New
#231
Seven (don't choose only because you use it at the moment)
XP
Virus scanning software still availalble "AVG free" still runs on Win2k and yes I support a number of retired folks (retired but savvy) who still use 98se and Win2k. the reason it just works with their peripherals and it is "PAID FOR". No one writing new viruses for these old beasts which leads to a certain level of security. The hardware will still walk and talk the web with the newest boxes and the users understand their dinosaurs. further compatibility packs from Microsoft keep the older office products productive even today. If it does everything you want it to do and you can modify the GUI in massive ways to be personalized the way you like it then there really isn't the pressing need for the new GUI interfaces. However you can achieve a lot of the GUI even in these older unsupported pc's. True Transparency comes to mind / Stardock Fences comes to mind, etc I'm sure you get my drift /Stardock it self comes to mind. You can make XP look just like Win7 and with some serious tweeking also take a stab at 98se or Win2K.
HI all
BOTH
I still need XP for legacy stuff which won't have drivers in W7 either ever or for a long while yet (Mini disc recorders, Old HP engineering plotter hardware, Film negative scanners, SAP ERP software, etc).
Otherwise W7 gets it everytime.
I can run all my legacy stuff on an XP Virtual machine --perfect solution. With W7 X-64 I don't need to worry either about the overhead of a VM -- 8 - 16 GB RAM with a decent QUAD processor will run a ZILLION VM's concurrently if you need to probably faster than in native mode on older hardware.
Cheers
jimbo
why wasn't vista included in the poll? i've enough ammunition to continue this thread for years
Windows 7 , everything is much more stable than XP. It's great.
Nope they did NOT.
This is one of the most anying stories floating around the net.
MS has a modell there they provide at least 5 years of primary support (5 years or two years after the next OS is released, whatever that will give the longest support period). For XP that ended 14 april 2009. After that they provide 5 years of extended support. That period will end in 2014.
The difference between primary and extended support is that in the extended support phase, MS only commits to fix security bugs.
Xp support timeline
Support policy
For XP it was the release of Vista that sat the dates, after that there have been no changes.
And to answer the original question:
Win7
XP is dead/dying
Win7 do add thing I wan't for example delta replication for offline files. Power management worth talking about. A sequrity modell that works and so on.
Will Companies use it?
Currently planning deployment on 15-20K boxes. Cooperating with two other orgs. Will probobly mean about 40K boxes more, so yes I say companies will use it. Just wait untill Direct access starts spreading :).