since their old stuff works just fine).
like I just got pwn3d quicker than a ray of light.
XP saved everyone from ME-2 (Vista), after 98 SE saved everyone from ME. By 'everyone' I don't really mean Everyone of course, just those who had some app that the developers were too lazy to make multi-platform. I still run XP on some boxes because 7 is so overcomplicated.
Absolutely! Just about everyone remotely computer savvy had either heard from a friend that uses an Apple product, or knows of all the reviews through the media. "It just works" is more than a catch phrase. It's backed up with user experience. Imagine for a moment. You're next computer is going to force you to relearn a whole bunch of stuff. Knowing your past computing experience and knowing how easy it's been for new Apple users, would you not be the least bit interested in demoing a new Apple iMac? Think of how well it plays together with iPhone, Apple TV, MacBook, and all the other stuff. Most people surf the web anyways, and MS Office 2011 is available for those that need it.
I live in breath in the MS Windows world because it's my profession as an MSP (Manged Service Provider). I roll out Microsoft SBS boxes only because Apple has shunned this market. Their own server and corporate offering are anemic at best. But Apple is hoovering up the home user / consumer base. It's these people that are infiltrating the corporate world with Apple iDevices. But it will reach a tipping point in where Apple (in a very short period) will capture the SMB market in one fell swoop. As an MSP, I too will take the Apple plunge if only to better serve my clients and their needs.
And this is coming from someone who has been working in the MS World for over 15 years as a professional! I have no reason to poo-poo Apple products.
Life is not for the lazy.
I thought while I was doing some upgrades on my computer I might want to go ahead and take the plunge from XP to Windows 7. Sure, it would be a huge hassle, and a learning curve, but the time had come. Then I saw the price tag. Sorry, but for what they are offering, I realized I really wouldn't pay more than 50$ for.
Can I borrow your crystal ball please? I need some lottery numbers.
Microsoft had a nice coffin and a burial site carefully planned for XP. When sub 100$ notebooks with Linux appeared in the market and it was clear the designated successor Vista would not run on such puny machine, they hastily cut the noose and brought it down from the gallows and gave it another lease on life. Wonder what would have happened if that 100$ notebook had come after XP death process had moved too far to be rescued.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
TinyXP is even better than XP, stripped of bloat and uses only around 90mb of RAM
I thought the bible predicted 1000 years of Windows XP.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
I know my techie comrades like to bash XP for its inadequacies, but regaurdless, I personally feel that it was still a great OS. Ahh, the memories! Alas,
(Posting anonymously to avoid the wrath of IT director)
Our IT department is taking brand new laptops with Windows 7 and installing Windows XP. This is 100% legitimate under our enterprise license and 100% why XP will take so long to die.
Microsoft could help themselves immensely by talking to the enterprise blockheads and showing them that Windows XP is not teh shizz they think it is. But as long as they still have a supported allowable license downgrade to XP it ain't going to happen.
One reason why XP is still so prevalent in businesses is that stack of custom apps. With everything going to webapps and the cloud now, here's hoping that this will be the last time we have to worry about app compatibility. Hopefully some of these big companies have taken the hint and realized that if they have to sink all this effort into testing app compatibility, why not just take it a step further and put the app stack in the cloud and never have to worry about it again.
You are a visionary, and yet you are still in the basement on internet forums.
Still going strong.
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
We sell all brands of laptop power supply adapters,laptop batteries and laptop car chargers,if you need,welcome visit www.laptopadapters.com.au
In our case, it was Linux. We had already bought our workstations for the office (assembled from components off Newegg), and called up to get volume licensing on Win7, since we could only find volume OS upgrades on their action pack deal online. We were told we "weren't allowed" to build our own boxes; we had to buy hardware with OEM OS licenses, then upgrade from those. Standalone licenses were no longer offered, and the upgrade pack was in a similar price range that the full OS licenses were in the past.
No, Microsoft, you're not going to double-dip. We're now a Linux shop.
Had we not already purchased the hardware, Macs would have been a serious consideration. But Linux is chugging along fine with our network environment & applications. Meanwhile, the Mac Mini in the conference room being the only box that gives us grief. From my anecdotal input here & from others, a Mac is fine as long as it's a standalone or internet box. But once you start playing around with identities on LANs and get heterogeneous, you really battle the OS and have to dig into the half-BSD half-Apple nightmare under the pretty face.
If I had mod points and if you could spell I'd mod you up.
Win 2000 was more stable, really just Windows 5 a step up from Windows NT 4.
Windows ME was an abomination, the worst of both worlds.
Windows XP was really just a step up from Windows 2000, turning off themes and a few other trivial changes brought it right back to what users were comfortable from Win2k. Better Games support as you say.
Windows 7 is by all accounts more stable but even after you make tweaks it is still another set of differences and just generally a bunch of pain in the ass minor changes for little extra gain.
Microsoft is increasingly facing diminshing returns, older versions remain a bigger challenge to them than Linux. Same as it ever was.
You know, I've been totally against not "owning" software most of my life, but I now think the business model for MS is wrong. They should have two versions of Windows, the normal line of Windows they have always had, and a Windows Business edition that basically gets support, security updates, and the occasional service pack, but otherwise stays the same *forever*. For the Business edition, you have to subscribe (pay) to get updates, security, new drivers, etc.
MS makes it's money from the next big version and upgrades. Imagine not having to have a new version rammed down your throat when what you had already did everything you needed it to do. It would be easier on developers (at least those targeting businesses), too.
As long as MS didn't get crazy with the fees, I think it would be a happy compromise from the forced upgrade path.
In fact, I think this would be a good business model for Mozilla as well. I would pay money just to get a stable version that works...and just *stays* the freaking same.
It's not that I hate change. It's that I think they are forcing new features that don't need to be there just to stoke their egos. Businesses don't need that. They just need something that works and stays the same.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
We're rolling out Windows 7 on new machines, but we're not doing in-place upgrades on older boxes. We've finally got a good ghosting program to allow us to clone images, and as long as we order the same model for a batch of replacements and just change the Win7 and Office licenses and machine names it's working out pretty well. (Last batch was eight new machines for an OB/GYN office, all cloned and rolled out in a day.) Since the half life of most machines is about 5 years (fifty percent of machines will die within that 5 year span if they aren't properly cared for), it'll be a while before XP is gone for good.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
I run a fully updated XP Pro on an 8 year old IBM T41 & it's stable as a rock. I have my cellphone connected via bluetooth & a bluetooth earpiece on another bluetooth connection for Skype or music. VPN tunnelling through a USB dongle internet connection. It just works.
I once 'fixed' an XP Pro machine (an old Dell) by pulling one of the two 64MB RAM cards which was bad. XP Pro booted into 64MB of RAM with no difficulty, though it did thrash pagefile.sys. It ran Word and connected to the internet no problems.
Like to see Windows 7 do that.
Nico M, London, GB.
I once booted DOS 5.0 on 640K of RAM, ran full-screen games on it, loaded WordPerfect no problem, connected to the local BBS, no problem. Didn't even need a pagefile.sys for any of that..
Like to see Windows XP do that.
What's your point.. an old OS runs on old hardware.
On April 8, 2014, security patches and hotfixes for all versions of Windows XP will no longer be available. That basically means if you run it past that date, any exploit released out into the wild will not be patched, ever.
Furthermore, hardware vendors haven't consistently supported XP in years. Windows drivers are only forward-compatible, and Vista has been out since January 30, 2007, which is nearly 5 years. If you upgrade or purchase new hardware in any way, good luck with getting that to work in XP without installing old network and sound cards for starters. Even then, the performance is also going to be terrible on an OS tuned for 10-12 year old hardware and considers SATA to be exotic.
Don't expect software vendors to thoroughly support XP in the next 2 years or so, either, when XP usage will likely plummet to single digits like IE6 has in the past 2 years. The fact that a simple program like Paint.NET 4, due at the end of the year, won't support XP is a harbinger of this. At 10 years old, XP is like a Linux system stuck on Kernel 2.2, KDE 2.2, Xfree86 4.1, and GTK 1.2. The fact that such an old configuration is still supported to any extent and remains thoroughly tested by software developers is nuts. Like with web devs and IE6, most probably can't wait to drop it.
I think the best 3 reasons to upgrade to win7 64 bit from xp 64 bit are that it is a lot easier to run as non-admin all the time, Sandboxie runs on it, and TRIM support for SSDs. Those security advantages are significant and TRIM is nearly a necessity for SSDs.
It actually is possible to run XP as non-admin with the help of SuRun and other apps, but it can be a PITA since a significant percentage of apps need full admin rights to even run.
Compatibility issues are a mixed bag. My sound card won't run on Win 7 x64 due to a lack of driver support, but Adobe Premiere won't run on XP x64. So either way I can't run my favorite video editing software until/unless I buy new sound hardware which otherwise I just don't need and can't justify spending money on.
I triple boot XP x64, Win7 x64 Embedded and TinyCore-64 Linux. Once you tweak the win7 UI so that it is not as much of an OSX clone with that dock-like ribbon at the bottom and use a decent third party search tool and turn on the 'classic' theme, it's really not so bad, but I still find it takes me longer to do most things than in XP. Except for a faster boot time with win7 I haven't noticed a speed difference either way. At least not with the embedded version. 90% of the time I just boot to XP x64.
Although Win7 does have some security enhancements from WinXP, it is important to remember that both OSes are still from Microsoft and the security is abysmal. For online banking or any credit card purchases or email log-ins you should be using either Linux or OSX. Period.
If you use Windows for financial stuff you will get screwed eventually. It's just inevitable. It happened to me and I am uber-paranoid about security and use many of the best third party security apps. Now I only use Linux for anything financial. If I had a Mac or Hackentosh box I wouldn't be afraid to use that either.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Ohh... Thief....
-- no sig today
It runs nicely in a VM. Windows 7 as a guest OS is horrible. I'd imagine Microsoft will tackle this problem soon enough, though.
Ten years ago, XP was the first version of Windows, over an absolutely terrible ten years preceding it, that I never had to use. Windows 3.0 through 2000: at some point at work I had to boot them all. XP was in 2001, and by 2001 Microsoft was irrelevant.
seen anyone using those.)
Fuck you, 1990s. XP was the grave marker that I joyously danced on. I haven't gone visiting it to gloat lately, but thanks for reminding me that it's still there, but now with a decade of weathering and neglect, the corners of the stone a little more rounded and notched.
The nice thing about a corpse that old, is that you don't have to worry about it becoming a zombie. In 2001 we couldn't be sure Microsoft was going to stay gone.
You've obviously never integrated many companies into the Windows 3 experience: it was awesome. You will never feel what it's like to run Norton Desktop ontop of Windows, but you still can by getting it from a Gnutella or Torrent share and firing-up WINE with it default to that Desktop or you could always run Norton Desktop ontop of ReactOS.
That was how an OS gui was meant to be: it's almost like Mac OS with Windows 2000 in one. Before companies ran Quicken and Quickbooks, the accounting department ran my compiled QuickBasic program for the inventory and accounting management with Norton Desktop managing it. The only reason why my software and support was dumped was because GOVERNMENT and BANKS forced corporations to adopt these other companies' software because it made tax-collection easier. All it did was disqualify high-school students from working at my business because now they had to read into Uniform Commercial Code and Negotiable Instruments Law and some tax codes that Quicken and Quickbooks mandated, but there was Norton Desktop and my software in a business perspective that migrated the OS and software out of my control to require unnecessary education outside of the actual trades we deployed with the software for our needs. Microsoft and Government and Tax collections...add just one more called MPAA, no wait, add RIAA, no wait... it just keeps growing on the overhead. When will the government know the difference between my operation from their taxable corporate indoctrination? I can't even move around anymore without being taxed.
How about WINE with Norton Desktop?
Or ReactOS?
Nah, why XP when Win2000 is the same without Duplo Block letters?
I really miss the relatively desktop space saving "window manager" of those XPs. In Windows 7, there is a large bloat of various bars, ribbons, etc. On my 1280x1024 EIZO, I suddenly feel crammed like when I used to run Windows 2000 on those 800x600 old notebooks.
What the hell can't Microsoft finally deliver some "themes", one of them being "Windows XP" look?
Xtreme Programming – a slang description of the new c objects invented just prior to the time of .NET. Was meant to complement “X-Box, Direct X, etc.” Source: MSDN. Yet another version of events from these Washington State kids
The purpose of existence is to make money.
Win7 consumes too much resources for her laptop to cope, but XP is just dandy.
LOL I still have customers (plural) running Win2K who are not about to switch. Our products run minimally WinXP and they had to get a special dispensation from their COO to run XP for our product. And we told them recently we're planning on dropping WinXP soon due to the cost of support. Sort of freaked them out.
Consumers have been quicker to ditch XP for Windows 7 while businesses hem and haw and slowly test a decade's-worth of custom apps on Windows 7.
Consumer's haven't been given a choice..Businesses do have a choice.
Just because 90% of laptops are grey doesn't mean that 90% of people would buy a grey laptop if they had a choice.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Windows 7 has a built-in RAM diagnostic...
No sig today...
It appears you didn't ever use it before SP2.
Also by the way, I'm using an Enlightenment desktop theme that I've been using since 1998, some time before XP - and in a few ways it actually resembles Windows 7 ( WTF is this bullshit about catchup?) Gnome and KDE were not as bad as you pretend back then either, it was after 2000 after all.
Speed? WTF? Ever wondered why numerical processing is only done on highly stripped down versions of MS Windows if it's done on that platform at all? Take a look at your task manager application some time and learn about MS Windows.
Surprised this isn't in a +5 comment already: I think XP's longevity is explained by the era of "good enough" computers in the 2000s. In the 1990s, every year or so, you had to upgrade your computer to run new programs and use new hardware. This drove the treadmill with Win95, 98, 98b (what was that called? the USB support upgrade), 2000, XP. MS added new features like SMP and USB, and hardware was upgraded. Most people needed a new computer every year.
In the 2000s, computers were "good enough" that there was no reason to upgrade. No one has come up with a "killer app" for consumers who do word processing, e-mail, and web browsing that would make them upgrade their machines. Throw in three recessions (01, 05, and 08), and businesses have had little reason to upgrade, either. So XP's longevity is largely by accident.
Sure, people like me want 64-bit computers with 16GB of RAM, but for the normal user, that's ridiculous. Any old dual-core machine from the past decade with 2GB of RAM is fine for what the 99% do. The 1% of us who run Linux and develop software can build Core i7 machines.
Other than that, not much has changed. If you've noticed, progress has basically stopped. If you look at Gnome 3, FireFox, Windows 7 - all they do is rearrange things. Are there any compelling new features? If it doesn't have eye candy, add it (FireFox). If it has eye candy, remove it (Chrome). If you don't have anything new, rearrange everything randomly (Gnome 3 and Windows 7). USB devices are cheap and plentiful, and new standards like Thunderbolt are slow to take off because USB is "good enough".
XP works good enough.
Though, i'll try XP 64 on newer PCs, or upgrade straight to 64bit Linux.
I booted NT 3.51 with 12MB of RAM. That seems unbelievable today.
Of course, it didn't work well, but it did work.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
The public computers at my college's campus library are running XP with Active Desktop enabled - just to show a static image. I only know this because some of them have the lovely Active Desktop error screen for a background. They also made the genius decision of upgrading to huge widescreen monitors without changing the resolution to match - 1024x768 on a 1920x1080 monitor is hideous.
What's your point..
Our "point" is that this knee-jerk Microsoft / XP bashing is tired. XP is, by and large, a stable, reliable workhorse.
XP + nLite = what do you need more ?
Recipes for USA bankrupt - http://tinypaste.com/0d66f dd = dollar deluge (printed in the infinity)
Imagine for a moment. You're next computer is going to force you to relearn a whole bunch of stuff. Knowing your past computing experience and knowing how easy it's been for new Apple users, would you not be the least bit interested in demoing a new Apple iMac?
No. I'd go for Linux, which a lot of "computer savvy" people would have recommended me, because it's free in every sense of the word and support for older hardware and software will be there, which , if I've kept XP for over 10 years, it's something I'd be interested in.
Oblivion Awaits
I was at Microsoft when XP was developed and released. It stood for eXtra sPecial. It was to come in a crispy version as well, but a horrible schmelting accident and a multi-million dollar lawsuit later, that was canned, and the eXtra sPecial moniker was shamefully retired.
I primarily use Linux at work but I have a Windows gaming rig. I upgraded to Win 7 to take advantage of the DX11 performance increase. I was less than delighted to find that most games ran slower in Win7.
I'm a Mac OS X user at home and XP SP3 still does the job for me, both as a bootcamp OS, and as a VM OS under Parallels and Virtualbox.
At work, we still use XP on all of our workstations and IE8.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
FWIW, I worked there at the time, and never heard that "chi-rho"explanation.