Anybod still using Windows XP?

[flip-68]

i use XP on my off-line desktop pc. I like it, it does what i want it to do very well. I am also resistant to change generally

[Projammer]

@BigT

BTW, for a lark, did you see if it would run in Wine? Sometimes Wine supports esoteric old stuff better than modern Windows.

I didn’t. I don’t really have the Linux chops to be comfortable setting it up in an office environment.

[DPRK]

There is also ReactOS still under development - though, never having used that one, could not say whether it would support people’s old hardware and software, or whether it would be worth installing it instead of actual Windows 2000/XP (or Linux!) even if it did.

[ftg]

I find things like ReactOS and Wine just not ready for prime time. A VM will almost always be a better option.

BTW, if you want a basic version of ~Windows95 to play with, try this.

[KlondikeGeoff]

@Melbourne

98 was better, because with 98 you could hook anything to any process. You could replace any part of the OS with something custum. For example, do you like UAC? I think it sucks, and I thought it sucked when implemented in '98, which third parties did of course, because third parties could add that kind of functionality to '98… Not enough memory? You could of course buy third-party memory expanders, because third parties could add that kind of functionality to '98. What else… yes you could. The framework was open.

Yes, that made it more open to malware, and yes, that made it easier to crash, but for actual usefulness it was unmatched. Also was poor with real-time (although mostly good enough with third party real-time components) but I never needed 98 to be real time.

Had to give up when I needed unsupported hardware. And, like XP, limited to 2TB drives.

Still have some 98 and XP at work. And Win2K. For a user, Win2K is XP, only smaller and faster. (an import difference was that it was compiled with an earlier library version, so XP updates are not compatible)

Typed on XP at home.

Oh, yeah, I did like 98. I went from 3.11 to 95, and just about the time I learned that, 98 came out. It was really excellent.

As most of you will remember, the biggest problem in upgrading was getting all your programs and documents, photos, etc copied over. It as a big job, but some genius came out with Laplink. The software came with a special cable, and you could copy almost everything over. Had a little trouble with some DOS programs I had, but easy enough to move them separately.

I could still use some of the DOS programs I wrote to run on XP, but not, of course, on W10.

I had also tried Linux when it first came out and it was a marvel compared to Windows. Now there are so many different flavors, don’t have the energy to get it set up. I do use Open Office now and then.

Glad to see I am not the only old-fashioned XP user. Alas, no more as had to wipe my HDD and drop the desktop off at a recycling place.

[DPRK]

@KlondikeGeoff

As most of you will remember, the biggest problem in upgrading was getting all your programs and documents, photos, etc copied over. It as a big job, but some genius came out with Laplink. The software came with a special cable, and you could copy almost everything over. Had a little trouble with some DOS programs I had, but easy enough to move them separately.

I could still use some of the DOS programs I wrote to run on XP, but not, of course, on W10.

I’m not sure that upgrading should be that problematic: check out this video for evidence one can go all the way from 1 to 10.

[Czarcasm]

On a related note, are there any updates available for my Commodore c64 GEOS operating system?

[filmore]

@Peter_Morris

I’ve seen the self checkout at my local supermarket displaying the XP startup screen.

There is a version of XP in point-of-sale systems that may still have support. When they dropped support for the consumer version, I remember hearing that the version used in cash registers would still be supported by MS for a few more years.

[ftg]

@DPRK

I’m not sure that upgrading should be that problematic: check out this video for evidence one can go all the way from 1 to 10.

I went from MS-DOS 3.3 to Windows 7 just doing upgrades. I finally had to do a ~clean install last year to go to Windows 10 due to switching to 64-bit. If it weren’t for that I could have just done another upgrade. (And going back the other way there’s MS-DOS 1.1 and before that 86-DOS and Q-DOS. But 2.0 was the first one to support HDs so that’s the first one where “upgrade” meant something non-trivial.)

[DPRK]

@Czarcasm

On a related note, are there any updates available for my Commodore c64 GEOS operating system?

Here you go; have fun

GEOS MegaPatch V3 is a system upgrade for GEOS 2.x. It supports many hardware devices like 1541,71,81, CMD FD,HD,RL, and as a new feature since the last release from 2003: Support for SD2IEC devices with NativeMode disk images up to 16Mb. Also additional SuperRAM drives up to 16Mb are possible (if you have Hardware like Ultimate64… or VICE).

MP3 also supports many RAM expansions like C=REU, GEORAM, RAMLink or RAMCard.
It has a TaskManager which allows up to 8 Tasks active at the same time. You can switch between many applications using C=+CTRL (or using GEOS.TaskMSE and left+right mouse button). Requires lots of RAM!

[wolfpup]

@KlondikeGeoff

I go way back with computers before MS came out with Windows. I have used every version from 1.0 to 10 (excepting Vista), and only recently had to get a new laptop with he latter.

IMHO, XP was by far the best (or least worst) of 'em all. W10 is an abomination but with sledge hammer and crowbar, I have tamed the sucker into working much like XP did

I did not mind that MS stopped supporting it and adding patches, as I ran three anti malware programs daily, even though many say that can’t be done. Once I got Norton and all its many intrusions uninstalled.

So, any diehards still out there? You youngsters won’t even know what I am talking about I suspect.

Totally agree with you about XP. I was using XP quite happily on my “main” desktop (meaning the one that I use for everyday things) up until about a year ago. There were some root certificate problems that I more or less sorted out as I recall, but when the power supply blew and I couldn’t replace it because of some crazy proprietary connector, I got a refurbished Dell i7 system with Windows 7 which has been running like a dream. For me, Windows 7 is the new XP – it didn’t introduce any really important new features, but it modernized it both in terms of functionality like security and Microsoft’s handcuffs of tying new applications to versions of .Net that aren’t supported on older OS’s.

So I still have XP running on one of my dual-boot systems along with Win7, but Windows 7 is now my primary OS everywhere. Windows 10? Nowhere at all.

[Noelq]

@hajario

Nice to see you, Sir!

We have a small handful of legacy machines running XP at work. IT would love for us to get rid of them but there a no resources to rewrite the programs that are used on them.

Yep. Same here. We have a few machines that just keep chugging along, doing their stuff, and don’t need to be changed or updated.

We just upgraded our FTP site from a Windows 2000 machine. It just kept going, doing what was needed. Plus, we didn’t worry about hackers, as most of them didn’t know what to do with a Windows 2000 machine :).

[KlondikeGeoff]

@Czarcasm

On a related note, are there any updates available for my Commodore c64 GEOS operating system?

OMG, I did not dare to even mention that. I got my first Commodore VIC-20 in 1981. It attached to a TV for a monitor and the entire thing was in the keyboard. The OS was on a ROM chip so it booted instantly I stayed up until 2 AM, and kept asking, “How does it DO that?” Later i got their tape recorder (called a floppy-stringy). It had a fantastic memory of 5K!

Later they came out with the Commodore 64, but I skipped that, but then they came out with the 128. Talk about backward compatible, it had the complete 64 built into it for those users to take their time learning the new version.

It had two floppy disk drives, one for the program and one to save stuff. Those were really floppy, the 5.25" ones. Anybody old enough to remember those? Gad, I wish I had kept them. It is amazing how many people did and still use them.

[Quttaus]

@KlondikeGeoff

It had two floppy disk drives, one for the program and one to save stuff. Those were really floppy, the 5.25" ones. Anybody old enough to remember those? Gad, I wish I had kept them. It is amazing how many people did and still use them.

Still had my old 5.25" floppies till a couple years ago. Even bought a USB floppy drive so I could read what was on them, to my surprise it was still fine after 20 years in the closet.

[Qadgop_the_Mercotan]

I have an old computer that’s still using XP. I use it only to run my arcsoft photostudio program, because somehow the old key no longer works for it on my current system, and arcsoft no longer supports the program and refuses to help me use it on my current system. I do miss the old XP bugger, and loved to have an excuse to fire it up to edit pics.

But I don’t let the old gal go near the internet.

[control-z]

I am running XP on a computer that runs a CNC machine. No real reason to upgrade. Computer isn’t on the Internet of course.

[jasg]

@Qadgop_the_Mercotan

But I don’t let the old gal go near the internet.

This.

I spent nearly twenty years as a Windows developer. Listening to my co-workers who worked on our PC network security products, there is no way I would allow an XP system on the internet - even for email. Especially if that PC contained any of my personal and financial data.

I might consider running it in a virtual machine for gaming or a standalone program but only if I could insure that the virtual machine had zero access to other data on the hard drive.

[Peter_Morris]

Good luck finding an insurance company to issue that policy.

[SirRay]

Only tangentially related to the topic at hand, but this weekend I needed a light t-shirt to do some heavy yard work in. Grabbed a thin white t-shirt from my drawer of many logoed t-shirts from brandings past, and…it was from Microsoft, branded for the (then) upcoming Windows XP release (October 25, 2001). IIRC I got it from PC Expo at Javits Center that year (which, BTW, was one of the last PC Expos before it was rebranded TechXNY, and shrunk to nothing by 2004).

I still used the shirt for yard work and threw it in the wash - figured it wasn’t worth a whole lot since it was worn anyway.

[Slash1972]

@KlondikeGeoff

Later they came out with the Commodore 64, but I skipped that, but then they came out with the 128. Talk about backward compatible, it had the complete 64 built into it for those users to take their time learning the new version.

It had two floppy disk drives, one for the program and one to save stuff. Those were really floppy, the 5.25" ones. Anybody old enough to remember those? Gad, I wish I had kept them. It is amazing how many people did and still use them.

My old C-64 is at my parents house, with all the games I had (on 5.25" floppies). It has a burnt power supply, but other than that, should still work.