Please, let Windows XP die with dignity

[gregrocker]

I have a special place next to my MVP awards for the retail XP Home copy I dug out of the drawer when I called MS Tech Support about 10 years ago to fix the family Gateway 510. A stateside Tech Support agent spent nearly an entire overnight teaching me how to optimally reinstall the OS and then edit Visual Effects and other Services to reduce overhead on that ancient hardware. It was what sparked my interest in installation and soon I was reinstalling XP, Vista and eventually Win7 for family and friends who were amazed at how they never bogged or even hesitated again.

Incidentally it was reading the Win7 Developers blog in around 2008 where I learned that many of those services that sucked up resources were going to be set to Manual due to the invention of Fast Triggers, effectively replacing the Black Viper and finally providing an OS that doesn't ever overtax resources. These were backward introduced into Vista to save it, but never XP as far as I know.

 

[Night Hawk]

Still now there are a lots of desktop computers which are using Windows XP. Some people are used to using XP. XP will have to die as it was once born, but I think it should be given a little more time to live.

XP's already had its time line extended by a year or so, once. Microsoft is ready to put their greatest OS to rest, where it can live in peace, in our memories.

Greatest OS? or simply nothing else available due to the extended delays Long Horn(Vista) saw? With 7's release MS announced it was trying to get back to it's original 2-3yr. time frame for each newer version. XP came out in only one year's time being a rush job after ME was seen as a flop.

The main reason why many are still running XP at this time was from the bad reception Vista got when getting a bad rep from the start. The bulk of the fault for that believe it or not was MS understating the actual minimum system requirements while OEMs were still selling desktops, laptops with only 512mb or 1gb of memory when even XP ran far better with the 2gb minimum Vista needed. That resulted in people seeing Vista as a sluggish OS when comparing it to XP.

Another thing XP was always be famous for is Blue Screens of Death or BSODs! You wouldn't run into that with Vista or newer like you would with XP. (The XP Blues) For those that had usb problems it was SP2 that realized USB 2.0 since before that 98-XP only realized 1.0, 1.1 there.

On the other hand I certainly won't be missing XP despite a few goobers MS made with Vista as far as needing SP1 for that version to see all memory installed reporting less at times and the removal of Fat only brought back fast once again in 7 due to flash drives, external HDs, and other devices like camcorders, cameras, cell phones with cameras plugged in if a memory card was added acting like a flash drive, etc. I know a number of people who automatically took to Vista and simply ended labeling XP as a "crap OS" dissatisfied with all the problems they ran into.

Another thing the 32bit 7 brought with it was backward compatibility to XP hardware drivers even as well as older games and apps that often wouldn't even install let alone run on Vista. The compatibility mode doesn't work for everything! Yet you could slap the 32bit 7 on an old XP boat and have everything running using the XP drivers. board, video, onboard sound, etc. Even XP despite Fat support and being able to install the older version on a Fat primary never only went back one version to 2000 not 9x-ME Legacy without a little at least.

 

[patio]

I don't plan on retiring my XP Desktop for quite some time...
I'll keep you all posted on how it goes occasionally...

I'm sure it will still work. But will you use it with an internet connection?

Yes...

 

[UsernameIssues]

W7 is still costing me lots of downtime at the office - so I'm not its biggest fan.


There were lots of people (myself included) that had laptops running XP with only 256MB of RAM. This was before XP was patched all to bits. I don't recall ever having a BSOD until the patches came around. In my VMs, I only assign XP 96MB; try that with W7. W7 takes more CPU cycles and more RAM to run than XP, just watch Process Monitor and Process Explorer. This is partly because of all of the security related processes where stuff watches over other stuff; thus having to run multiple instances of apps.

Case in point: just clearing IE's history takes more processes than it did on XP. In W7 (and in Vista) to clear IE's history, the medium integrity level instance of IE starts one instance of RunDLL32 and the low integrity level instance of IE starts another instance of RunDLL32. Each of these RunDLL32 instances loads an instance of InetCpl.cpl (not to mention the 4 to 6 copies of DLLhost that start up depending on how many other clearing options you select). If IE has already exited RAM when you opt to clear history (via the control panel), then this process starts IE up again, you just don't see the window. The XP/IE combo never started IE just to clear stuff. Again, I understand that this happens in W7 for security, but don't tell me that W7 is faster than XP. It takes a lot stronger hardware to run all of this stuff.

And don't get me started about how many more services W7 starts as compared to XP. Like I really need wmpnetwk and homegroups at the office. Even indexing/searching is broken.


As you know, I do a bit of scripting. I've spent hours and hours trying to figure out why some of them just would not work on W7. It seems that the windows are just not ready to accept inputs as fast on W7 as they were on XP*. The solution was to slow the scripts down by a factor of 10. Some scripts I have yet to get to work on W7 - so we just lose that automated productivity.

*and the hardware running XP is weaker.

I have to hold onto XP until each vendor solves the problems we face moving to W7. And I don't know where these vendor's are going to get the money from to write new software. Their sales have been too low for the past decade.

 

[DreadStarX]

W7 is still costing me lots of downtime at the office - so I'm not its biggest fan.


There were lots of people (myself included) that had laptops running XP with only 256MB of RAM. This was before XP was patched all to bits. I don't recall ever having a BSOD until the patches came around. In my VMs, I only assign XP 96MB; try that with W7. W7 takes more CPU cycles and more RAM to run than XP, just watch Process Monitor and Process Explorer. This is partly because of all of the security related processes where stuff watches over other stuff; thus having to run multiple instances of apps.

Case in point: just clearing IE's history takes more processes than it did on XP. In W7 (and in Vista) to clear IE's history, the medium integrity level instance of IE starts one instance of RunDLL32 and the low integrity level instance of IE starts another instance of RunDLL32. Each of these RunDLL32 instances loads an instance of InetCpl.cpl (not to mention the 4 to 6 copies of DLLhost that start up depending on how many other clearing options you select). If IE has already exited RAM when you opt to clear history (via the control panel), then this process starts IE up again, you just don't see the window. The XP/IE combo never started IE just to clear stuff. Again, I understand that this happens in W7 for security, but don't tell me that W7 is faster than XP. It takes a lot stronger hardware to run all of this stuff.

And don't get me started about how many more services W7 starts as compared to XP. Like I really need wmpnetwk and homegroups at the office. Even indexing/searching is broken.


As you know, I do a bit of scripting. I've spent hours and hours trying to figure out why some of them just would not work on W7. It seems that the windows are just not ready to accept inputs as fast on W7 as they were on XP*. The solution was to slow the scripts down by a factor of 10. Some scripts I have yet to get to work on W7 - so we just lose that automated productivity.

*and the hardware running XP is weaker.

I have to hold onto XP until each vendor solves the problems we face moving to W7. And I don't know where these vendor's are going to get the money from to write new software. Their sales have been too low for the past decade.

The forums wouldn't let me quote two people with large posts, so I just quoted one.

I never knew that W7 required more processes than XP. I was under the assumption that Windows 7 was a revamped version of XP, with the GUI of Vista that had been modified into something "new". I guess Microsoft assumed everyone would have upgraded to Windows 7 by now.

Oh well, and yes, XP was their greatest OS, even compared to Windows 7 / Windows 8, which i love dearly. Windows XP will always be their best OS, in my opinion.

 

[Night Hawk]

Who needs a power house to run 7? While my main case was down due to a faulty supply I simply tossed a temporary 32bit install of the Ultimate edition I run here on an old XP build where only one of the two 512mb dimms was working at first. I had to pull both of those out and clean the contacts to get the 1gb of ram. 7 went on with only 512 and ran just as well as XP still being a newer and obviously slightly larger OS.

The system specs for that old boat I mentioned earlier were 1gb of memory, a 128mb AGP GeForce FX5200 series card, Realtek 4 channel onboard sound, and a SIS or VIA bios. XP Pro was later put back on once the main was up again with a new board the faulty supply cooked and was obviously slower then 7 taking the typical 39min. install compared to 7's 20min. average by optical.

The thing that XP had the stranglehold the most on over the years was simply seeing it used by more people then any previous version due to the lengthy delays Vista saw. Then you add the initial bad rep Vista got to the mix where people hesistated to upgrade but elected to skip over the previous version there and wait for 7. Likewise many now will continue on with 7 until Win 9 or else comes along after 8.1 since they look at 8, 8.1 as a tablet OS which MS seems to have geared it for.

XP has had a long fruitful life so far but certainly lacked a bit more in various ways then the effort MS suddenly to see put into 7. When looking at the minimum system requirements for both XP and 7 you have to take into consideration the time frame as far as hardwares as well as memory and hard drive capacities when XP first came out compared to what you commonly see available now. XP had the 137gb barrier while 7 a 2tb barrier some are running into with drives that over 2tb in size.

Another thing to point is naturally the newer version would be larger in size then XP since there are also a large number of new technologies brought forth in the last decade you weren't seeing at XP's conception only further showing just how antiquated it is now for common everyday use. "gee why can't I upload my pics off this smart phone onto my XP?" is the type of typical situation you find due to lack of support the old version is facing.

7 is however not larger then Vista after MS realized Windows was "getting too big" with Vista getting the bloated OS rep for having an increased number of background services running. This is why MS came up with the MinWin kernel to see the Windows core made more modular and not so resource hungry. And security wasn't the only thing Vista brought in with it but also a much more stable OS.

While I didn't actually see constant BOSDs either all you had to do was look around at various sites and you would always find someone needing help with one! Between the rapid turnover of newer hardwares as well as some very original bugs in the old version finally being addressed in SP3 with over 1,000 fixes finally seen to the old version at this point is simply too outdated having been extended by MS due Vista's delays and to allow the upgrade to 7 take place by companies still running old networks that required the older version.

 

[UsernameIssues]

> 7 went on with only 512 and ran just as well as XP still being a newer and obviously slightly larger OS.
For the types of things that I do at the office (scripting the control of other GUIs), W7 is measurably slower. It might not be something that you can perceive, but the scripts sure "see" it.
The last comparison that I ran was between:
XP-32bit, Pentium D CPU at 3.4GHz and 512MB RAM
W7-64bit, i5-3470 CPU at 3.2GHz and 4GB RAM

Add to that the numerous gripes that I hear from coworkers about file operations being slow. Maybe the company that I work for just does not know how to make a good W7 build.

> why can't I upload my pics off this smart phone onto my XP?
Not a typical business related problem.
Some of the software that we use is not even supported on XP. The vendor only supported it on W95. I'm holding on to XP because I have no other option. Computer hardware has been stockpiled and systems can be kept alive via cannibalism for quite a while. Would you toss equipment that costs just under a million USD to replace just because the software to control it is 16bit? The vendor is not going to update the software, they want their millions


edit: the W7 laptop that I'm using from my employer just told me that it did not recognize a USB device (my smart phone). This happens most often if the phone is plugged into the laptop before I wake the computer... and since I can charge the phone while the computer sleeps, that sequence of events is not uncommon. I updated the driver. Time will tell if that was the issue. But I do understand what you mean about XPdrivers and new devices. I just don't encounter that at all at the office. If we get new equipment, we get a new computer and new OS with it. I cannot help it if some of the old equipment has outlasted the life of the OS.

 

[Diosoth]

Tonight I started my Gateway W7 and Dell XP machines at the same time. By the time W7 reached the black "windows is starting up" screen, my XP computer was already loaded to the desktop and ready to go. That's less than 15 seconds for XP to boot to desktop, and well over a minute for W7 to get to Desktop- and another few minutes for the OS to do a bunch of background stuff.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I never had an XP machine boot that fast and a Win 7 machine that slow.

 

[Night Hawk]

First of all when going to plug in any usb device one thing you will find a mandate regardless of which you are running is the need to have the system awake or booted up to the desktop. For hibernation or sleep modes you may even want to click the restart so everything boots up fresh again before plugging the usb device in.

This will allow ffresh detection of the device. If you simply plug a device while hibernating or in sleep it won't be.

Now for boot time I had XP, Vista, and the 7 beta and RC build all installed while testing 7 originally with both the 32bit and 64bit builds set up with the existing XP/Vista(default boot OS then) dual boot and made the comparisons as well as seeing Vista and XP go back onto the previous buid used then and now seeing 7 retail after the old case was passed along to a friend. In every instance 7 arrived at the desktop faster then either of the two previous versions unless there was a problem or severely loaded down with startup.
(When first seeing the retail 7 go on I stressed tested the then brand new version by loading it to the max with sorts of freebies as well as paid for apps in order to push the limits)

Shutting 7 down when powering down is also faster with 7 over the two previous versions with one guide here explaining how to lower the "WaitToKillServices" registry value from the default 20000 in XP and Vista(both seeing the same) and 7 with 12000 as the default. The rec is about 1000 while I run about 800 some lower at 500. A few guides reflect on that while the earliest and first mentions lowering from the 12000 value to 2000. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/717-shut-down-speed-up.html

The reason for the higher 2000 value there is often you will tend to see the "waiting to close...." when restarting or shuting down 7 when the value is lowered too far. For the novice and not so savay user 1200-2000 is a good value range for that tweak.

Now if you are wondering why 7 is seeing more processes then XP look back one version to Vista which was often labeled the bloated OS until 7 came along when MS realized Windows was getting too big! Many of the newer services involve supports for newer technologies not present back in the 2000-2001 time frame when XP was first being developed. The two newer versions offered more features not seen previously in any of the older NT or Legacy versions.

Up until a certain point XP required a driver floppy or cd burned with sata drivers since the older version was unable to detect any Sata I or Sata II drive when going to install Windows. Vista then saw generic driver support included in the OS until chipsets on the newer boards then allowed XP to see sata drives. Just another point to indicate that XP will only become even more promatic after the support is abandoned for good no longer seeing those extra driver sets and no more SPs to add new support for newer things to come simply being too old even now to be run on a practical day to day basis. Let's face it people it can nostalgia on a VM but as far as trying to use it as the main OS at this late date it's time to give it a good retirement package.

 

[Layback Bear]

Their will always be a place in my heart for XP just like a old girl friend.
My new girl friend and Windows 7 are both much better and faster.
You just have to take the time to use them properly. My new girl friend and Windows 7 given me guidance and things are working well.

 

[Night Hawk]

I highly doubt XP will be forgotten about quite that soon but given time. What makes XP unique in it's own is simply being it hasn't been upgraded out of anywhere near as fast as every other previous version mainly due to two factors surrounding Vista as well as the corporate side of the equation wanting to maintain what they have rather kept making big changes every couple of years.

The two factors with Vista there is the delayed launch dates which allowed people to get "more settled in" with XP over time. And then you have the initial issues of hardwares not up to speed due to the MS goober of understating the 2gb minum actually needed over the 512mb of ram?! MS goofed that one up on their own there!

 

[lehnerus2000]

Tonight I started my Gateway W7 and Dell XP machines at the same time. By the time W7 reached the black "windows is starting up" screen, my XP computer was already loaded to the desktop and ready to go. That's less than 15 seconds for XP to boot to desktop, and well over a minute for W7 to get to Desktop- and another few minutes for the OS to do a bunch of background stuff.

Weird.

I never had an XP machine boot that fast and a Win 7 machine that slow.

Agreed.

I'm triple booting (therefore all are using the same hardware):

• Windows XP (average 45 - 60 seconds)
• W7 (average 35 - 45 seconds)
• Linux Mint 14 (average <30 seconds)

My W7 boot time is highly variable though.

I've seen it (Event Viewer) boot up in:

• < 30 seconds.
• > 90 seconds (when it is not configuring updates)

 

[gregrocker]

Tonight I started my Gateway W7 and Dell XP machines at the same time. By the time W7 reached the black "windows is starting up" screen, my XP computer was already loaded to the desktop and ready to go. That's less than 15 seconds for XP to boot to desktop, and well over a minute for W7 to get to Desktop- and another few minutes for the OS to do a bunch of background stuff.

Establish a Clean boot to get the freeloaders off your Startup.

Preinstalled WIn7 is also the worst possible install one can have. Start enjoying Win7's native performance for the first time by doing what most tech enthusiasts do and Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 to shed the bloatware and duplicate utilties which interfere with better versions built into WIn7.

 

[bawldiggle]

As a pimply faced youth my virgin-IT-birth was with punch-card main frames.

I was the turkey who had to wheel 120lb (60kg) of punch-cards around for the geek-gods, and then days waiting for a report.
(Good fun wheeling uncontained cards down a windy street, but what was the loss of a card or two?!!! ... I wasn't very long in IT.)

My first "Word processor" was a glacial Amstrad 256KB ... incl the OS. We thought it was rocket science.
Character coding .... aaagghhh!! The pain.

With each incarnation of Windows .. 95 and on.. I tore my hair out, trying to get my head around the gremlins attached to my finger tips.
Until recently XP and I have had a deep affection for each other.
And those who recognise me will know, I have had a struggle with Win7 since Dec-2013 -- eleven months of climbing the wall of longing for XP.

I hate Win7 default UI and Win8 ... thank god I am in semi-retirement.
And thanks for "Classic Start and Classic Explorer"
(Touch screen in AutoCad is laughable, we all eat greasey food in this office for starters)

BUT A CONFESSION ... bless me father for I have had a closed mind.
(Don't tell anyone)
Bit by bit I find gems about Win7. Technically superior to XP ... there I said it !

The XP UI is the most accessible (I don't look at a UI to fondle it or have lascivious longings)
In my business as a consulting engineer the PC is a tool -- not a mistress.
Training employees and new software can be a very expensive cost, both in time and $$$.

Why do MS insist on only having one UI? ... to suck the fanboy$ in, with their credit card$ !

There is a place for both old and new, and in my life I am amused how history repeats itself.

 

[bawldiggle]

Tonight I started my Gateway W7 and Dell XP machines at the same time. By the time W7 reached the black "windows is starting up" screen, my XP computer was already loaded to the desktop and ready to go. That's less than 15 seconds for XP to boot to desktop, and well over a minute for W7 to get to Desktop- and another few minutes for the OS to do a bunch of background stuff.

Establish a Clean boot to get the freeloaders off your Startup.

Preinstalled WIn7 is also the worst possible install one can have. Start enjoying Win7's native performance for the first time by doing what most tech enthusiasts do and Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 to shed the bloatware and duplicate utilties which interfere with better versions built into WIn7.

Totally agree !
Dell Win8 Pro preloaded -- in process
Toshiba Win7 preloaded -- is next

 

[bawldiggle]

Their will always be a place in my heart for XP just like a old girl friend.
My new girl friend and Windows 7 are both much better and faster.
You just have to take the time to use them properly. My new girl friend and Windows 7 given me guidance and things are working well.

Touche !!

 

[Faladu]

The OS will still work just fine, just no more patches, I was never planning on it be reinstalled on new hardware anyhow.

I have it still on one old PC that rarely ever is powered on, saved for any certification exams that might requiring it's use in depth.

Besides, if I really wanted it later, VMWare.

It's not the end of the XP.

 

[Night Hawk]

For anyone planning to keep running XP as a second OS or on an older machine if you are using an old XP cd I would suggest either shopping around now for a few sites where you still buy Vista as well as XP media with SP3 or download the service packs and even burn them to disk to have onhand once the support is gone.

If you have already an XP/SP3 disk then you are set for however much longer you can run it later on a physical drive. Any OS even the old legacy versions can still be run on a VM once you get the installation problems that can come up for bootable set up floppy images(3.1, 9x, ME, even XP is some instances). I had some fun getting 98SE onto VBox a few years back without any floppy image to load. It still went on however.

For an alternate VM program I mentioned the open source program called Boch's earlier I will get to try out sometime. And as for boot times lehnerus2000 called it correct as far as the average boot times for each OS with Linux Mint and Linux Mint Debian seeing a much faster start up time having less overhead in the other OS there to begin with. That's one reason I prefer using LMDebian for live data recovery sticks preferred over ubuntu or a few other distros for that purpose and just to look over a second OS on VM at times.

 

[Diosoth]

I use XP mainly for games that can't be played in W7.

My XP install disc was a SP3 slipstreamed copy, and I needed to install Dell drivers- the HDD in this computer died a few days after I got it so I had to swap it out. My W7 Gateway has their install of W7 on it, I have recovery/factory install discs.