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

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  1. Posts : 32
    Windows XP x64
       #51

    XP is still king the king for hardware compatability and that is why it is not obsolete. Vista offers no tangable improvements over XP. It is often claimed that Vista is more secure, but why? UAC? I'm afraid that doesn't convince me. Vista was a bold leap in code, but a failure in performance and reliability.
    In Seven we finally see a dramatic advancement in data transfer speed and stability. XP will still be around though, mainly because of legacy hardware like some expensive serial port devices etc.. that are too good to throw away but not supported by Seven/Vista or "XP Mode".
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  2. Posts : 349
    Win7 Ultimate X64
    Thread Starter
       #52

    bobtran said:
    Worked in Private enterprise and Government for many years and the main mantra is "Doing more with less....Tax payers don't want to pay for it and it is working fine". XP works on Dell gx260's or equivalent machines which most government organizations will not replace until they cease to work or will not support a mission critical app. Lately the move has been to Citrix thin client system's which definitely doesn't require the latest and greatest of Microsoft OS's. Quite a few scripting tools require upgrades to run on newer OS's and this also costs money which again doesn't put one additional dollar in anyone's pocket. If this were true then everyone would have a new car and new home every year.

    The main answer I get out of business is "It just works" which is all most companies require. All the gui's and bells/whistles in the world will not make a CIO upgrade a single machine until forced by necessity. As for bit-locker, its good for what you get but if your security is subject to audits and penalties then plain bit-locker is not going to make you sleep better at night. While I like both Vista and Win7 I can't see enough reason to spend valuable business capital to upgrade just so I can say I did. By now even the XP boxes have already been encrypted and secured and I don't have to replace machines that are "Just good enough" for XP but not for Vista/7 especially business laptops which lack the graphics to take advantage of the GUI anyway and are far to expensive to replace on a whim. One additional problem I've seen is the lack of technical knowledge rolling out Vista/7 which causes business to hold back even longer.
    Once Win7 has been in place a couple of years I believe you will see a move towards Win7 due to the skill sets then available to support large numbers of users. I blame Vista and 3rd party drive vendors for creating the wall that prevented the adoption of Vista that should have occured and the lack of technical expertise going forward due to the non addioption of Vista. The learning curve was steep for a product that people didin't want and now the teachers will have to make the leap from XP to Win7 which will take time and commitment which is usually in short supply.

    Just how I see it having come from the IT field.
    Lee said:
    mikinho, Thank for some excellent insights. A well thought out post. :)
    Ditto :)
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  3. Posts : 124
    W7 64b - Leopard 10.6.2 - Ubuntu 10.10 (MBP Snow Leopard 10.6.3)
       #53

    I think there is some mental blocking going on too. Apple has a much better upgrade trail with OSX. You keep the same OS name and just upgrade the numbers.

    The hickup with longhorn/vista has put windows out of cycle.

    Just try this on for size:

    Windows XP 1.0
    Windows XP 1.2 (XP SP1)
    Windows XP 2.0 (XP SP2)
    Windows XP 2.5 (XP SP3)
    Windows XP 3.0 (Vista)
    Windows XP 3.1 (Vista SP1)
    Windows XP 3.6 (Vista SP2)
    Windows XP 4.0 (Seven)

    or

    Windows NT 5.0 (XP)
    Windows NT 5.2 (XP SP1)
    Windows NT 5.4 (XP SP2)
    Windows NT 5.5 (XP SP3)
    Windows NT 6.0 (Vista)
    Windows NT 6.1 (Vista SP1)
    Windows NT 6.6 (Vista SP2)
    Windows NT 7.0 (Seven)

    as i think only fundamental change in technology (XP/NT or OSX) warrants a change in OS name.

    This would have made the mental acceptence of upgrading much easier, by putting the empasis on the simalarities in stead of the differences.

    Also in combination with the non-discriptive, consequental codenames used by apple (Tiger, Leopard) and Ubuntu the effect is much better.
    Last edited by Boris; 30 Jul 2009 at 07:25.
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  4. Posts : 4,573
       #54

    mikinho + well thought out excellent insight = redundancy
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  5. Posts : 1
    Win 7 x64 Ultimate
       #55

    Most businesses don't exist for the purposes of running and upgrading Microsoft software. Business preference for XP in general is because a lot of investment has been expended in establishing those windows environments. Migration to any different OS has a lot of cost associated and those costs need offer substantial benefits to be worthwhile. At a desktop level what Vista presents is essentially a sideways or back step.
    Moreover MS has been hell bent on thrusting Vista upon the marketplace, and demanding the upgrade cost be absorbed. It is this MS arrogance, the forced redundancy, the massive over pricing, the refusal to listen to customers, and the extortive licensing that has end users considering alternatives to Windows OS.

    The fanboys can get all exited about ribbon interfaces, some new pop-up annoyance, or just any change at all as motivation to incur huge hardware and software and time expenses of an upgrade cycle but in the real world PCs are tools for communication, for producing documents, running spreadsheet, building databases, and all the guff added to successive windows releases has done little to improve how PC achieve these tasks.

    There is no particular love for XP and most have caught on that it offered very little over W2K and a move to XP created considerable pain for whatever upgrade gain it delivered. It is only those that use their PCs as toys and not tools that see another forced migration (Vista) as worthwhile.

    MS have held a majority market share with Windows and with DOS before it for two decades, that was due to them offering the best cost/feature/ease of use compromise to the largest volume of users. The competitors have all improved their offerings considerable while Windows upgrades (well MS see them as upgrades) are becoming less for more with each new iteration.

    Most users are not fleeing windows for other operating systems they are being pushed that way! A favour for XP represents the inertia, that has in reality delivered most users remaining comfortable with a windows environment despite its many flaws. But ignore or cost affect that comfortable user base, lock them out of updates, or force them into an unwanted upgrade cycle in a direction they do not wish to travel and then other OSs have become very real alternatives for many who would not have contemplated a move.
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  6. Posts : 4,573
       #56

    I recognize Raindog from apcmag. His post here is a copy and paste from content posted there - a year ago.
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  7. Posts : 1,112
    XP_Pro, W7_7201, W7RC.vhd, SciLinux5.3, Fedora12, Fedora9_2x, OpenSolaris_09-06
       #57

    MS have held
    See ?
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