New
#581
XP was an appliance?
I think from Win98 to XP was as big a leap for novice users as the step from XP to Vista or Win7.
There was nothing like NTFS security in Win98.
I remember how many people were outraged their hardware wasn't supported in XP,
and how long they had to wait before manufacturers adopted the new driver model.
(if they did at all)
I don't know anyone who used a virgin XP,
meaning people installed dozens of tweaks and mods to make life with XP easier.
XP before SP1 was so unsafe, that before you downloaded the first security patches,
your pc would already be infected with numerous trojans and viruses.
This would lead to people getting into all kinds of trouble,
they couldn't solve themselves.
Nobody seems to remember the huge amount of BSOD in the pre SP XP.
The simple plug-in of USB peripherals would be enough to crash the entire system.
I think there were billions of dollars more earned by maintaining,
and troubleshooting XP, than MS earned with selling it.
XP has mostly been good for the IT business.
W7 isn't perfect, but it's a damn lot closer to perfection than XP is even after 3 SP's.