Stop hitting on windows XP!

Windows 2000 and XP ran the same 5.x kernel. Win2k would be my preferred choice for a 32bit machine. Vista up to 8.1 use the 6.x kernel so deep down not much changes. I prefer Win7 Pro. It is the modern XP.

really? So much ignorance and people who don´t know what they speak of.
You think the reason why XP is still running on so much computers is because it´s so stable and all?
You are so damn wrong. XP has been patched so much, you run into so much problems when it comes to developing software for it that really runs reliable. I´m not speaking of .NET framework.

Some example why XP is still running.

Industry: SIEMENS, one of the biggest player when it comes to PLC/Robotics doesn´t support Win7.
If somebody in the industry programs a PLC with step7, then it´s running either on a XP machine or Win7 with VirtualBox/VM because even under XP mode in Win7, it´s a mess! They started nearly from the sketch to make it Win7 compatible.

Hospitals: So much special hardware. Do you think every highly specialized company will bring out brand new win7 drivers for their MRT/CRT device just because there is a new OS from microsoft?
Those interfaces and drivers need to function 100% correctly, you need to proof it(time,resources), certify it(money).

It´s not because XP is the ultimate software piece.
It´s because todays industrial and biz software is honed to XP.

Now, if it comes to personal, private use, I would choose any unix kernel distribution. Because I´m bound to MS specific software, I chose Win7 with a VM. Anyone who has enough knowledge to participate in this topic knows that the second you get a XP machine (all patched) online, you´re in trouble.

Now, I say, XP is a piece of crap, NT/2k for world!
Just joking, XP isn´t that bad but calling it the ultimate, well I would not.

They did a great job with win7, it´s not the ultimate but way more stable than XP.

My new (2 years ago) desktop came with Win7(Home Premium) and I did not like it as much as XPpro, which I still run on another computer, but I am getting used to it.

I think part of the problem in very general terms is that computer use is so widespread now that Microsoft doesn't need the geeks anymore, or think they don't, to help them develop their product. People who like to "get under the hood" and want "all access" to tinker and to maintain the system and to fix problems that arise will probably say that Microsoft has been drifting toward the Apple OS in many ways, for a glitzier look and a situation where the consumer is more restricted from tinkering, unless they are really knowledgeable.

Personally, I wish Microsoft had maintained DOS as a "shadow government" for all their operating systems. DOS was the king of all malware destroyers. It basically gave the nerd at home an x-ray machine for the OS.

Copyright issues are very important in this whole story. Microsoft and Apple are cooperating with the copyright holders to frustrate pirates and downloaders so they keep trying to tie the users hands behind his back.

I agree with the OP though. For me, much as I like the glitz of Win7, I wish they had kept the ease of handling and "nerd access" of XP. My two cents worth.

I have an old vacuum cleaner but they don't sell spare parts anymore ..Just thinking isn't that the same?

Gotta agree with the OP. Loved XP....after hating every other MS OS before. Oh, then Vista. I'm cool with Win 7 now too. Very much like XP. I don't hear good things about Win 8.

This was my favorite worst version of Windows.



I prefer 7 over Xp these days though. Businesses won't upgrade because it's a hassle + who knows how to put a CD in type in a license key and follow instructions without an IT guy.

reply to post by christoph


Ah Millenium Edition!

I had it for about 3 days.

It was just terrible in every conceivable way.

I like windows xp, there were features on xp which never worked right
on my WIn7 machine. I use xp on my netbooks, barely consume 10watts of power.
Never had issues virus's or problems with XP or win7.

But I do like win7, since its the fastest atm for me, boots up in 7 secs.
No problems and support directx 11. Winxp can be slower,
doesnt delete updates which consume huge amounts space properly,
doesnt have next gen hardware support integrated like win7 does,
in which case, you would need a driver cd, in win7; recognizes
most hardware instantly.

Now my only gripe is Win8 which is a scam, nothing more then a quick
cash in $$$, so they can be in the tablet platform market; android,
apple, touchscreen. Thats what it really is. They even brought back
the original win7 Ui, why all the bother, just to get win8 when
it gives you win7 preference lols.

Window 7 is perfect as it is now, for next gen hardware.
Window Xp is perfect for old hardware slow, pc, laptops etc.
Win8 is a good gimick for touchscreen tablets, which users might like.

ipsedixit
My new (2 years ago) desktop came with Win7(Home Premium) and I did not like it as much as XPpro, which I still run on another computer, but I am getting used to it.

I think part of the problem in very general terms is that computer use is so widespread now that Microsoft doesn't need the geeks anymore, or think they don't, to help them develop their product. People who like to "get under the hood" and want "all access" to tinker and to maintain the system and to fix problems that arise will probably say that Microsoft has been drifting toward the Apple OS in many ways, for a glitzier look and a situation where the consumer is more restricted from tinkering, unless they are really knowledgeable.

Personally, I wish Microsoft had maintained DOS as a "shadow government" for all their operating systems. DOS was the king of all malware destroyers. It basically gave the nerd at home an x-ray machine for the OS.

Copyright issues are very important in this whole story. Microsoft and Apple are cooperating with the copyright holders to frustrate pirates and downloaders so they keep trying to tie the users hands behind his back.

I agree with the OP though. For me, much as I like the glitz of Win7, I wish they had kept the ease of handling and "nerd access" of XP. My two cents worth.

Best reply (for me) so far.

People who like to "get under the hood" and want "all access" to tinker and to maintain the system

and thats why.

reply to post by VoidHawk


Could you give me only two things you can´t do in win7 anymore and the reasons why you needed to do this in first place

VoidHawk
Have you seen the utter BS that gets posted about xp when someone says they've got a problem?
Those people are either ms ops or they just dont know what they're talking about!

XP was the best OS microsoft ever created. The only reason its failing is because microsoft have deliberately decided to not support it anymore. Yes updates are still to be had but there's much more they could have done.

They purposely create new browsers so that they wont run on xp (all the other modern browsers do), they deliberately designed directX to nolonger work on xp, and they could easily have fixed its caching problem.

But they wanted to sell a new OS, and being as xp was such a good OS the only way they could create sales was to stop supporting xp.

Next time your in any kind of corporate establishment take a look at what they're running on their pc's....thats right, XP
Why? because it does its job reliably!

ABout a year ago I downloaded the studio sdk. While reading some of the blurb that came with it I came across a section that told developers where there apps should install into the new operating systems, the reason it gave was to HIDE it from the user!

Bil Gates might be upto bad things these days, but ms has certainly gone downhill since he got out.

Whoah!

Okay. Can't stand the ignorance. Sorry to be so blunt.

XP Was a brilliant operating system, I will give all of you this fact. It was highly stable, and highly compatible with software of its generation. That generation is now passed.

The underlying software running the operating system in Windows XP was designed for hardware of the generation - and as time went on, and the technology improved, patches were made to bring XP up to snuff; giving you things like service packs.

To this day; for the organization I work for; I still support systems running XP and will continue to do so until I can take them all off of the shelf; but that's not to say that I don't want them off the shelf.

While XP is a very stable, very compatible operating system, it still has its shortcomings in that; in order to perform on par with newer operating systems in respect to software and hardware; patches, and modifications to the underlying software must be made. This means more processing power being used to provide functionality that is built into newer operating systems by default.

Now -- Please don't take this as me knocking XP in any way - like I said I still run it on a few systems even though I've had the opportunity to -upgrade-; however, what I will say is that it is an operating system that no longer has a true place.

For years XP was the go-to; regardless of the advent of Vista and Windows 7 - largely due to compatibility issues in both hardware and software in the newer operating systems.

Now that those times have passed, and in general, most software and hardware is now compatible with Windows 7 ( at least ) - the necessity to stick to a 'tried and true' operating system like XP is dwindling - because there is a new 'tried and true' operating system.

I am a software engineer and an IT professional; I have been computing in some manner since Windows 95 ( Im 26... dont jump the gun... I was using DOS at age 9 ) - and can attest to the fact that for years, I had no plan or desire to move up to Windows 7 from XP - for the reasons I listed above, but for the last three years or so, I have been a Windows 7 advocate for a variety of reasons.

The underlying functionality provided by newer operating systems in respect to performance, compatibility, and hardware integration; cannot be matched in XP. You may turn less flops per second at idle in XP, You may have fewer compatibility problems in older software in XP, but soon, XP won't know what to do with the hardware or the software.

You ever try to install more than 4 gigs of RAM in a system running XP?
How about any 64 bit designed program?
I'm curious how that worked out for you.

I ran an IT shop with about 500 CPUs. We started with early versions of MS-DOS (and Apple 2 DOS before that) and got onto the Windows bandwagon slowly with Windows 286/386. Anyone even remember those? Then it was 3.1 for awhile until 3.11 came along, which was more easily networkable, though simplistic in design compared to today. We converted to Windows 95, then 98, then NT. We had Windows 2000 and Millennium as well.

Did all these work? Well, yes, after a fashion. We put up with the blue screen of death and the networking anomalies and did what we had to do to keep a now rather large Ethernet wide area network flourishing.

Then along came XP and life got easier. For the first time since DOS we had a stable operating system. No more blue screens. Networking was built in and "easy" compared to the stacks of programs we had to use to get previous versions to talk to each other. It used to be that the hardware outlasted the software, but with the introduction of XP, the software began to outlast the hardware. I have ten year old XP systems that are functioning just fine.

Subsequent Windows systems went into a downward spiral to the extent that we kept the XP systems running for as long as we could. Nowadays Windows 7 is proving itself as reliable as XP was. I think this is going to be a keeper, and I have no problem replacing XP boxes, which are getting quite old now, with Windows 7. We're not much interested in 8.

I realize everyone has opinions on the various platforms, even if your experience is with one or two or three PCs total, plus "that of your friends." That's all well and good, but I maintain those in this situation have a limited perspective which is of little usefulness. If you have had responsibility for a large system such as I have described, which includes budgetary decisions worth $100K a pop based on what you think about these issues, then I'd love to have a discussion with you, but anecdotal experiences with personal machines don't really mean much on the greater scheme of things because whatever happens to you is within statistical variation. You don't really see the overall issues until you have a few hundred machines out there at once when the trends become more apparent.

DigitalJedi805
You ever try to install more than 4 gigs of RAM in a system running XP?

I'm running xp with two 8gig sticks, but I also realise it only see's a max of 4gig, but thats why I multiboot
As a developer are you aware that a 32 bit system could see more than 4 gigs? Memory is controlled by bank switching and it IS possible.

DigitalJedi805
How about any 64 bit designed program?
I'm curious how that worked out for you.

Ever run a 128 bit proggy on your 64bit win7?
Enough of the sillyness LOL. Of course a 32 bit system wont run 64 bit programs, but at the moment there's not many progs designed specifically for 64 bit.

XP is getting old, but that doesn't mean it's not still a fantastic os, because it is. Win7 is a very nice os too, and eventually I'll be forced to use it as my main os, mainly because of the lack of support for xp.

The reason I started this thread was quite simply because a whole bunch of peeps in another thread were talking about xp like many people are talking about win8, and thats just not fair, I see no comparison.
For many years, as you know yourself, xp has served us all very nicely, its been a fantastic os and doesnt deserve the garbage I saw in that other thread.

schuyler
I ran an IT shop with about 500 CPUs. We started with early versions of MS-DOS (and Apple 2 DOS before that) and got onto the Windows bandwagon slowly with Windows 286/386. Anyone even remember those?

I started out on a sinclair zx81 and moved UP to a 386 running dos, then I bought a super fast 486 and installed win 3.1 and thrashed my friends at quake

schuyler
We converted to Windows 95, then 98, then NT. We had Windows 2000 and Millennium as well.

Do you remember the magic voodoo of 95's short cuts?

schuyler
Subsequent Windows systems went into a downward spiral to the extent that we kept the XP systems running for as long as we could. Nowadays Windows 7 is proving itself as reliable as XP was. I think this is going to be a keeper, and I have no problem replacing XP boxes, which are getting quite old now, with Windows 7. We're not much interested in 8.

I agree with all of that.

schuyler
I realize everyone has opinions on the various platforms, even if your experience is with one or two or three PCs total, plus "that of your friends." That's all well and good, but I maintain those in this situation have a limited perspective which is of little usefulness.

"perspective" is the all important word here isn't it.

schuyler
If you have had responsibility for a large system such as I have described, which includes budgetary decisions worth $100K a pop based on what you think about these issues, then I'd love to have a discussion with you, but anecdotal experiences with personal machines don't really mean much on the greater scheme of things because whatever happens to you is within statistical variation. You don't really see the overall issues until you have a few hundred machines out there at once when the trends become more apparent.

As I pointed out earlier in the thread, most of the uk is still running xp, that includes the banks and hospitals and council offices etc, would they be the "trends" your talking about?

However, I'll repeat what I just wrote in another post.
The reason I started this thread was quite simply because a whole bunch of peeps in another thread were talking about xp like many people are talking about win8, and thats just not fair, I see no comparison.
For many years, as you know yourself, xp has served us all very nicely, its been a fantastic os and doesnt deserve the garbage I saw in that other thread.

reply to post by verschickter


I asked the question first so surely I should receive the first reply

Why did I need to do this in the first place?

The reason I started this thread was quite simply because a whole bunch of peeps in another thread were talking about xp like many people are talking about win8, and thats just not fair, I see no comparison.
For many years, as you know yourself, xp has served us all very nicely, its been a fantastic os and doesnt deserve the garbage I saw in that other thread.

Porn works just fine on XP


Thread closed

ChaoticOrder
I've used essentially every Windows operating system and imo Windows 7 is by far the best, but XP is definitely in 2nd place. The problem with XP these days is the security issues, honestly I would never use XP any more because without constant security updates from Microsoft it will become extremely easy to hack into an XP machine. In fact if I was trying to hack into a computer network, the first thing I'd probably do is scan the network for any machines running XP.

edit on 21/11/2013 by ChaoticOrder because: (no reason given)

I too started out with DOS ( at the time I really loved DOS and swore I wouldn't go to Windows 95 but I bought a flying sim and it would only run on 95 so I gave in!) and used every operating system Windows released, the worst was VISTA (anyone remember the commercials they ran to try to sell you on it after it became known as a pig?) For I settled on Windows 2000 then went to XP, at first XP turned me off because they tried to make it hard to upgrade hardware without a hassle. When I went to Windows 7 I thought they finally did it right! No more blue screens of death, easy to use the network connection... etc. they tried to ram Windows 8 down everyone's throat and I read that people were shying away from new machines running 8 and wanted 7 so MS extended their support.
I agree, Windows 7 is BEST, 2nd is newest Windows XP!

VoidHawk
Have you seen the utter BS that gets posted about xp when someone says they've got a problem?
Those people are either ms ops or they just dont know what they're talking about!

XP was the best OS microsoft ever created. The only reason its failing is because microsoft have deliberately decided to not support it anymore. Yes updates are still to be had but there's much more they could have done.

They purposely create new browsers so that they wont run on xp (all the other modern browsers do), they deliberately designed directX to nolonger work on xp, and they could easily have fixed its caching problem.

But they wanted to sell a new OS, and being as xp was such a good OS the only way they could create sales was to stop supporting xp.

Next time your in any kind of corporate establishment take a look at what they're running on their pc's....thats right, XP
Why? because it does its job reliably!

ABout a year ago I downloaded the studio sdk. While reading some of the blurb that came with it I came across a section that told developers where there apps should install into the new operating systems, the reason it gave was to HIDE it from the user!

Bil Gates might be upto bad things these days, but ms has certainly gone downhill since he got out.

Ask to buy the MS XP and you keep up the updates and sell the OS online.

wulff

ChaoticOrder
I've used essentially every Windows operating system and imo Windows 7 is by far the best, but XP is definitely in 2nd place. The problem with XP these days is the security issues, honestly I would never use XP any more because without constant security updates from Microsoft it will become extremely easy to hack into an XP machine. In fact if I was trying to hack into a computer network, the first thing I'd probably do is scan the network for any machines running XP.

edit on 21/11/2013 by ChaoticOrder because: (no reason given)

I too started out with DOS ( at the time I really loved DOS and swore I wouldn't go to Windows 95 but I bought a flying sim and it would only run on 95 so I gave in!) and used every operating system Windows released, the worst was VISTA (anyone remember the commercials they ran to try to sell you on it after it became known as a pig?) For I settled on Windows 2000 then went to XP, at first XP turned me off because they tried to make it hard to upgrade hardware without a hassle. When I went to Windows 7 I thought they finally did it right! No more blue screens of death, easy to use the network connection... etc. they tried to ram Windows 8 down everyone's throat and I read that people were shying away from new machines running 8 and wanted 7 so MS extended their support.
I agree, Windows 7 is BEST, 2nd is newest Windows XP!

edit on 25-11-2013 by wulff because: (no reason given)

When I first operated computers in 1980 all programs were on reel to reel tape, data storage was on 16inch floppy stacks in rows of ten to twenty. keyboards were super large and monitors were small and only in white, green or orange on black screen. Printers were the size of an office desk today.

If you wanted to share data you had to record everyting on reel to reel tape about 35mm or a little smaller.

DOS was a later in the eighties.

reply to post by VoidHawk


I don´t know how to respond nor do I understand what you want to tell me with that answer.
I´m going to be honest now and in no way I´m trying to insult you.

You come across like a huge fanboy, the way you defend XP here.
XP is outdated and not compatible to new hardware.

Like 80% of the people already said, XP was nice at its era, although I resisted updating from 2k until about 2006 or so. Now its outdated and messed up with all those service packs they had to integrate. I myself used a nlited version I did myself in 2007. It used ~600MB harddrive space and ran as hell.

You are saying you are restricted in win7, I ask you again, tell me only two things you can´t do anymore and the reason why you had to do this. Don´t think I have no clue. Look at my opening post if you can find it and see who writes this.

Btw, I don´t know in what circles you roam, (does that make sense in english?) but I rarely hear from someone something like "XP is crap, win7 forever", and if I heard it, I would think "man, this guy has no clue".

Do you want to think about my question now?