RSSWindows XP forever? The OS that just won't die
By Carmi Levy | Published August 6, 2009, 2:07 PM
Microsoft has a problem on its hands. Or more precisely one problem with three seemingly contradictory components:
- Windows XP is too good for its own good.
- It needs to die for the company's sake.
- It won't die because nothing else -- not even Windows 7 -- currently approaches it.
We're closing in on eight years since XP first hit the market and began the long process of making us finally forget we ever used Windows 95, 98, and Windows Me. By anyone's standards, it's been one of Microsoft's most visibly successful products. It still runs on some 60% of all PCs years after it was supposed to have been retired as a front-line offering. It's sold around 800 million copies since its initial release. And if piracy is the sincerest form of flattery, hundreds of millions more illegal copies are in use across the globe. In an age where icons are in desperately short supply, this is as iconic a product as it gets.
Dragging on the future
The problem with XP is this: The longer it sticks around and continues to tug at the heartstrings of end-users and corporate IT decision-makers alike, the bigger a drag it becomes on Microsoft's bottom line. For a company accustomed to earning triple-digit revenue from every OS it sells, Microsoft can't be pleased with the paltry $30 or so it makes from each retail sale of XP. Although Microsoft obviously recognizes that $300 netbooks and $400-to-$500 mainstream laptops mean the good old days of high margin OS sales are over, it still wants us to add Windows 7 to our wish list to continue to drive its Windows revenue stream, albeit at a reduced rate.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, buyers don't seem to have latched on to the need to upgrade. If it ain't broke, the saying goes, don't fix it. And XP ain't broke by a longshot, so cost-sensitive consumer and enterprise buyers don't have much incentive to make the jump just yet. Like Vista before it, they'll get a new OS when they buy new hardware or refresh their client environments. But as long as they're either filing for unemployment benefits or laying off workers, new hardware won't be their top priority. Even if they're still gainfully employed, upgrading will take a back seat to keeping their heads above water.
Increasingly, a marginally more capable new technology platform is seen as a want and not a need. As good as Windows 7 seems to be, Microsoft needs to convince the rest of the world that it offers more than a marginally better value proposition for recession-weary buyers.
Good enough is good enough
Microsoft's value proposition for Vista -- more features, more capability -- was hatched when market conditions were significantly more positive than they are now. The message has fallen largely flat in an era when consumers are increasingly questioning whether bigger really is better. The positioning of Windows 7 as a leaner and meaner alternative that plays just as nicely with low-end netbooks as it does full-on workstations is designed to make us forget about the company's missteps in positioning Vista as the heir apparent. But in doing so, Microsoft has prompted a growing realization that it already has such a lean-and-mean, all-things-to-all-people product, and it's called Windows XP.
XP is a good enough operating system that despite early deservedly rave reviews of Windows 7 (and positive comments from Betanews), many friends and colleagues with whom I associate are quietly ignoring Windows 7, and hoping to stick with XP for as long as their current hardware holds out. If the Windows franchise has had a backbone through the somewhat stomach churning Vista era, XP has been it. It's not a product that will go quietly into the night.
Despite XP's position at the center of Microsoft's OS universe, though, it isn't immune to long-term reality. At some point, every OS fades from the landscape. Just last week, the ancient Compaq Contura 486-based laptop with the glorious trackball that I had been using as an occasional note-taking machine finally bit the dust, and the era of DOS 6 and Windows 3.1 came to an end for me. As ancient as this OS platform was, it just worked, and it fit the relatively simple needs that surrounded its continued, if dusty, existence.
Is XP Microsoft's saviour?
Windows XP isn't nearly so dusty, so it's infinitely more capable than my admittedly Pre-Cambrian Windows 3.1-based machine of existing on its own in a home or office setting in the absence of anything newer. It connects to the Internet, corporate network resources, and a large enough cross-section of PCs and peripherals. With a bit of administrative oversight to ensure all the latest patches, fixes, and updates are applied, it's relatively secure, too. And unlike most versions of Vista, XP runs nicely on all that older hardware still hanging around because recession-challenged end-users and IT shops believe they're too budget-challenged to replace it.
“If the Windows franchise has had a backbone through the somewhat stomach churning Vista era, XP has been it. It's not a product that will go quietly into the night.” |
We're barely a couple of months away from general availability for Windows 7. Even then, it'll take months before we know how successful it is. Microsoft's betting the company on this new OS because it has no choice. If it can't keep folks buying new versions of Windows, it'll need to find a new business to replace it, and fast. But the overwhelming success of its legacy XP brand, coupled with the market's newfound focus on frugality and sensibility, could derail this plan before it even gets off the ground.
The value proposition for Windows 7 needs to be compelling enough to get the legions of Windows XP users convinced that good enough is no longer good enough. That's easier said than done, and given XP's cockroach-like survival skills, it's anybody's guess as to whether Microsoft will be able to pull it off.
Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.
"Next thing you will try to prove is that the ribbon interface increases productivity".
U mean like OpenOffice is doing?
http://wiki.services.ope...jpg/778px-Prototype.jpg
And Koffice 2.0?
http://www.koffice.org/w.../2009/05/kword-text.png
or do you prefer we go backwards like GIMP which is stuck with a Win 3.x style MDI?
Score: 0
|PC_Tool, looks like he might be a little "biased". I found a little review of Windows 7 from him:
http://fileforum.betanew...231525922/1?all_reviews
"Artem Tashkinov Reviewing Release Candidate 1 (RC) (May 5, 2009)
Vista SE.
The same bloat, slightly faster, even more cluttered GUI with a lot of XP functionality abandoned.
I will stay with XP (only for games - my primary OS is Linux) till 2014.
It gets 3 only because it's rock stable and has the most software in the world. It's nowhere near 5 (which means perfect in terms of Betanews)."
If you're going to be a Linux Zealot, have the decency to stop using Wine and dual booting for windo$e software.
Artem, why not come to our site:
http://linuxhaters(dot)blogspot(dot)com/
Score: 1
|1) We *have* applications that don't run in Vista/Win7. What's YOUR point?
---That is what the Virtual XP is for. As the Network Administrator for a small bank, we have a couple of programs that don't run under Vista/Win7. I have found that they actually run better under a virtual machine than they did on a regular system. Thankfully the Federal Reserve has moved away from these systems and supports them for legacy systems. (Now just to convice the higher ups at the bank to move to the newer java based system).
2) We *have* hardware which is STILL (and never will be) not supported (at all or supported poorly) under Vista/Win7. Analog AC97 cards are not supported under Vista and Win7. Older Intel GPUs are barely usable under Vista and Win7 (XP with vesa (standard) GPU driver works faster, than that Intel crap with its drivers under Vista and Win7).
--You do realize that AC97 is an interface specification, and not a brand of chip, right? There are multiple AC97 drivers for multiple AC97 chips, including your favorite RealTec. My biggest sound headaches were with the VIA and Yamaha AC97 chipsets. The AC97 specification was superseded in 2004. For what it is worth, I still have trouble finding working drivers for my Lexmark Multifunction Printer I bought in 2002. For some reason, companys don't update drivers for obsolite hardware.
3) We *have* a lot of PCs with just 512MB of RAM. Vista and Win7 are barely usable on them. Do you suggest buying extremely expensive DDR-1 and SD-Ram memory modules?
--I feel your pain here. Last year, we upgraded the RAM in some of our systems. We eventually decided it was cheaper to buy new PC's than it was to upgrade the RAM. (I don't remember the exact prices, but something like 2GB DDR-2 RAM for around $30 vs PC2100 512MB module for around $100. WoW!! ;-)
In XP there's just TWO mouse clicks required to view connection properties.
For level up you have to CLICK exactly nad sharply the folder which is one level up where in XP there's a BIG BUTTON always in ONE place. Certainly you have no idea what UI suitability is.
---It took me a bit to get used to it, but I have come to the conclusion that 'breadcrumbs' have been a lot easier to use. Instead of having to click a button multiple times, you just click on the 'breadcrumb' in the address bar to get to the folder you want.
Next thing you will try to prove is that the ribbon interface increases productivity. I'll tell you this: 100% of advanced users and 95% of usual users around me HATE the ribbon interface, because they CANNOT set it up such a way to get all required buttons and actions in the same place.
--I'm not sure who you are talking to for your information, but I doubt that 100% of advanced users hate the ribbon interface. (I'm an advance user, and I love it, so I know it's not 100% ;-) I have to admit, I did NOT like it at first, and 100/95% may be accurate for "initial" reaction. However, after using it for a while, I find that the grouping is actually helpful. Instead of clicking through multiple menus to find the option or tool I want, I click on the tab and it brings up the ribbon with all the options I want. Yes, it took some time to get used to it, but once I figured it out, it actually seems quicker to me.
And you know what - in the next office Microsoft will bring BACK the classical UI. Keep on defending stupid counterproductive decisions made by Microsoft.
--I'm not sure which beta version you are using, but the screen shots I have seen, and the articles I have read point to the Ribbon being around for the forseeable future. In fact, The ribbon has been added to Outlook. The one thing that is missing, and I understand to be added to the next version, is the ability to custimize and create your own Ribbon.
5) You have NOT answered my question, instead you brought some BS. Keep on BS'ing. 100% Vista/win7 notebooks around me never cease access to the HDD no matter what the OS age is. So you are definitely BS'ing me. And believe me XP works just fine without that searching BS, which creates a huge cache on the HDD and never shrinks that cache, because that search engine doesn't keep track of deleted files.
Keep on defending Microsoft but stop BS'ing me. I still administer a hundred of workstations while you seem like blowing your organization budget out of proportion just to run that new meaningless BS Microsoft keeps on producing since Vista was out.
I will not debate with you any longer.
Score: 1
|In the main, no truer words ever written re: MS systems. Only NT (the basis for XP) ever approached the reliability and stability....and it's by no means what it should be.
Score: 1
|Nobody laughs twice the same joke. Microsoft should be more realistic and accept the truth: we are not in the nineties any more, and computing now is not what it was in its old golden years. In the old times computing was something new and most of us felt a real passion for it: we were literally expecting any new Microsoft product to buy it if we could, or to find a pirate copy of it when it was too expensive for our budgets.
Today passion is away and most of us don't feel any wish to pay attention to the OS. The computer became an essential part in our work and we'd rather dedicate our time to our daily work.
Their worst enemy is the excellency of their past products, and in special their best work, the worldwide master Windows XP. They should respect it, which means respect us, and find new ways to increase their profits instead of proposing doubtful alternatives.
No matter how great a corporation is, it should never forget that they are are in the hands of their customers, and not the opposite.
Score: 1
|Let's put the facts straight.
The core of a default Windows XP installation consumes around 115MB of RAM, while both Win7 and Vista consume at least 650MB. Do I need to say more?
Most businesses still run PCs with 512MB-1GB of RAM on average. Can you imagine them replacing rock solid XP with an OS that consumes more RAM than any other and-user application? OS should always be an OS - a *thin* layer between hardware and user applications. Somehow Microsoft decided that bells are whistles are far more important that the core OS efficiency.
Let's reiterate other things mentioned before:
1) Application compatibility. While XP runs pretty much everything, Vista and Win7 are still not suitable for corporate environment (trust me - I administer over a hundred workstations).
2) Drivers problems. A lot of hardware hasn't seen drivers for Vista, let alone Win7. (E.g. Analog Devices AC97 - never buy that sh*t, buy Realtek and only Realtek).
3) Huge memory requirements (both RAM and HDD space).
4) Spoiled user interface. In Vista and Win7 Microsoft decided to remove some UI elements, reworked others and the end result is (IMO) terrible.
Where's (level) up button in Explorer?
Where's a simple network information window?
Where's a simple network connections control panel?
Why cannot I disable hibernation file from the UI no longer?
and so on and so forth.
Many, too many UI elements were reworked to become ... less usable.
5) HDD madness. Have you ever noticed that both Vista and Win7 never stop accessing your HDDs? What kind of power efficiency Microsoft is raving about?
Score: 2
|1,) We administer multiple sites running a wide variety of BI applications. The *vast* majority of them run just fine in Windows 7. Anecdotal vs. anecdotal.
2.) Vista was launched with very little hardware support. Windows 7 builds on the existing hardware support for Vista (which has improved *greatly* since launch) as well as support far more legacy hardware than Vista did OOB.
3.) People are running Win7 on 512GB of RAM on 8GB disks just fine. That's merely *double* the Requirements of XP....what...8 years ago now?
4.)
Level-up: It's in the address bar, only better. You can go up to 5 or 6 up with one click instead of 5 or 6. :)
Network Information: Right-click network interface in system tray, open network and sharing center, and from there you can change adapter settings, view status, IP w/e. Networking in Win7 is "set-it-and-forget-it".
Disable Hibernate: Advanced Power Option (Control Panel) - Set "Hibernate after" to "Never". Set "Allow Hybrid Sleep" to "Off". Click "OK".
"and so on and so forth" ...are the "so on and so forth" as misinformed as the one's you listed?
5.) Have you compared HDD usage of Win7 and XP 5 days after a Win7 install? No? Have you compared them without Indexing enabled in Win7? Have you compared them with WDS 4 installed in XP? Do you have the slightest clue what you're talking about?
"Let's put the facts straight."
OK. Got any? You nailed all the classic troll talking points, but seemed to have missed the "facts" bit you were referring to. :)
Score: -1
|You are the lamest troll ever.
1) We *have* applications that don't run in Vista/Win7. What's YOUR point?
2) We *have* hardware which is STILL (and never will be) not supported (at all or supported poorly) under Vista/Win7. Analog AC97 cards are not supported under Vista and Win7. Older Intel GPUs are barely usable under Vista and Win7 (XP with vesa (standard) GPU driver works faster, than that Intel crap with its drivers under Vista and Win7).
3) We *have* a lot of PCs with just 512MB of RAM. Vista and Win7 are barely usable on them. Do you suggest buying extremely expensive DDR-1 and SD-Ram memory modules?
In XP there's just TWO mouse clicks required to view connection properties.
For level up you have to CLICK exactly nad sharply the folder which is one level up where in XP there's a BIG BUTTON always in ONE place. Certainly you have no idea what UI suitability is.
Next thing you will try to prove is that the ribbon interface increases productivity. I'll tell you this: 100% of advanced users and 95% of usual users around me HATE the ribbon interface, because they CANNOT set it up such a way to get all required buttons and actions in the same place.
And you know what - in the next office Microsoft will bring BACK the classical UI. Keep on defending stupid counterproductive decisions made by Microsoft.
5) You have NOT answered my question, instead you brought some BS. Keep on BS'ing. 100% Vista/win7 notebooks around me never cease access to the HDD no matter what the OS age is. So you are definitely BS'ing me. And believe me XP works just fine without that searching BS, which creates a huge cache on the HDD and never shrinks that cache, because that search engine doesn't keep track of deleted files.
Keep on defending Microsoft but stop BS'ing me. I still administer a hundred of workstations while you seem like blowing your organization budget out of proportion just to run that new meaningless BS Microsoft keeps on producing since Vista was out.
I will not debate with you any longer.
Score: 0
|A hibernate file will NOT go after what you suggested to do.
Have you even tried it?
To fully disable hibernation you have to run cmd.exe with Administrator privileges and run "powercfg -H" command. In XP you could do that in the display properties panel with just a few mouse clicks.
You are pathetic in defending Microsoft, because you don't even have knowledge of their OSes.
Score: 0
|"You are pathetic in defending Microsoft, because you don't even have knowledge of their OSes."
*laughing*
"I will not debate with you any longer."
It's not a debate. It's you making grandiose generalizations and me correcting you.
FWIW?
1.) I nevcer said it supports all applications. You claimed it is not suitable for the corporate environment (an incorrect generalization). I provided input to the contrary. Both are anecdotal and completely worthless, but mine, at least, was not an over-generalization. BTW: SAP and Cognos work *fine* in Windows 7. (that's called a statement of fact)
2.) I *never* said it supported all hardware. Never. I said it supported *more*, in reponse to your statement regarding poor hardware support. Windows 7 supports more devices OOB than even XP did. This is fact, not anecdotal generalized BS (your mode of "debate").
3.) Did I suggest you upgrade? Where? You stated Windows 7's hardware requirements were horrible. I gave evidence to the contrary. By today's standards, your hardware is horrible...not the requirements. Big difference.
4.) 1 click vs. 5-6 is more usable to you in one instance and 3 vs 2 is more usable to you in another....and you wonder why MSFT doesn't design a UI around *your* usage patterns? Get some perspective.
5.) Pointless. You lack basic understanding of the OS.
Hibernation: That series of steps worked wonderfully for me on a brand new Dell e6400. Perhaps you can't follow basic instruction.
Score: 0
|The only real issue that matter is compatability. Vista and even windows 7 just sometimes wont work with older programs or games. Sure it's not microsofts fault, cause its the developer that needs to update there software. But still cause microsoft felt the need and the need was great to makes big chances to the OS, the problem is there. Most people live by the simple rule that they want it just to work. They dont wanna hear that there 8 year old game of software wont work. They still want it to. In alot of ways windows 7 is the best yet. But nothing is perfect. There are UI changes to windows 7 that just piss me off. I will have to live with it i guess. Cause i live in the here and now. And Windows XP or Vista is the past.
Score: -1
|sure microsoft has a variety of products "but"
xp will likely be remembered as bill gates greatest achievements before he retired.
it is by all accounts "the standard" of true productivity, connectivity and proficiency.
vista, win7, etc.... are simply gimmicks - os's with pretty graphics but nothing effectual that people need or want to have, except for making a statement.
frankly, if anyone wants to make a statement, then they need to buy apples.
Score: -4
|I clicked "show" on internetworld7's comment just so I can vote them down. This feature is awesome.
Score: 2
|I think he just broke some sort of record.
Score: 2
|-28 and counting.......
Score: 1
|__Win 3.1 flies like the Millenium Falcon in Hyperspace on my i7!
3.1 forever! PacMan forever!
Score: 1
|70% btw according to 3 current statistics maintaining organizations: http://en.wikipedia.org/...g_systems#Summary_table 70% is pretty powerful.
Score: 1
|These numbers reflect pretty much what I see in the repair shop.
Score: 1
|It's already been stated that performance on a netbook, which was example I was giving to explain that not all usage scenarios benefit from an Os upgrade, for one has already been shown to not yield any realistic advantage with W7 over XP or Vista.
Performance on a system that is primarily used for the odd word document, browsing the web and checking web-mail isn't really a ball breaker for any system (hence the existence of netbooks in the first place) and so again there is little advantage to upgrading your Os for those types of roles.
I do agree that installing w7 on a decent system will allow it to outperform vista but if it is a gaming rig the chances are you could tweak XP to outperform both (another example of why a newer Os isn't always a good idea for some usage scenarios).
Score: 0
|Having installed Windows7 on a netbook for reference purposes and shown it to a colleague (It had vista on it previously), she took one look at it and said so what has changed that I need to know about...
...to which I couldn't really list anything significant.
I quess the point i'm trying to make is that for certain types of systems an upgrade is just not needed. In this case a web-browsing laptop doesn't benefit at all realistically except for perhaps a tiny bit more battery life (looks like an extra 5-10 minutes over 5 1\2 hours).
Sure their is a new IE but I could install IE8 on XP or Vista if I wanted to so there is no benefit to use it on a perfectly acceptable system that is running ok as it is.
Score: -1
|Performance dizzy_davidh. Windows 7 run a lot faster than Vista. Good reason enough to upgrade. Vista is such a hog.
Score: 0
|i got vista ultimate on master and xp on slave, both on the p4.
xp flies like at warp drive
vista is not all that impressive.
perhaps, i will simply buy a vista transformation pack for xp.
if win 7 comes out as a transformation pack i'll get that too for xp.
why pay hundreds when a few dozen dollars will fit work just fine.
Score: -3
|XP will die eventually by attrition, but this is still way down the road. I doubt you will see a large decline before the end of support in 2014.
I'm a computer builder. I still have a large stock of XP licenses, and I sell a dozen or so every week. BTW I sold one Vista PC since it came out, 2 and half years ago. Sold around 600 new PCs with XP in the same period.
Score: 1
|Vista was a dog but Windows 7 is acceptable. Being one of the couple hundred million people who used an illegal copy of XP, it's about time I got a legal copy. Microsoft have been quite open and generous in giving out W7 when it reached RC and I appreciate that. It's been heavily discounted for pre-order and £99 for W7 Pro is not too shabby. I love XP but I think in 5yrs time W7 will be the dominant os as users and IT will just skip Vista. Yes XP will hang around just like NT and 2K did but W7 will become dominant I've no doubt.
Score: 0
|Windows 7 runs just as well as XP on older/slower hardware....the key words here are 'older/slower hardware'. XPs popularity will scale back when 7 goes mainstream. Vistas one BIG problem was not being able to run well on slower or aged systems (especially Nvidia based, which never made Vista drivers for some of their chipsets)....because of this, many people (and netbook OEMs) resorted to using XP which obviously runs like a champ on hardware made 4/5/6+ years later. Windows 7 on the other hand supports pretty old hardware, and runs well on aged CPUs and with 512mb/1gb RAM (low by today's standards).
I truly believe that next year we'll see XP lose some steam, and 7 will be huge.
Score: 0
|"Windows 7 runs just as well as XP on older/slower hardware....the key words here are 'older/slower hardware'."
Do you have benchmarks to back this up?
There are 20 years of variable here. What specifically do you mean by older/slower? The average age of desktops where I work is just under 3 years, and are P IV HT 3.0 GHz machines.
Score: 0
|"The average age of desktops where I work is just under 3 years, and are P IV HT 3.0 GHz machines."
Should run just fine, but if you have XP on them already, why bother (Unless you need DirectAccess or some such)? Migrate as you replace them.
FWIW: It runs just fine on a single-core Athlon 1.6GHz with 1GB of RAM...better than XP which is what got replaced on that lappy. Anecdotal, of course, so...
Score: 1
|Windows 3.1x was only put to bed last year in some markets due to it's continued use in embedded systems such as kiosks, check-outs etc. (1992\93 through to 2008 - not a bad run).
Suffice to say, if there is a purposefull use for a product why not use it. The ethic of newer is better doesn't apply to everyone in the world in many cases and so if XP lives on until 2015 or longer who would really care?!).
AS an example the British Royal Navy have multiple systems onboard many of it's vessels that was specially designed for the purpose which is known as 'Windows for Warships' which is based on legacy NT, 2000 and XP systems (depending on the age of the vessel).
http://www.theregister.c..._warships_hits_type_23s/
Vessels launched just this year have a system based on XP.
Score: 0
|excellent point
Score: 0
|How can people compare to the transition from 98 to XP? Everyone knew Windows 2000 was way better then 98 in terms of Stability. It prove one thing, it doesn't matter if your desktop is pretty, it doesn't matter if it could have higher software compatibility and run more apps. If your Desktop will not function properly, then it is useless.
Win 98, or even Win Me, was like the only choice on PC. Some decided to switch to Win 2000, for those who need games, they could only stick to Win Me. Nearly Everyone knows Win 2000 was many times stabler then 98. And XP was an improved version of Win 2000 with 98 compatibility add in.
The change was huge, i could still remember how many news site reporting they no longer need to reboot, no BSOD, no Ctrl-Alt-Del for months. Many people were used to do CtrlAltDel everyday. if not every few hours.
Reinstalling Win98 was like a every week / month procedure. There are many things gone wrong that fixing would require much more time then Clean install.
When was the last time you did Clean Install of XP and CtrlAltDelto reboot? In my scale, i average out do around 20 - 30 reboot per month in 98. And properly less then 5 in XP, or even less when SP1 arrived. That is more then 5 times improvement. As a matter of fact, I remember my record of NO BSOD and no Reboot for 6 months. That is a staggering improvement compare to Win98.
Windows Vista and Windows 7 does improve on that, but no way near to that scale. People then think in terms of other benefits that Windows 7 pricing brings and compromise.
Score: 2
|Vista just had to many initial problems to compete with XP - So lots of people got onto the XP bandwagon.. W7 however will change this I think.. XP will fade away just as all the others have in the past.
Score: 2
|i hope for the sake of moving forward, Win 7 will provide useful and a great platform to build upon, early betas and now current RTM has shown that thus far. But it will take a while for XP, as stable and developed platform it is, to fade away like the others. I think Win 7 needs to be around for a while, become as proven stable as XP now is before people will consider making a switch. That or once the majority buy new PCs with OEM Win 7 on it, will we start seeing a vast majority switch. I however favor Win 7 fully. So glad to be rid of Vista yet keeping some nice new usability features in a MUCH FASTER environment! yay for moving forward.
Score: 2
|This is an article deeply looking at the challenges XP presents for Microsoft. I don't think any company made a product so successful that it might hurt them in the future...and for the benefit of your Mac-retard brains...XP was done by Microsoft and not Apple...No OS can come close the domination and popularity of XP. More than a billion people use it...
So Mactards, don't troll and strut your warez here...and waste everybody's time.
Score: 2
|LOL. Thank God I'm on a Mac.
Score: -36
|And how is that relevant to the conversation?
Score: 1
|And I'm on Linux. Your point?
Score: 0
|-26 (make that 27...)
New record?
Score: 1
|M$ will at some point stop supporting XP or charge for service packs. Think more like apple..(but Windows users are not as rich as apple users) But they might also have the same problem with Office 2003 also..
Score: -12
|XP will die for a simple reason. It is XP x86 that is popular, not XP x64. The 32-bit XP won't go beyond addressing a little over 3 gb of RAM. As new computers come out, they will naturally tend to have Windows 7 x64 installed in them, because they will gradually have more RAM. It's a good enough OS to make manufacturers comfortable in adopting them. I doubt it'll last for the entire Windows 7 lifecycle as it did with Vista. As for older machines, then yes, it's hard to justify the upgrade.
Score: 0
|32-bit's 4 GB limit is a licensing limitation by MS. It has already been patched. See http://www.remkoweijnen....ore-than-4-gb-of-memory/ XP patch is coming soon.
Score: -5
|Please dont post stupid garbage that makes people's intelligence disappear.
Score: -10
|It only addresses it is there, it still will not use more then 4 GB, this is a limit of the 32 bit architecture which has nothing to do with Windows.
Score: 3
|Actually, Intel CPUs can address more than 4 GB in 32-bit mode by using PAE. Windows already makes use of PAE to enforce the NX bit (and used it to address more than 4 GB of RAM in some products such as Windows 2000 Advanced Server). More info on PAE here: http://en.wikipedia.org/...sical_Address_Extension
However, be advised that this method is slower than using real 64-bit addressing, so this should only be seen as a cheap workaround.
Score: 0
|Windows 2003 enterprise 32 bit edition is using officially 32 GB ram, without patch...
http://en.wikipedia.org/...2003#Enterprise_Edition
Score: 1
|Totally wrong.
32bit addressing is the limitation, not the OS - Only true 64 Bit OS really gets around this limitation. The kernal isnt designed for more than this.
Score: 0
|Someone must have missed the part that said that PAE allowed 36-bit addressing at the hardware level... Therefore the limit becomes the OS, not the hardware.
Score: 0
|PAE is slower than native (true) 64bit addressing.
Score: 0
|OSs are for running apps. XP does this well. Add 8 years of a stable platform, and you won't see people move off of it for quite some time.
There is very little Vista or 7 adds that makes those apps designed for XP to run significantly better where the labor, training, and migration effort is worth it. Windows 7 has some great troubleshooting tools, but XP doesn't even need the tools. Add an economy that is forbidding many companies from spending money beyond essentials, and you have a hesitant environment for migration.
I think IT likes Windows 7, but I think management has some difficulty swallowing the pill. Does Microsoft want to spend the money for our company to be trained? The XP mode included is still work for IT to test and migrate, you might as well put forth that effort into migrating your apps native.
Score: 2
|People have just gotten accustomed to Microsoft's tactics. Half of the features in XP don't work like they should (ever had success restoring a deleted file?), half of the features in Vista don't work (ever had luck burning a DVD with their built in burning software?) and Windows 7 will be the same way. My Mac is far from perfect but at least it works like it's supposed to.
Score: -21
|I have restored files in XP 10-20 times, and burnt hundreds of disks in Windows Vista using their built in burning software (which is the fastest way I know to put a disk in and have the data on disc, period.)
Your Mac is great, if not a tad pricey. The company that makes it is crap, however. I find Apple more evil than Microsoft at it's worst. That is saying A LOT.
Score: 9
|Actually I've restored 100's of file, if not thousands over the years. And the Vista DVD burning works 100% of the time, unless you have a piece of hardware that is not compatible.
Score: 0
|Seams like everyone forgot of the time when Windows XP was released. When It came out people also claimed that Windows 98SE was enough. It ran all their programs. Games worked flawlessly it was stable. But with time everyone started to switch to Windows XP. There is a very big reason for that. Windows pre-instaled PCs and new technology support. Yes Windows XP is good for the time being but there are a lot of tech stuff that it doesn't support and that it won't support. Windows 7 takes a lot of more advantage of multi-core processing and GPU. It comes pre bundled with a lot of the popular new codecs, there is support for new graphics technology such as DX 11.
A more streamlined user interface that just for that might catch the many people eyes. Multi-touch support. That may not seam important now, but in the future you can expect more and more lcds to have multi-touch support. And many other things. My point is, the right question is:
Why should I install Windows XP, if there is the better Windows 7 SO?
Score: 3
|Between 98 and XP there was a meer 3 year gap. Between XP and Vista that was a 5.5 year gap.
During that time, people got to know XP and program makers knew exactly what they were programming for. 5.5 years of refinement of the OS has made it one of the most stable OSs (for me at least). Coupled with the fact that quite a few things have changed in Vista; stuff is in new (and rather pointless if I may say so) places. People don't want to learn that s*** because it's been too long since they last had to. This is the fundamental difference between the 98-XP and XP-Vista periods.
Score: 3
|You make a couple of mistakes in your assessment. If your path was from 98 to XP, there were two things accomplished that had profound effects on the way people computed. One was the lifting of the 512 MB memory limit, the other was the 128 GB limit on hard drive sizing (without an overlay program).
These were the things that made XP worth changing to from day 1, which I did. Vista and Seven have no such upgrades, only glitz, and, as I have said before, I certainly would like for one of those 'insanely happy usability testers' that thought that the Seven interface or menu hierarchy was good, to confess that they were one of the ones to screw things up.
Oh, and if I wanted 64 bit computing, there was XP 64, it wasn't necessary to go to Vista for it. The XP 64 parade got rained on because Microsoft wanted to force the move to Vista for 64 bits.
Score: 1
|jfplopes, you're on target vs. W98 to XP atmosphere. Some kook above wrote that "everyone knows" that Win2000 was more stable than w98. Phooey. I clung to my 98SE for years. And while I was computing without crashes and assorted other headaches, the technosphere was replete with people complaining about the buggy XP.
I advised then as I do now, do not move to a new OS if your current one is meeting your needs. 99% of businesses have nothing at stake in the nanosecond advantage the newest technologies may render. If they do not compete in nanoseconds, then they should not procure for nanoseconds.
Eye candy is, IMHO, a very stupid reason for any business or not-personal entity to incur expenses. If a "more streamlined interface" can be shown to meaningfully improve productivity, a cost-benefit can be done. But, for example, the move to Office 2007 created a lot more productivity disruptions/losses than any gain that came in after the learning curve was complete.
"You just have to get used to the way the band works."
Why? Why should a perfectly functioning support staff have to get used to anything for the sake of it. Show me the problem that's being solved.
Things like multi-touch support are going to have to prove a real productivity return before they become anything like a business case.
Win7 is solving the problem of Vista. But a great many of us simply do not have that problem. XP does everything we need.
Of course over time it is true that XP will be today what my one machine that runs W98 is now. That machine I know I can count on rock solid and if something goes up, the complexity level is sufficiently manageable that I can always, always find the fix. But I am one of a tiny minority, microscopic in market terms. W98 withered and finally even I converted my main machines to maintain the necessary knowledge just to keep up with the mainstream.
Score: 1
|I have decided to stay with XP bcoz of Microsoft refuses to put back some critical features they ripped apart thoughtlessly from Vista and even Windows 7 that only XP has. Windows Explorer is much better on XP and Microsoft refuses to fix its Vista and Windows 7 Explorer incarnations. Several other minor features have been thrown away and the UI changed for the worse, though Windows 7 is not as bad as Vista was. I don't believe in staying forever on legacy technology but Microsoft ripped apart some features which users actively used under their silly telemetry data pretext and since the newer OSes lack these features I refuse to upgrade. One example is real slipstreaming ability. Or you can't use fast user switching with a hotkey in Vista and later as you can in XP. I can't bypass Autologon when I want to. There is no full screen console support. Customizability of network connection icons is gone. You can't output to more than 2 audio outputs in Vista and later simultaneously which is a major annoyance. You can't choose a MIDI output device. There is no progress bar when hibernating. There's no animated GIF support in Photo Gallery. There's no context sensitive help anywhere. You've no control over the GBs of disk space taken by hotfixes backing up files and slowing shutdown/logon. There's no quick access to dial-up and wired connections like there is to Wi-Fi. Some games are removed for no reason at all. In Vista and later, all the computers in your workgroup/domain appear as a unified list instead of being classified by workgroup/domain. You can't launch control panel applets using s***+Run As. The shell and Explorer have seen a bootload of removals. Mainly, it's Windows Explorer but such little things missing here and there also annoy.
Vista put some real new capabilities into Windows but Windows 7 is a too incremental update for the Vista copies I've got with no features *I find* really critically useful (no not the taskbar please). DirectX 11 and DirectWrite etc is going to be available on Vista too. Microsoft better put back the lost features before I think of upgrading.
Score: 0
|@sumone - Microsoft only removes features from an OS when user feedback indicates they are no longer being used by the vast majority of users. This is the one and only reason that Vista and even Windows 7 are missing the features you mention.
Score: -6
|Microsoft does things whenever they feel they want to. It has not one thing to do with user wants or needs. If that was the case, XP would not be without support, and the ribbon interface, among other 'benefits' would never have been foisted upon an unsuspecting public.
It's always about dollars, and Microsoft has to have enough that shows (changes) to the average dimwit to coax him to change operating systems. Microsoft has yet to ever stay with any piece of software long enough to fix all the bugs (and I don't mean idiosyncratic hardware interactions).
Score: 1
|Yeah, drink that Redmond Kool-Aid, baby! Microsoft has NEVER listened to anyone except their closest TechNet suck-ups and never will. Please stop regurgitating this nonsense.
Score: -11
|But the telemetry concept is flawed because those who opt in to sending information thru their Customer Experience Improvement Program may not represent the entire userbase. Besides many features are visual and static, not something the user interacts with yet visible. It's all bulls*** and lip service, Microsoft has always done what IT wants while giving the false impression that it actually listens to feedback. This time again it's successfull with its typical ploys and Windows 7 is being well received in spite of being Vista R2.
Score: 0
|I think that Microsoft should have borrowed the Mac OS X-model and just release incremental upgrades to Windows XP instead, such as XP Version 2002, XP Version 2003, etc. But, the fact that they are strictly a software company they couldn't do that. Actually they could've but chose not to. So they gave us an half-baked OS instead....Vista.
Fortunately, I think they'll be okay with Windows 7.
Score: -5
|Mac OS X's incremental updates don't include important new features like changing the OS into a 64-bit one or including support for multi core processors. Currently Mac OS X itself does not do anything except acknowledge the existence of additional processor cores (like Windows XP did). It's up to application developers to take advantage of multi core processors. Snow Leopard includes Grand Central so the OS itself can take advantage of multi core processors.
Mac OS X isn't better than Windows. It's been playing catch up for most, if not all of its existence. Windows was the first commercial desktop OS to introduce features like true preemptive multitasking or a convenient way to access applications so you don't have to click on a hard disk icon, click on "applications" somewhere in the window that appears, possibly navigate through several other folders in Finder and then click the application you want to run. Mac OS desperately needs a start menu like the one found in Windows Vista.
Bill Gates was a genius. Take Apple's Mac OS and make it better.
Score: 3
|I disagree with you a few things there. In Mac OS X, Spotlight does a fantastic job at searching any applications and files - Start Menu not required. Once you begin browsing around on a Mac and get familiar with it then it is clear to see that Apple's approach is definitely easier to master and far more efficient if you ask me.
Pressing Command-Q to quit an application makes a lot more sense than pressing ALT-F4; the distance between the keys is shorter ;-)
Score: -7
|Grand Central, yet to be seen, looks pretty sweet. I think the next couple of months promise to be very exciting.
My name is Morsel. I'm a Mac + PC.
Score: -2
|bicurious eh? :)
Score: 0
|;-)
Score: 0
|Managers just told me: Don't upgrade jack sh*t (hardware and software) unless support for product is expiring and it is a critical LOB device. XP it is then until 2014!
We also found Office 2003 licenses for 20% off what a open license would have cost us. Guess that is the route we'll go when Office XP support expires in a few years.
yay economy!
Score: 0
|I'm waiting to see Windows 8, Win 7 doesn't do it for me, nor did Vista. Perhaps Windows 8 will show something new, other than glitz.
Score: -2
|Have you actually used it? Vista has a lot of small nicities which make it worth using for me. I have tested Windows 7 and I have to say much has been improved there. I can't tell you what I like about it because in the end it comes down to what you like, all I am saying is test it before you bad mouth it.
Score: 0
|I use Vista on a laptop (came pre-installed) and ironically the only feature gain that I've experienced is networking. I have an encyclopedia of complaints about Vista's horrible networking, breaking previously perfectly working lans and so on. I guess I just waited long enough until SP1 fixed all that because my Vista laptop is crazy sweet on connecting to wi-fi anywhere without me having to teach her how to walk all over again. If I could get the same networking ease from Ubuntu, it would be on the laptop, but nothing else I run does this particular job nearly so well.
Sincere question: What do you consider to be the "niceties" that would make a business case to upgrade 30 or 40 desktops?
Score: 0
|died for me a long time ago, i ain't going back... still have the install disc though, will make a clock out of it soon http://is.gd/25hRV :)
Score: 0
|couldn't agree more.
Score: 0
|thats actually awesome, did you make that
Score: 0
|*laughing*
Had to rummage around a bit, but I found it. I actually *have* the disc in that picture from back when I used to work @ Micron (around the time they bought out Zeos).
I guess I should probably get around to throwing that thing away... :p
Score: 0
|The things that will sell W7 for me are: tapping GPU as adjunct to CPU, support for new hardware standards like USB3.
Score: 0
|I run windows 7 on my main computer and it works perfectly for me. I didn't like Vista as it was basically just a graphics update with infuriating "are you sure?" questions. I have never bought an OS and don't intend to. I agree with some users that XP was and is an amazing OS but the sad news is, every day that passes it gets more outdated. I wish that I could do something about it but MS isn't releasing any more updates to the system. In a way that forces people to buy their newest OS. BTW, I still have my XP disc in a glass cabinet in my shelf to look to when I need inspiration lol!
Score: 0
|