Windows 7: What is it about XP that people just can’t live without

I remember reading somewhere that perhaps between 60 to 63 percent of computer users are still using Windows XP. The majority of them use XP at both work and home. With this love affair with an nearly eight year old operating system still in full effect do you think there will be a slower than normal migration to Windows Seven? Especially since you won't be able to upgrade from XP to Windows 7. And just what is it about XP that people would rather fight than switch.

I don't think that it is not wanting to move from XP, it is not wanting to upgrade to Vista. A lot of people used Vista in the beginning or have heard about too many horror stories about stability and compatibility issues that people had with vista in the early days.

Now most of us know that Vista has been good since SP1 and has had pretty much fixed everything with SP2, but many people are already brainwashed that Vista = crappy so they would not be too easily convinced of otherwise.

That is why we have Windows 7. The "Vista, the way it was supposed to be" OS. Change the package and a bunch of looks and features and your bad Vista hype is gone so you can start selling OS's again.

maybe because it just works and is familiar

i guess people use xp as it runs awesome on old hardware. its easy to use. More important, they are so familiar with it that they dont want to switch to any other OS.

Be interesting to see how many of the those hanging on to XP like a dog on a bone were in the same camp about 98 when XP came out.

I am not proposing or stating that I am speaking for anyone other than myself. I really don't believe its a "live without" or not thing but more a dose of reality.. I currently run XP and have been looking and running the WIn 7 beta. After its all boiled down the question becomes what can/does Win 7 do that XP can't? Right now XP runs all of the programs that I own and use, along with all of the peripherals that I have. The Techies, the 'got to have the latest and greatest' and gamers will bring up a lot of stuff including screen clears, memory maximums and other 'stuff'. Unfortunately this has little meaning because for the vast majority of people like me and businesses, these have very little bearing on the ability to run Word, play a game like solitaire or do email. Also, please remember what I have is ALREADY paid for so for me to reach into my pocket and pull out $400.00 for a full version (my preference) for no perceivable advantage - just ain't gonna happen. So for me its not a fight to keep it just boils down to practicality and cost. IF Billy wanted $100~150.00 then I certainly would be more inclined to 'consider' moving on. Until then I will keep what I got as it works just fine.....Thanks for the read..

Most corporation CIO's would rather swim with sharks than change what is working for them, and I can understand that from their point of view. While it may take an average desktop user an afternoon to upgrade an operating system, it is a daunting challenge for a small shop ( 10-30 desktops ) much less a major corporation with hundreds of machines to worry about. That application that you spent thousands of dollars to develop for in house use all of the sudden doesnt work anymore. The way they see it, if its not absolutely, positively necessary to the operation of their business, LEAVE IT ALONE!

Can't agree more.

For a CIO it's a simple question: What does it cost and can I save that money somehow?

With Vista MS mad a huge error in marketing by focusing on Aero, Aero and Aero. The CIO saw a new Gui wich means huge costs for education and no return of investment.

IF MS instead had focused on Bitlocker (no need for expensive third party cryptos), The enhanced powersaving (reduced electricity bill), The capability to run all machines on a single image (reduced costs for IS staff) and so on alot more companies would have used vista.
Even today i meet customers and other IT-pros that doesn't know about Vistas capabilities in theese areas since all they heard was aero......
I hope thar MS learns this leasson for Seven but so far it has been Aero,Aero and Aero again and a little about faster boot times but almost nothing about direct access. Even better powersave. The delta repliction for offline files ans so on. All of theese are prodction improvements for the users and if you can show that your users can save 1 hour a week using Vista/Seven instead of XP, any reasonable CIO will launch a case studie to see that his benefits will be and most likley issue an uppgrade.

True case: An organisation with 20K users. The can show that the powesave fetures in Vista alone is enough to finance an uppgrade to Vista, train the users and replace about 50% of their computers. Pay back time, 18 months

i strongly agree.

I found XP Pro x64 to be all I needed while Vista was out. It was rock solid for me. Now I'm using 7 x64 and it is a nice upgrade.

Theresa