XP, Just for fun.

[TechnoMage2016]

Yes, Windows 7 is my main OS and will be for well into the future. But I get bored easily, and I'm always looking for something to break the boredom.
So last night, I found an old ISO of Windows XP, SP3 and decided to try it.

I hooked up a spare HD to my PC, put the disk with the ISO in my CD drive and booted up to the ISO disk.

I fully expected the install to error out, but it just kept going. And it finally completed, with good video but no sound and no LAN. That was more or less expected. So I put in the driver disk that came with my Gigabyte mother board.

After all the mobo drivers were installed, Win-XP was running just fine, with sound and Internet. Probably better/faster than it had ever run before.

I installed Mozilla Firefox, and then set up Outlook Express to handle my email. Then I ripped off an email to an old friend, half a world away.

The entire experiment could hot have gone off any more satisfactory. No, I'm not advocating for anyone to install and run Windows XP.

OH, before I did the install to a spare 2.5" drive, I set the drive up with Partition Manager and formatted it as a FAT-32 drive. I remembered that XP actually likes to run on a FAT-32 drive, even though some self proclaimed 'Experts' will tell you "that can't be done". I've always just loved doing what others say "Can't be done."

I'm back on my Windows 7 drive now, and this will remain my OS of choice, well into the future.

Cheers Mates!
TechnoMage

 

[GoldenDog]

I have 2 XP install disks that I have used to install XP for fun so "welcome to da haus"!
It works great on doing refurbs of retro computers so I know what you mean ( I will still use windows 7 forever)

Although I just thought of something:
We all say "I'm using Windows 7 forever", "never switching to Windows 10" and "Windows 8? Never!" But is that what you veterans said about XP when Vista came out? "I will use XP forever?" But now all ya'll are saying that you'll never switch to Windows 10, but when the next stable version of windows comes out will you be bunny hopping to that?
Just a thought.

 

[dg1261]

Although I just thought of something:
We all say "I'm using Windows 7 forever", "never switching to Windows 10" and "Windows 8? Never!" But is that what you veterans said about XP when Vista came out? "I will use XP forever?"

No. I don't know anyone who said that. I, and everyone I know, said we would wait for the successor to Vista, based on Microsoft's history of alternating good-bad-good-bad OSes. I recommended to all my clients to stay away from Vista, but when 7 came out it was clearly superior, even with bugs still to be ironed out.

There were clear limitations to XP even before it reached its EOS date, so there was never a "XP-forever" mindset. There are things, such as GPT support, that XP was just never going to be able to do. In contrast, there are no clear limitations to 7, even after reaching EOS.

I also don't know who those "self proclaimed experts" are that said XP couldn't be installed on FAT32. In the early days of XP it was extremely common to install XP on FAT32 if you wanted to continue using tried and true disk utilities that were not NTFS-aware. There was no real reason to abandon FAT32 until disk sizes increased to the point FAT32 cluster sizes were becoming inefficient, so plenty of XP installations on sub-30GB disks were FAT32.

 

[RolandJS]

"...I will use XP forever..." What that normally means for many of us is that once the majority of software and utilities that we enjoy using moves from loosening and dropping support of our beloved Windows OS over to acquiring and maintaining support for the current new Windows OS -- finally, we move on (from old to new OS) also.

 

[file3456]

Just note that when you use FAT 32 you limit files sizes to I think 4 GB. Files can't be any bigger than that in a FAT 32 formatted disk. When I ran XP they were all NTFS.

 

[file3456]

I skipped past Vista, never used 8 and stuck with 7. Will be using 7 for a while until the new Flight Simulator comes out and I see what the reviews are. Then I have plans on how I'll deploy Win 10 by stripping crap from its ISO, running Pfsense and a plunder bug among other things to make sure telemetry doesn't sneak out of MY computer. I already block Nvidia telemetry among other things.

 

[Diosoth]

As noted in my sig I have a separate PC with an XP install on it, mainly to run older games that 7 has issues with or simpler games that can get by on a lower-end GPU(low low-end? The Intel chip in it has graphical glitches in Morrowind despite being a 2007 chip). It also comes in very useful if the main PC is down for repair/upgrade and won't start for some reason, or if this PC fails. I can still use a web browser and while nowhere near as functional as 7 it's still useful. Updates officially ended years ago and some people are still sticking with it because they don't need a better PC. I expect we'll see similar with W7 long-term users who don't care to upgrade because what they have works fine.

I may do a W10 install if I ever put a second HDD in to see if I like it but I intend to keep 7 should anything not work- and I'm wary of 10 being totally compatible with my 10-year old hardware despite some upgrades put into it.

 

[GoldenDog]

I skipped past Vista, never used 8 and stuck with 7. Will be using 7 for a while until the new Flight Simulator comes out and I see what the reviews are. Then I have plans on how I'll deploy Win 10 by stripping crap from its ISO, running Pfsense and a plunder bug among other things to make sure telemetry doesn't sneak out of MY computer. I already block Nvidia telemetry among other things.

I do run windows 10 on 1 pc but the other 9 are: Windows 7/Linux, Windows 8 (don't ever use this one) 2 Macs (don't usually use these), 4 windows 7s and 1 windows XP for non windows 7 programs

 

[GoldenDog]

Anyone here have the windows 95 app?

 

[TechnoMage2016]

I've been a computer tech since I built my first PC with DOS 2.0 on it. That was a long time ago!

Since then every time a new OS came out, I had to try it at least enough to get familiar with how to set it up and Tweak it out, for my customers.
I even had some tweaks for Windows ME, that made it a pretty good OS.
I didn't miss Vista, but it was one that was easy to hate.
Win-8.0 was a hit and a miss, and I worked as a Moderator on a Windows 8.0 forum. It was a good day indeed when MS came out with Windows 8.1. I still think they should have called it Windows 9. Most people just could not believe that a " .1" could make that much difference between a really nasty OS and a really good one. Even today, Windows 8.1 is one of my favorite OS's. It's very compatible with older PC's, and it has a really GREAT driver pack.


The most problems I've had with setting up any new OS for my customers, is Windows 10. Right out of the box, so to speak, it's a nightmare and my customers Hate it. But once I get the Classic Shell installed, and I get it all tweaked and tuned, it becomes a lot more acceptable. When I'm done with the setup, it's actually pretty fast, and stable. Boot up in 10 to 15 seconds, and total shutdown in about five seconds is typical.


Today, I repeated the Windows XP install, but this time I used a 5.25", 500GB Hitachi spinner, and went with NTFS formatting. So far, the install has been flawless, and I was even able to shoot off an email with my old friend, "Outlook Express".


I also like OLD Cars, but that's a hobby that I just can't afford.


I've really enjoyed hearing from y'all. Thanks!


TechnoMage

 

[William2020]

You can't call yourself a computer techie unless your very first PC was an IBM 8086!! This was me, I got a hand-me-down 8086 years ago as my first PC...

Guys remember a few quirks about XP:

1. If the installer crashes, gotta go into the BIOS and set HDD as IDE mode (instead of AHCI).

2. Can't install XP on 2.5" HDD > 500GB in size. Most of these are so called "Advanced Format" drives. XP can't handle them. U have to first install Vista/7/8.1 on them to align the partition(s) then u can put XP on it.

3. Just as with Win7, if u sysprep a WinXP installation, u can transfer it to another machine with completely different hardware. Sysprep will remove all the hardware-specific info on the WinXP image... This means that u can get XP on a laptop with no DVD drive by installing it on another machine that does then sysprep it.

 

[TechnoMage2016]

You can't call yourself a computer techie unless your very first PC was an IBM 8086!! This was me, I got a hand-me-down 8086 years ago as my first PC...
Guys remember a few quirks about XP:
1. If the installer crashes, gotta go into the BIOS and set HDD as IDE mode (instead of AHCI).
2. Can't install XP on 2.5" HDD > 500GB in size. Most of these are so called "Advanced Format" drives. XP can't handle them. U have to first install Vista/7/8.1 on them to align the partition(s) then u can put XP on it.
3. Just as with Win7, if u sysprep a WinXP installation, u can transfer it to another machine with completely different hardware. Sysprep will remove all the hardware-specific info on the WinXP image... This means that u can get XP on a laptop with no DVD drive by installing it on another machine that does then sysprep it.

Oh, XP has quirks alright, but one two and three needs four, five, six, etc. etc. etc.
IBM 8088? I built mine, from scratch, then I modified the Bios for faster boot-up. I was tweaking and modifying mine from day one. Many of my friends wanted me to build one for them. That's when I got into the PC building business.
I started off with a Seagate 20MB half height HD, but quickly moved up to a Seagate ST4038 full height, 30MB HD. I didn't see how anyone could fill up a 30MB HD. roflmao
That Seagate ST4038 was selling in the Computer Shopper magazine, for $700.
Anyone remember the Computer Shopper?

Coming back down to current events:

I wasn't real happy with my first XP install, to a little 2.5" 80GB drive. It just seemed really slow. So I did another install to a 3.5" 500GB spinner. (an old Deskstar/Hitachi* HD) Now with all the necessary software installed, it's running just great. My first real "job" was to send an email to an old friend, an IT expert, a country away, using Outlook Express, my old friend.

*Back in its day, the 'Deskstar' hard drive was not very reliable, and got the nic-name, among technicians, as "Death Star". I think it's fitting, that XP is now running on a "Death Star".

So I'm convinced, that if a person could only afford an OLD PC, with Win-XP on it, there's no reason why they would really need anything else. I had forgotten some of the old Performance Tweaks that I used to install on XP. But as I got into it, everything came back to me. I still have all my XP Stuff on my Utilities CD/FD. I just don't see that stuff very often these days.

It's sometimes fun, to just take a little walk down memory lane. I sure do enjoy it.

Cheers Mates!
TechnoMage

 

[GoldenDog]

:roflmao:Ha ha ha windows 8 has the worst GUI/start menu of the windows OS's but you're right that Vista was one of the worst.

 

[RoWin7]

Where did ME fit in? Before or after XP? I also skipped ME, Vista, 8 and 8.1.

They didn't use 9 because they were afraid it would become confused with 98.

 

[Bree]

Where did ME fit in? Before or after XP?

ME was the last of the DOS based Windows family which started in 1985: 1, 2, 3.x, 95, 98, ME. Windows ME went RTM in 2000.

XP came from the NT family of Windows, starting with NT 3.1 in 1993. It was released in 2001 and was the first NT version of Windows to be aimed at the consumer market, previously NT was marketed for business users only, or as servers.

 

[William2020]

So I'm convinced, that if a person could only afford an OLD PC, with Win-XP on it, there's no reason why they would really need anything else. I had forgotten some of the old Performance Tweaks that I used to install on XP. But as I got into it, everything came back to me. I still have all my XP Stuff on my Utilities CD/FD. I just don't see that stuff very often these days.

It's sometimes fun, to just take a little walk down memory lane. I sure do enjoy it.

Cheers Mates!
TechnoMage

Lol lol lol. I'm still using XP as my main OS on my main laptop which is a C2D with 2GB RAM from 2007. Yes, long time XPers still exist! There's not much I can do on Win7/8.1 that I can't do on XP. I dare challenge anyone to name one exclusive feature on 7/8.1 that isn't available on XP (beside the ability to native boot from a VHD).

(BTW, it's really funny seeing ppl get laptops with 16GB RAM nowadays and complaining they still don't have enough RAM. I mean wut r these ppl smoking? My C2D laptop from above with 2GB rocks with Win7+Edge. Very zippy almost as fast as XP. The secret is, the 32 bit edition of Win7 is a lot faster than 64 bit on older machines)

 

[Bree]

I dare challenge anyone to name one exclusive feature on 7/8.1 that isn't available on XP (beside the ability to native boot from a VHD).

Natively mount an *.iso file by double-clicking on it in Explorer (available from W8 on...)

IPv6 (Vista and above).

SMB 2.0 (Vista), 2.1 (W7), 3.0 (W8) and higher (W8.1 on...) so that the insecure SMB 1.0 can be disabled.

 

[Diosoth]

XP's version of MS Paint is vastly inferior to the version 7 got.

 

[TechnoMage2016]

MS Paint? Oh my gawd! I've not used that in decades, since my personal Computer Guru turned me on to "Photo Filtre". (yes I spelled it correctly...it's French)

It's my "Photo Shop", on steroids, and it's FREE. And it works equally well on XP or Win-10, and every OS in between. It's one of my "Must Haves" on every Windows install that I do.

Right now, I'm on Windows 7/Pro/x86. (for testing purposes only) I'm still in Install/Testing and tuning, and evaluation mode. Like XP, I found it lurking on the Internet and just had to try it.

It came with a much improved Driver Package, with drivers for my LAN and Audio, which earlier versions of W-7 did not have. I have to go to my Driver Disk that came with my motherboard for those drivers. It even installed decent drivers for my NVIDIA 210 video card. So all in all, I'm pretty happy with it.

Somewhere out there in web land, there are dedicated W-7 enthusiasts who continue to Make upgrades for our old favorite Windows 7, both 64 and x86. I guess they figure that All's Fair, since MS is abandoning W-7.

But that's a subject best kept for a different forum. Eh?

Here's wishing y'all a very good Valentine's Day,
TechnoMage

 

[Lance1]

Anyone here have the windows 95 app?

Here's two links you can fallow.

Windows 95 App 2.2.1

Windows 95 v2.0