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."

Comments

Re:"XP"

[lgw]

I thought XP stood for Chi Rho (the greek letters it looks like), a pun on the project name "Cairo".

Re:not happy to ditch for windows 7

[rwade]

Win7 is worlds better for everything except the file manager - somehow that has gotten worse in every release since 3.1.

Perhaps my single largest annoyance with Windows 7 -- and there are few, honestly -- is the file manager's sorting "memory".

Let's say that:

1. I have one folder that's full of spreadsheets in which the most relevant of them is the most recent -- in such a case, I would want that folder sorted by the "date modified" field.
2. I have another folder in which there are files of a few different types with which alphabetical sorting is more appropriate.

In Windows XP, if I set folder #1 to be sorted by the "date modified" field, it remembered it for that folder. If I left alphabetical sorting for every other folder, it remembered that too.

In Windows 7, if I set folder #1 to be sorted by the "date modified" field, it applies that setting to any folder I should happen to look at.

Annoying.

Re:God enough

[PRMan]

Incorrect. Windows Server 2003 32-bit goes up to 64 GB. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa366778(v=vs.85).aspx

The reason XP/Vista/7 32-bit is limited to 4GB is because there are so many badly-written drivers that assume they will be in a physical 4GB address space, that there was no way for Windows to change it without massive bluescreens from old drivers.

To use up to 64 GB, apps and drivers have to be written to access all memory through a 2GB sliding Physical Address Extension window.

Re:God enough

[petermgreen]

The thing with windows XP professional x64 edition* is that it has a VERY small installed base and so many software and perhipheral vendors don't care about it. Most often the stuff works anyway with drivers intended for 64-bit vista/win7 but sometimes it doesn't (for example the NI mydaq doesn't work) and sometimes it sorta works (for example the DT9816 will work with the low level API but not with the high level API).

It was not until vista that MS really started trying to pressure vendors to support x64 (though their "designed for" logo program).

*BTW "XP 64-bit edition" was the version for the Itanium. and "XP professional x64 edition" is really 2K3 (NT 5.2) under the hood.