Windows 7 powering 21% of corporate desktops; XP still at 60%

With the intro of Vista hardware makers saw an oppurtunity to cash in by withholding Vista drivers and forcing new buys. That brought a bad rep to Vista. Microsoft made a big effort and spent a lot of money gaining new partners who were required to make sure they had Win 7 drivers available.

There has been a great effort to have 32bit software enabled on 64bit Win7 too. I've only has one old game fail in Win7 of all the old stuff I have. That was Tai Pei a Mahjong derivative, a Windows 95 game, but I think it's 16bit.

I think home users will generally be quick to adopt a new OS. In the corporate world it is much more than a simple switch due to megagigabytes of data transfer, staff training, and better machines.

PwnFrnzy said:

Whats wrong with running Windows XP on today's hardware? People have different preferences, I might just put Windows XP on a 4-core sytem just for the speed and to run old programs without having to go through the "Run in compatibility mode" stuff.
Just because it is old does not mean it shouldn't be used on today's hardware.

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Hi there
the problem is in using an older OS with newer hardware is that the computer architecture / hardware mix will have changed significantly -- and for all sorts of reasons it's not feasable to keep supporting / writing drivers for older OS'es -- in some cases "Backporting" to an older OS is not even possible either.

Even the instruction set on a lot of CPU's will have changed making the operation of a previous OS possibly unreliable - so the normal and perfectly acceptable way of using an older OS is to install it on a Virtual Machine where the "Virtual Hardware" set is fairly stable and compatable with most devices allowing legacy hardware and applications to run OK.

I'm still using a perfectly acceptable scannner and HP - Plotter -- there is no reason why I should get rid of these just because they on't run on W7. They run fine on an XP Virtual machine.

I'm still also using some MiniDisc software -- also works fine on an XP Virtual machine.

If you want to keep using XP on newer equipment then it's very simple to do so in a Virtual Machine -- which for non gamers-- will pretty well run DECENTLY any old legacy application and hardware.

Cheers
jimbo

My oldy

Have brought mine out of retirement for testing those apps I don't fancy trying on my "7" machines - bit of a plodder but wouldn't go back to it

As for "8" seems awfully close behind this OS which I think is just the ducks guts!!

IntelCoreI3 said:

after 8 6 yeras i use XP i can say: XP IS SUCKS!
i use windows 7 and enjoy every day.

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If I used XP for 86 years I'd be pretty sick of it too .

*_* RIP XP!... 7 FTW!
Would u use Xp x64 instead of 7 x32 if they were the only choices..?

XenX said:

*_* RIP XP!... 7 FTW!
Would u use Xp x64 instead of 7 x32 if they were the only choices..?

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Hi there
much as I like W7 -- you STILL can't beat W2K3 for speed / efficiency -- especially remember that IT can use over 4GB RAM. Check the versions but some W2K3 installations can use up to 64 GB RAM.

W2008 server runs really SLOW compared to W2K3 and you can make W2K3 server run as a decent FAST OS desktop too.

Try this

How to convert your Windows Server 2003... to a Workstation!

Even on this W7 forum I still think W2K3 server was MS's best OS EVER -- and it still runs rings around my W7 systems.

Please don't read this as a negative against W7 -- I love it too but if only we could have the performance of W2K3 --- totally different from XP.

Cheers
jimbo

PwnFrnzy said:

Whats wrong with running Windows XP on today's hardware? People have different preferences, I might just put Windows XP on a 4-core sytem just for the speed and to run old programs without having to go through the "Run in compatibility mode" stuff.
Just because it is old does not mean it shouldn't be used on today's hardware.

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Agreed.

Best Regards,
FredeGail

That is actually very interesting. I always thought that Apple would at least have 20%.

ashimashi said:

That is actually very interesting. I always thought that Apple would at least have 20%.

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HAHAHAHA! Apple?! For the price of ONE imac, you can get at least three client puters. Or maybe a decent server.

Coke Robot said:

ashimashi said:

That is actually very interesting. I always thought that Apple would at least have 20%.

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HAHAHAHA! Apple?! For the price of ONE imac, you can get at least three client puters. Or maybe a decent server.

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Yes well I personally hate apple and I wouldn't buy it if it was $100. But I have lots of friends who prefer MAC over PC.

In my understanding, MAC just makes life a little easier for a few people. I played around with it and I would never buy it, it makes my life harder.

ashimashi said:

Coke Robot said:

ashimashi said:

That is actually very interesting. I always thought that Apple would at least have 20%.

Click to expand...

HAHAHAHA! Apple?! For the price of ONE imac, you can get at least three client puters. Or maybe a decent server.

Click to expand...

Yes well I personally hate apple and I wouldn't buy it if it was $100. But I have lots of friends who prefer MAC over PC.

In my understanding, MAC just makes life a little easier for a few people. I played around with it and I would never buy it, it makes my life harder.

Click to expand...

Actually, a cheaper alternative would just be using a ubuntu Live CD and trying it out from there since the mac os is essentially ubuntu with different branding and apple's iCrapware.

Hi there
XP (actually based on Windows 2003 which was the core of the XP system) was probably a pinnacle in "Classical" OS'es as we know them. These are large OS'es with code built in for I/O etc etc rather than relying on API's to load and call external device modules.

XP had to support almost every known piece of hardware on the planet which it did magnificently and run efficiently on old computer gear that these days would be considered "Dinosaur Technology".

XP and better W2003 were for their time VERY efficient OS'es -- my still running W2K3 Server can still beat even a well tuned W7 system for most tasks !!!!.

I'll be that even the much maligned VISTA would have run more or less OK on todays 4 Core fast CPU's and 4 - 16 GB computers.

Nowdays as we all know manufacturing has radically changed leaving only a few players making significant hardware so the amount of drivers etc that have to be written for Windows is much less -- even "branded" makes use essentially the same chips from 2 or 3 sources.

The devices themselves also are smarter etc so W7 can concentrate on the kernel rather than all the I/O devices attached to it.

I expect the next generation of OS to actually be much smaller than W7 -- probably more like most Linux systems where the kernel is essentially small and compact with device "modules" being called to supply the I/O functions.

XP is STILL useful because a lot of manufacturers of those older perfectly serviceable legacy devices have gone out of business or don't support the hardware any more. Running on a VM gets round the problem in most cases but sometimes you still actually NEED a physical XP machine.

It will be MANY MANY years yet before you can finally say a real farewell to XP.

(Incidentally I still know some businesses who have a few Windows 2000 machines lying around --that still works too and I'll bet that 99% of people using OFFICE probably could use still Office 2000 without missing anything in newer versions).


I still use an XP VM daily and cant see it going any time soon.


Cheers
jimbo

Disagreeable Jimbo, It's only nice for VMs (for testing and other stuff).

I'v noticed that people in my city are more now switching to Windows 7 (like my school) while some places still operate Windows Xp which is for the past.

Windows Vista is just.. awful and slow. (I am writing this on a Vista Laptop. -_-) I do wish that in the future I will have a great desktop with whatever good Windows OS there is as well as dual booting with the good ol' Mac OS ? or something similar.

Windows XP once updates and security patches end, I'm sure people will start to move then.

Oh and the Windows Vista Laptop is runing Intel Core 2 duo processor, 3gb of ram. -_- Still awful.