Windows XP just won't go away

[Robbien]

Source: CNN

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Windows XP, which debuted nine years ago in 2001, will continue to be with us for yet another decade.

Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) announced late Monday that it would allow some Windows 7 customers to buy Windows XP "downgrade" licenses until January 2020. Those licenses allow customers to swap out the newer operating system and instead install a legal copy of the older one.

Microsoft initially planned to let Windows 7 customers downgrade to Windows XP only through April 2010, but that end-date was quickly extended until October 2011. Now, the company says it will extend the downgrade option through the entire Windows 7 sales cycle, which is scheduled to last until January 2020.

. . .

Though the software giant said its customers are moving quickly to adopt the newest Windows version, it acknowledged that some still want the option to downgrade. A full 74% of Microsoft's business customers are still using the outdated Windows XP, Windows marketing head Tami Reller said this week at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington, D.C.

Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/13/technology/windows_xp/index.htm?section=money_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fmoney_topstories+%28Top+Stories%29

[meegbear]

1. Wow! That's quite the extension.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Too bad the Mayan calendar doesn't predict that XP will fail

in 2012... then Bill could order a new planet if he wanted.

[pgodbold]

26. ROFL n/t

[louis-t]

3. Hey, if something works....

Consider that only 1 in about 4 of their operating systems are any good.

[frylock]

28. windows 7 runs fine..

Windows Vista SP2 runs fine on the 2 laptops I have it installed on.

[Tempest]

39. Windows 7 will be fine...

Only after the first service pack has been released.

MS software has always been buggy out of the gate.

[Statistical]

4. It essentially costs Microsoft nothing.

First most people already have a windows xp license. To get downgrade people need to buy windows 7 (for business that is Windows 7 Professional). Pretty sweet deal to have people pay $200 for something they won't use and to create an incentive Microsoft will give you something you likely are already using.

That being said business tends to be very conservative and having the option (even if they never use it and move to Windows 7) clears that hurdle.

[glen123098]

5. Windows Vista/7 Is a piece of shit.

Its terrible. Anytime I want to do anything it claims I don't have permission to do it. I finally got fed up and reformatted my harddrive and reinstalled XP.

[FarrenH]

7. Vista is shit, Windows 7 isn't

I basically waited for Windows 7, telling everyone who moved to Vista it was a bad decision. But Windows 7 is a solid operating system. Resource intensive sure, but it delivers for what it consumes. Vista gobbled an obscene amount of resources for very little payoff.

[Tempest]

40. Windows 7 isn't mature enough except for home users

You won't find it on any corporate workstations.

That's why XP has been extended.

[DainBramaged]

50. 15% of corporations are using 7 Pro (as am I on two gaming systems 64 bit)

It is way superior to Vista (which the Pro version is the best version)

[Tempest]

57. Where did you get the 15% figure?

Windows 7 has only been out for one year and corporations don't jump to new OSes until they have matured for at least 9 months.

You're grossly over-estimating the number of corporations on Win7.

[DainBramaged]

58. If you looked up to a previous post about 62% of corps using XP

you'll see it was from a survey I read of Fortune 500 companies, and as soon as I find the newsletter at work and the link on the web, I'll post it. Until such time, if you can't take me at my word, oh well.........

[Tempest]

60. Where did you get 62%?

It's not anywhere on this thread as you claimed.

[DainBramaged]

61. Look down not up, and use your eyes instead of being confrontational

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4463443&mesg_id=4463812

[Jazzgirl]

87. Our corporation is going to start upgrading to 7

by the 4th quarter of this year. We're talking over 10,000+ workstations.

[Canuckistanian]

62. As a tech user, I see no reason to upgrade to 7

I've been developing our software and test systems on XP.

It works, is fairly stable and still easy to understand, even down to the API level. A lot of us have specialized script programs, older programs and original development programs that work fine on XP.

With experience, we've learned how to debug XP and to make fast workarounds to OS problems and bottlenecks.

We want to eliminate as many bugs as possible. We're sticking with XP for now.

[B3Nut]

77. I can't seem to deploy 7 fast enough

the ability to switch between users without logging the other user off in a domain environment is a godsend in my company. Any time a PC is replaced I deploy a new Win7 box. Meshes nicely with our Server 2008 backend.

TP

[Regret My New Name]

100. Did your company skip over Vista?

[Regret My New Name]

99. What do you base this on?

Windows 7 (and even Vista's) biggest improvements are for enterprise users. Also, there seems to be a lot of new Windows 7 deployments all around these days. I also know that several state organizations in Texas are currently in the process of rolling out Windows 7.

[Renew Deal]

9. Sounds like a user issue.

[no limit]

10. I think the problem you were experiencing is the "ID-10T" problem

I know it's a shock but MAC and liunx actually run similarly to the UAC method (although I much prefer UAC).

[MiniMe]

20. also known as PBCAC

Problem Between Computer And Chair

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

11. That can be turned off, you know.

But XP is still the better OS- I still use it on all my machines.

[no limit]

12. It can be, but really shouldn't.

[JoeyT]

55. Yep.

I usually tell people that ask me how "If you don't know how to turn off UAC without googling or being told, it's probably not a good idea to go turning it off."

[Capt. Jack]

94. Good Point about UAC

I've been using Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) for a while now and really put it through it's paces.

If you use resource intensive software the 64 bit architecture is a great improvement.

My 2 cents...worth it or not!

;-)

[LanternWaste]

13. Some people like Coke. Others like Pepsi

Some people like Coke. Others like Pepsi. And still others blame the can when they can't open the top...

[totodeinhere]

17. That's Vista. 7 lets you turn off all of those notices if you want to. n/t

[quiller4]

30. 7 and Vista are very different. 7 is wonderful but Vista is worthless.

I use 7 at work and XP at home. Both are stable and reliable. I had Vista on a laptop I used for awhile. It gave me no end of trouble. I installed 7 and now it is happy and so am I.

[DainBramaged]

49. Turn it off, so simple even a child could have figured it out....

You keep your XP it will serve you well.........(smacks head, KNOWING that this sounds exactly like the people at work who HATE change).

OH and I the great Windoze proponent am typing this on our Mac Mini (which I have not fallen in love with yet).

[Spider Jerusalem]

65. You need to disable User Account Control, which takes about a minute.

After you do that you don't get the annoying 'administrator password required to continue' popups.

[Recursion]

75. "That damn seat belt was uncomfortable so I cut it out"

UAC is the first sane security management model Microsoft has ever had. If you're forced to use Windows, don't disable it.

[glen123098]

80. I did, but more errors still kept coming up.

It removed some permission errors, but not others. It said for the others I'd have to go into the registry. I didn't want to do that so I reverted back to XP. That and vista kept crashing all my programs.

[Occulus]

88. I've changed permissions on files and directories with a few clicks in 7

It's really very very easy to do. I can't imagine how you were trying to go about it, but it really does only take a few clicks.

[hobbit709]

96. You can change those settings you know.

[dipsydoodle]

6. Good

.

[Renew Deal]

8. There is something significantly wrong if XP is still around in 2020.

Windows 7 is quite good. I imagine that people will continue to migrate.

[Glenda]

41. I think it's that certain software won't run on Windows 7

Including something that I have. So I downgraded to XP

[Regret My New Name]

101. Hmm, even with systems that support Windows XP mode?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/windows-xp-mode

[Tempest]

42. Yeah, it was called Vista

Windows 7, as good as it is, isn't ready for prime time (corporate America).

The federal government is sticking with XP at least for another year, for example.

[Warpy]

14. XP was their first good OS

and it was out for a very long time, meaning there's a lot of XP compatible software out there.

Win7 has a lot of new features, most of which are annoying as hell. It was actually easier for me to get used to an Ubuntu box than it was to Win7 and there are still things I could do on XP that I can't do on Win7 and that I miss, along with a lot of stuff that won't run on Win7.

So when my XP computer went up in smoke, I bought a refurbished XP box for peanuts to replace it.

Microshaft really needs to keep XP as an option for the foreseeable future.

If they don't, I can foresee a techie underground making XP boxes for people who still want them.

[BootinUp]

19. What was wrong with NT and 2K?

pretty good for their time I think and current windows still inherents design from these earlier OP systems even if the code has been all re-written.

[Iowa]

34. Yep. Unfortunately, W2K security updates expired...

Actually, I believe that expired today. So you can no longer connect and download security updates.

[Tempest]

43. No useful multimedia extensions in NT and Win2000

It wasn't until Media Center for XP that you could have a true multimedia computer.

[conspirator]

46. XP is based on NT 4.0. Since NT 4.0 ad 2000 were not a "home" OS'es they don't count n/t

[X_Digger]

23. My win7 box is as much like XP as I can make it.

UAC? Gone. Aero? Gone. eye-candy-drop-shadow-and-animations-bullshit? If I wanted a candy-coated mac, I would have bought one.

Only thing that I can't seem to get is a start menu replacement that is like XP.

[Warpy]

45. That's the part that's driving me nuts

along with not being able to fiddle more with the screen resolution.

Ugh. They had a winner and they ruined it.

[sybylla]

78. "It was actually easier for me to get used to an Ubuntu box than it was to Win7"

No kidding. We have xp and ubuntu on most of our computers. Shifting to ubuntu on the server and older computers was a piece of cake. But I was helping a customer yesterday with a program on their win7 box an it took me forever to figure out where they stashed all the bits - networking, computer drives, etc. Even the icon for saving a file is in a different place. Nothing is where it was on xp.

[MineralMan]

15. I upgrade operating systems only when I buy a new PC.

With software, I'm even more slow. I've been using Office 2000 since, well, 2000. I have every version of Office, including 2010, in my house. I pretty much only use Word, and Word 2000 is just about the most stable, fastest version of Word ever done. It does absolutely everything I need, and then some.

It runs fine in Windows 7 and Vista. I can see no reason to switch, especially since Microsoft screwed up the Office interface so badly.

I have a brand new copy of Office Professional 2000, in a sealed package, waiting for my next computer. Ebay is great!

[HillbillyBob]

16. Partner is a network security specialist

and we had a lot of hack attempts as we owned a small ISP. We went to linux about 10 yrs ago. We still get hack attacks on our servers..but unlike windows..they don't get through.

[BootinUp]

18. I remember NT hanging on for quite awhile

after it was superceded, but this may be a record. Of course I still have some NT computers in the plastics lab I run.

[damntexdem]

21. The new Microsoft software is total crap.

When my university switched over to Windows 2010, I luckily had an older office PC that couldn't accommodate it, unlike my newer office PC. So they left the old one alone, with all of the older software that actually works well. Now, I don't even bother to turn the new PC on, because there's nothing on it that I need to work with.

[Gen. Jack D. Ripper]

22. Linux

'nuff said.

[jayfish]

24. Right, Because XP Applications Are Backward...

compatible with whatever flavor of Linux is popular at the moment. I know I shouldn't be feeding you; but did you even read the article?

FSH

[Gen. Jack D. Ripper]

31. Of course I read the article

It's an unfortunate fact of modern computing that Linux just doesn't get the same support from non-open source developers that Microsoft and Apple receive. There's little incentive for developers to port to Linux because Linux has so few users, yet Linux has so few users because developers don't port their programs to Linux. I'd like to see this cycle broken because I think the pc world could use another option. I for one am I tired of having to choose between Windows, Windows, or...Windows. Unless of course you want to buy a Mac...

[Tesha]

36. Linux owners don't like to spend money. Why would any commercial shop develop for it? (NT)

[Gen. Jack D. Ripper]

47. Bullshit (NT)

[Tesha]

51. Well argued sir, well argued.

How much have you spent on commercial software in the last,
oh decade or so?

Tesha

[True_Blue]

90. Have you tried Puppy Linux?

My HDD crashed and I've been running only Puppy Linux on a 2 gig USB stick for 2 months now. It's an easy Linux OS for beginners too. Even my HP printer that is suppose to run only on Windows works on Puppy. I could never get my printer to run on any other Linux OS, which was basically the only reason I stuck with Windows. Puppy has PET packages which install simply by clicking on them just like Windows, but you can also install apps using the console if you want. There's a lot of apps and support for Puppy here - http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/index.php?f=11. I have every application that I need installed on less than 1 gig so far. If you need to run Windows apps, you can install WINE to run them. I installed Internet Explorer via WINE because there is a site I use that requires IE. My fav PET package so far is Wbar, which is a Mac-like launcher for my shortcuts.

Here's a pic of the Wbar ....

[Ozymanithrax]

25. I use Windows XP on a my 4 year old desk top, and Windows 7..

on my 4 month old lap top.

I think both work well. But I will keep this desk top until it dies, and I'm glad that Window's XP isn't gong the way of the Dodo until my computer chooses to be reincarnate as a can of coke.

[Speck Tater]

27. I loaded an old application CD yesterday and it said it required Windows 3.1 or higher.

I remember when Windows 3.1 was the latest and greatest! And it wasn't that long ago. Hell, my car is older than Windows 3.1!

[mike_c]

38. cleaning my office last week I encountered my original 2.5" Windows 3.1 floppies....

Finally chucked them-- I don't think any of the computers I currently own can read them.

[Thor_MN]

44. I recall installing Windows 2 when I talked them into buying a PC at work

They were using a POS WANG "mainframe" because the, then, "IT" guy was a fan. What a hunk of junk that was. I talked them into getting PCs for the instruments and they never looked back.

[Speck Tater]

54. Thumbtacked to the corkboard above my computer is a 7" floppy disk.

How many computer users today have even ever seen a 7" floppy disk? Pick one up and you suddenly know where the term "floppy" came from.

[kentauros]

66. I've seen (and used) 8" floppies

on a phototypsetting machine. It might have been a Compugraphic machine, but I'm not entirely sure as that was 30 years ago.

And then there was the Bausch & Lomb Graphics Computer System on which I first learned CAD, with either 8" or 10" floppies. I should have kept those disks...


Lost Formats :)

[Speck Tater]

67. We always argued over whether they were 7" or 8" floppies.

The outer sleeve is 8 inches, but the disk inside is only 7 inches. Back in the day we programmers used to argue about such high-tech matters.

[kentauros]

70. Thankfully, even in the early days of CADD, there wasn't much

programming demanded of us. But I was kind of in awe that Bausch & Lomb produced a CAD system, however short-lived. I had a hard time finding anything on it, too, because I've never seen it used in the industry. That's pretty much AutoDesk's territory, then as well as now :)

[hunter]

81. I've still got an external drive that reads these giant floppies.

But I haven't powered it up for years and now I'm reluctant to. It's got a big, big transformer and huge electrolytic capacitors in it, the kinds of things that go "BANG!" when they fail of disuse and old age.

I had an old inexpensive PC clone I once tried to start after a few years sitting on the shelf and it sounded like firecrackers going off inside it as the capacitors exploded.

[Nihil]

76. You shouldn't have put them through a hot wash ...

... seeing as how they started off as 3.5" floppies ... :P

[mike_c]

79. 2.5, 3.5-- what's an inch or so between good friends...?

:rofl:

Yeah, guess I wasn't paying much attention, huh? In any event, they'd been stored on an open shelf just at floor level, which is to say within range of territory marking house cats. Those disks were never going to load again, no matter what! Hot wash, indeed!

[SnowCritter]

29. Our mission critical applications won't run

on Windows 7. And they won't run in the XP virtual machine that's included with Windows 7.

So until the provider(s) of our mission critical apps "catch up", we have to stay on XP.

[GreenTea]

32. I fucking love Windows 7 (Vista SUCKS) XP was clunky but I stayed with it a long time....

But Windows 7 is so smooth & fast - The more RAM & powerful the CPU the better it runs - Just keep it clean each week - Reg. & disk cleaners, defrag, get rid old unnecessary files & programs, junk files, etc...and SEVEN will stay stable and reliable and it will zip! (Along with the latest version of Firefox - Chrome is not as fast, though Google screams that it is).

[bvar22]

33. XP here.

Runs great.
Good all around box for work AND play.
Well developed and refined Drivers readily available for anything and everything.

In my younger days, I HAD to HAVE the very latest edition of any operating software.

Dos (3.6?) on my first machine.

Had a very early edition of Windows 2.0

Liked Win3.11, but I was one of those who knew every file, and could make this system work.

Did the Warp thing.

Waited in line at midnight for 95.

Win98se was a good edition.

Win Me...blah.

WinNT... fun learning experience, but totally unnecessary on my 3 PC home network.

Installed and played with over 10 different versions of Linux,
.
.
.
And NOW...happily running WinXP.
I got older, and withdrew from the Upgrade Rat Race.
All my peripherals work flawlessly.
All my software runs fast and clean.
AND
The GAMES I like run great.
(I DO have a relatively new home built hot rod box, but I stayed with XP).

Like cars, I now buy only old reliables that have been in service for a few years.
All the bugs have been worked out.

.
.
.

[woo me with science]

35. But how long will they get updates? nt

[roamer65]

37. The memory limit right around 3GB will eventually kill XP.

As more bloatware packages demand ever more memory, most people eventually will end up switching over to later versions of Windows.

[Heywood J]

68. XP works fine with more than 3GB of RAM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_Professional_x64_Edition

Of course, you can always check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension">PAE if you want to try and stay 32-bit.

[jayfish]

86. Has Nothing To Do With XP.

No 32-bit operating system will natively address over 3GB of memory.

http://lifehacker.com/5431284/the-lifehacker-guide-to-64+bit-vs-32+bit-operating-systems

FSH

[hobbit709]

97. I run XP X64, no problem.

It actually does some things faster than 7 X64.

[DainBramaged]

48. Over SIXTY percent of all corporations use Windows XP (Fortune 500 survey I read recently)

Why screw with a good thing? I have people at work that had me DOWNGRADE to XP because they hated the look of 7 so much.

[IDemo]

52. Triple booting: XP Pro, Win 7 Home Premium, Linux Mint 8

Everyone happy?

[KillCapitalism]

56. Hardcore man...hardcore.

Just one question, where's snow leopard?

[IDemo]

59. I thought about doing the Hackintosh thing

but not just yet.. ;-)

[mr clean]

85. about that Hackintosh thing

I probably would give Mac a try if it wasn't Intel only.

[TommyO]

74. I got your Snow Leopard right here, along with

XP, Win7 and Linux.

[Turborama]

53. This is great news. I've had XP since 2005 and haven't had any problems at all

So glad I didn't upgrade to Vista, judging by all the complaints about it.

7 sounds ok and, as it will come with the next upgrade, I'm prepared to give it a go. However, if I miss XP I'm really glad I'll be easily able to go back to it.

[zanana1]

93. I have Windows 7 and I hate it...

How do I go about getting my good old XP back?

[Turborama]

103. Here's some answers to that question...

Just had a look and found this discussion with instructions and links: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itprogeneral/thread/2c691dc1-0fb7-4883-a1a9-62c1714c7d43

Microsoft link: http://oem.microsoft.com/script/contentpage.aspx?pageid=552836

[zanana1]

106. Thank you so much.

I don't know what I'd do without DU to help me out with tech problems!

[ProudDad]

63. 'Cause Vista is shit

Windows 7 is ok but it doesn't run everything.

M$ is truly evil...

(But then, so is Apple - overpriced hardware, shitty "business model")

[gauguin57]

64. I must be the only person on the planet who likes Vista.

I've had nary a problem with it (it's on a laptop, if that makes any difference).

It deals with photos/graphics better than XP (my pix from my digital camera download much faster and with less hassle than my XP friends' do).

XP was great, too.

[ProudDad]

69. Obviously,

You haven't tried to network with a Vista computer... :shrug:

It's a stone cold BITCH... :nuke:

[gtar100]

72. Not alone. I liked it too. Even got to work on a network without much trouble.

I won't bad-mouth it because it was a very enjoyable environment to work in. Hell, I'd never be able to write an OS like that. But I gave it up for Windows 7 because 7 surpassed Vista in useability and good looks. DirectX is definitely the way to go for standard OS graphics. Makes me wonder what people do to their machines to be cursing it so much.

Everyone's got an opinion and it's just immature to say this system or that system sucks, is a piece of shit, etc. Baloney. I'm at awe at what all these programmers have created - Microsoft, Apple, and Linux all included. You don't like it? Make something better. Found something you like that works well for you? Stick with it. But why the need to bad-mouth other systems? For those of us who have found a very useable system, it just sounds like whining.

On any day, I could use XP, Windows 2003, Windows 7, Windows 2008, RedHat Linux, Solaris and HPUX, and access dozens of proprietary small network device environments. I program in C#, Perl, Tcl and Expect in both Unix and Windows. Love GNU software, MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, Access and Excel. MS Office and Open Office are both awesome products but you've got to bend to their ways, whichever one you use. So tell me about it...what sucks? A narrow mind.

[ProudDad]

84. I have worked with everything from

machine code on a tube mainframe through mini-computers in machine code, assembler and Fortran through PC's from before the PC (North Star DOS/Basic - CP/M) 'till today -- Windows 7 (so far so good)...

You sound like a bit-twiddler -- you guys LOVE hardship -- it's a badge of honor to have software that fights you... :) :)

I wrote large database systems on tight deadlines as a free-lancer -- I didn't have the time to fight with crap operating systems or have a m$ "upgrade" operating system put one of my systems out of commission...when that crap happened, I didn't get the money to eat!

So my complaints are NOT "whining", they are based on a vast amount of experience with dozens of operating systems and the ability to compare them...

Compared to WinNT, Win2K and WinXP -- Vista is shit. It doesn't play nice with my XP and Win7 machines...it blocks most attempts to transfer files. It also is a SLUG -- VERY slow compared to the other systems. Maybe it's because those "wonderful programmers" spent too much time on "pretty" in order to dazzle the average "home user" and loaded down the processor with that crap.

I'm afraid I'm cursed with having come up when system software was supposed to do its job and stay out of the way -- AND NOT CRASH! It must be nice to be able to use everyone as Alpha Testers and make them PAY to do the testing! That would NOT have been tolerated back in the day -- but now, thanks to M$, people are completely conditioned to put up with it.


Anyway, M$ agrees with me. They finally allowed Vista license holders to "downgrade" to XP if they chose under the same license. Unless Balmer/Gates et. al. are whining too... :shrug:


On edit: according to the article, corporate USAmerica agrees with me too...

"XP has survived in large part because of Vista, which was an unmitigated disaster," said Daniel Ruby, research director at Chitika Inc. "Corporate IT departments are wary of doing anything until they're sure things are going to work. They're not willing to go from something that works to something that doesn't work as well."

Even the well conditioned windoze sufferers know that Vista is shit...

[FarrenH]

91. I'm an analyst/developer

Who had to unnofficially support 2 Vista users at the small company I last worked at (because we were small and a marketing company, all the devs ended up supporting the clueless markting guys). They insisted on Vista against our advice, we stuck to XP. It was a nightmare. Networking, progressive bloating... the marketing director's laptop got slower and slower every day. Every fix was temporary. We'd marginally improve something one week, then a week later the same shit would happen.

I recently upgraded my oldish laptop to Windows 7 and ran into a host of problems caused by (a) third party code libraries being buggy on 7 and (b) code, and my development environment, not being able to access files and services because they didn't run as administrator. It took about a week to sort out. An upgrade from the third party vendor and a bunch of shortcuts to launch certain programs in Admin mode, but after that everything runs smoothly. PC ran a benchmark test comparison between XP SP 3 and Vista SP 1 and XP beat Vista on 9 out of 10 tests.

The thing is the underlying architecture of 7 is wayyyyyyyy superior to Vista. The problems users may be experiencing now are transition issues. Windows 7 actually beats XP on dozens of benchmarks. I'd use XP on some older machines, but 7 isn't a steaming pile of shit the way Vista was.

[ProudDad]

105. I would have to agree about Win7

Win7 definitely doesn't get in the way of my heavy duty video editing projects...on a new machine...with a quad core running at 3.4 Ghz...and 4 meg of memory

2 Terrabytes of internal disk storage (ya' needs it for video)

I think that puppy's got more computing power and on-line storage than the entire planet Earth did when I started programming in 1964... :)

[Betty88]

95. I didn't love it but had no issues

The people I knew who had problems with it had under powered systems or upgraded on old hardware. I think if MS had been honest about its system requirements there would have been less bitching.

[ProudDad]

71. SO....

CP/M -- superior to MSDOS

MSDOS 2.0 -- ate my hard drive! Pure SHIT -- cost me over a week's pay recovering...

CP/M86 -- after MSDOS 2.0 -- worked great along with DbXL

Windows 3.11 for Workgroups -- very nice, especially with PC Tools

Windows 95 -- marginally useful

NT -- MUST use instead of win95 if you want to get anything done!

windoze 98 -- Nearly cost my freakin' JOB when the billing system I wrote in Visual Foxpro 5 and ran FINE on win95 machines
would hard freeze on SOME win98 machines. Luckily a recompile with Visual Foxpro 6 cleared it up...

Windows 2K Professional -- Best of both worlds -- NT with a nice front end... Best OS they ever made...

windoze XP -- no choice but to "upgrade"...mostly works but gets "linted up" pretty quickly leading to very long boot up times and occasional blue screens.

VISTA -- PURE UNADULTERATED SHIT!!!

Windoze 7 -- so far so good. Sometimes it gets confused when I use my KVM switches to leave the machine to work on another and then return. It came on my new video machine...I haven't loaded it with anything but the bare minimum I need for my AVCHD video projects...

----------------------------

Although, I just had to setup an older XP machine for a friend's political campaign and got the dreaded "NTLDR is missing"!

Had to re-install windoze XP (without disk reformat) and most of the software... YUCH!

It's as if M$ made a car...you go out to the car and the battery's dead. The M$ solution: pick up the car and run it through a crusher -- make a block of metal out of it... M$ has a utility that turns the block of metal into a shiny new frame. It's up to you to have the rest of the parts available and the time to "install them" so you can have a useful vehicle again...!!!

---------------------------

An Oldie but goodie:

If Microsoft made cars

At a recent COMDEX, Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon." In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought "Car95" or "CarNT." But then you would have to buy more seats.

6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five per cent of the roads. (and cost twice as much and you'd have to buy new tires from the APPLE store every time you came to a bridge)...

7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.

8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

9. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.

10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.

11. M$ would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a M$ subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or more.

12. Everytime they introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

13. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine. (hmmm, this apparently doesn't work on a Toyota!!!)

[BootinUp]

73. I always wondered who the other guy was

that used dBXL, lol. Nice to make your acquaintance. I wrote a multiuser business application with it back in the early 90's. Sometimes the fun part was just tweaking config.sys for more free memory so the win 3.1 computers on the Novell network could run the compiled app.

[ProudDad]

82. Yep, it was me...

I wrote the Activision Marketing Budget Control system (moonlighting for BIG BUCKS) back in the early 80s in dBase II (a marginally debugged version of Vulcan); and I was bitten MANY times by the bugs therein -- especially in the report generator...

Then MSDOS 2.0 ate my hard drive...

So between CP/M 86 and dBXL (with gwbasic for modem handling routines), I had a pretty good ride for a couple of years...

My tweaking period came when I was rewriting and debuggins a Clipper Overlay system (a Patient Logging and Insurance Payment Calculation system that sold for about $8K ).

Trying to keep that puppy within the memory constraints of 640K was loads of fun... Touch one overlay program and KaBLOOEY! And I used to have to program in the new Medicare law changes every January - March -- a nice bump of money at the beginning of the year for about 3 years.

Then I rewrote it in Foxpro for DOS in about 3 months (no overlays necessary) and wrote myself out of a job...a trainee could take it over after that...and did.

So long, golden goose!

--------------------------------

Then windoze came out to begin the end of my career...

I finally had to quit the business and start Social Security early thanks to RSI's, windoze frustrations and corporate outsourcing...

But it was a fine ride from 1964 to 2005...mostly...after dropping out of college and accidentally falling into the computer programming business in '65...

[Courtesy Flush]

83. The article has a correction now. The 2020 date was an error. nt

[jmowreader]

89. We have six non-Macs and they're not even up to XP

Two are on Windows NT 4, one's on NT 3, and three are on Windows 2000. We don't upgrade them because they do what they need to do: the NT 3 machine is used to set up our inserting machine, the NT 4 machines are printer drivers for ECRM platesetters, and the Windows 2000 machines run the press. We don't surf the internet, use MS Office or anything else. And to be honest, the only reason we have the NT 3 machine in the first place is just for ease of use because you can run the machine it runs just by flipping switches on the inserter.

[DainBramaged]

92. XP support (SP3) will continue through 2014

Support for IE6 and SP2 ends this month. Updates will still be available but not for those versions.

[jmowreader]

102. Good to know if you need to upgrade, which we don't

The only really weird one is the ECRM stuff for the platesetters--and ECRM intends to keep compiling upgrades for every version of NT they've got in the field. The press control units, which are one PC upstairs that turns "CIP3 files" (means "International Cooperation for Integration of Prepress, Press and Postpress") into webpath files to tell the machine how to fold the newspaper, and ink presets to tell the press how much ink to lay down, plus the consoles on the press hall floor that actually run the press, could be on MS-DOS 3 and they'd still work.

To us, the important machines are the Macs, and they're on 10.6.

[Imagevision]

98. This past Tuesday MS stopped supporting SP2

[defendandprotect]

104. What was the name of that disaster they introduced? Began with a V .... ???

That's why everyone is still using XP --

Next computer, I want nothing to do with Microsoft --