I think 12 years and longer is perfectly reasonable to expect MS to continue to fix a product if it’s broken. Obviously they aren’t finished getting it right. Sell a secure product, fix it forever, or give the money back if you can’t.
XP was more than pretty good, it was probably the best version of Windows, for it’s time. That time, however, was a decade ago. 8 isn’t up to that level, but it’s in no way bad. It’s basically a reskinned and somewhat updated version of 7, and 7 was a damn good OS. Yes, there are plenty of features of that skin that I don’t like, so I don’t use them. It’s trivial to customise Windows 8, and even easier with 8.1, so that you’ll never have to see anything that doesn’t look like your old desktop.
But if you really hate it that much, there’s plenty of other options. I just prefer the combination of ease and flexibility that Windows gives. If you don’t want the flexibility, there’s Macs or Chromebooks, and if Windows isn’t flexible enough, get Linux.
Honestly, all of the Windows 8 hate seems ridiculous. Yes, it’s a change to the way you do things (unless you set it up so it isn’t), but tiles and an app store are hardly new technology, everyone’s been using them on their phones for years now.
That might actually be the stupidest thing anyone’s ever posted on the internet.
Like mhendo, I have an XP netbook. The reason I keep it is that my scanner doesn’t work with any newer SOs. “So buy a newer scanner!”, I guess, only mine is smaller than any of the models currently being sold and that happens to be an important benefit for me 
Lack of drivers is something that’s currently pissing me off about my laptop as well: the graphic card’s manufacturer sends me to the computer manufacturer’s page for upgrades, the computer manufacturer has never released a graphic card driver upgrade. Sound card, yes. Graphic card, no. Yeehaw.
I agree. I think people focus on the cosmetic changes too much, which as you say are easily avoided. Under the hood, Vista, 7, and 8 are very similar.
Umm, no. We just bought a couple of new Agilent spectrum analyzers and network analyzers this year and they both run XP. Replacing them would cost over $100K, assuming Agilent even has new versions.
Not to mention all the machines on the shop floor, but those are, AFAIK, older and less expensive.
And we do need at least one XP development machine, to support our customers who still use XP.
I am disappointed by the Mod smackdown given above.
I also feel that a large percentage of the posts are indeed coming from a point of view that not all of us share. Also, many are flat out wrong.
I.e., I am running XP on quite recent hardware. There is no reason at all to equate old software with old hardware. This is incredible that people here would make this mistake.
Upgrading is a major pain and costs money. And MS did some really stupid stuff. E.g., you can upgrade from XP to Vista and you can upgrade from Vista to 7, but you can’t upgrade from XP to 7. “Too many system settings have changed.”
Umm, if you can upgrade to Vista and immediately turn around and upgrade to 7, then it is certainly possible for MS to have written software to do it all at once. They really shot themselves in the foot when they went this way and I think it’s one of the main reasons XP is holding on so long. (And forget upgrading from 32 to 64 bit which would be a really good idea for most people.)
It is a major problem for businesses. Almost* every office I’ve been in in the last several years, the screen savers have the XP logo. Businesses don’t upgrade because they are lazy or can’t afford a license, etc. They don’t upgrade because the software they are using will break. Remember, the goal of a computer is to run programs. The OS, the hardware, aren’t the goal. You never go out and buy and computer to because you want certain OS or hardware. You buy it to run certain programs.
Also, who cares if MS doesn’t do security updates? Don’t run IE, don’t have your machine directly on the Internet, etc., run a good AV program and you’ll be fine. The issue is the Other People dropping XP support. E.g., Chrome, Firefox, etc. That is going to be the real problem.
When over 30% of the computers out there are running XP, it’s not due to laziness or techphobia. It is a shame that people here would suggest otherwise.
*I was out a store the other day where the POS system included a classic amber monochrome CRT monitor. Don’t think they were running XP or later.
Here’s a question: why can’t Microsoft make the XP code publicly available under a Creative Commons license? I bet there’s people out there who would continue to maintain it and improve its security.
I know, I know: they’d be undercutting their market for Win 7, 8, 9…but I don’t see that happening more than just around the edges. Most individuals who buy a PC will want a fairly current Windows OS on it, and practically all businesses of any size are going to want to trust in Microsoft for their OS’s security, not on independents.
And since the code for XP, other than the security patches, is 12.5 years old (which is a century or so in terms of software evolution), they’re not giving up a whole lot in terms of intellectual property, either, I’d think.
There may be very good answers to these points (better than “because nobody’s ever done it this way before,” that is), so this isn’t a rhetorical question; this is an area where I’ve got plenty of ignorance, and there may be strong answers that simply fall into my areas of ignorance. But I’m curious as to what they are.
The answer to XP’s imminent ‘death’ that my corner of the sprawling Federal bureaucracy has come up with is to go to virtual desktop software between now and April. Apparently it’s cheaper and simpler to turn all of our PCs into the equivalent of remote terminals than to upgrade the OS’s of a few thousand computers.
There are a couple of aspects of this that are going to be interesting.
The big one is storage space. They haven’t increased storage space on our network drives in a long time, so they’re always on the verge of being full. We’re periodically getting messages like “The M: drive has <1 GB of free space, please delete any unneeded files,” and the only place with a decent amount of free space is the hard drives of our individual PCs. We’re really not supposed to store a lot of stuff on our hard drives, but where else is there for it all to go?
But in virtual desktop mode, you can’t access your hard drive’s memory - just network resources. In the week and a half since they let us know this was coming, I’ve raised this issue with the appropriate people, but I haven’t heard back.
Also, there’s a question of whether everything works the same in the virtual desktop environment. For instance, parts of my agency that are further along than mine in moving to virtual desktop use have reported that files converted between SAS data sets and Excel files routinely get corrupted when the conversion is done in virtual desktop mode. And this is a type of conversion I do frequently in order to work with people who don’t work with SAS.
So it’s gonna be great fun all over the place.
I use gasoline in my car. That doesn’t mean I want a gas tank in my computer. A phone and a PC are two different devices.
Windows 8’s big mistake was to try to develop a hybrid operating system for touchscreens and keypads rather than acknowledge that these are two fundamentally different platforms. The result is an operating system that does two different things poorly rather than do one thing well.
Windows 8 is the equivalent of a flying car. It doesn’t fly as well as plane and it doesn’t drive as well as a car.
My question then is how is Windows 8 better than Windows 7? If you had an average user who had an opportunity to buy a PC that used Windows 7 or one that used Windows 8, which would you tell him to buy? And what arguments would you use to support your advice?
Pretty much my experience. Download a Stat menu 8 /start8 /Classic Shell or similar, opt to boot directly to desktop, disable edge swipes on touchpad and you’re good to go. Not even five minutes of work.
Despite what I said above, I don’t consider the hate to be ridiculous. Its silly that I and the majority of users seek to make Win 8 less like Win8 and more like Win 7 and Microsoft seems incapable of appreciating this fact. This only reinforced by the very minor rollbacks included in 8.1. The Metro interface is painful to use on a desktop or laptop with a keyboard and mouse, and is completely counter intuitive, annoying. Not to mention that the Metro UI apps are crap.
Windows 8 obviously. How else would Mr Average get the opportunity to use the latest version of Internet Explorer? 
Well, they’re different forms of computer, but they perform many of the same functions these days. But rather than having a gas tank in your PC, you’ll more likely have a touch screen computer built into your car.
You are still on about the GUI, not the actual OS. It is trivially easy to get the desktop to act almost exactly like previous versions of Windows, and you have the additional interface as well, if you choose to use it. In what way is that doing it badly?
No, it’s not. It functions as well as a desktop as any version of Windows has. I’m basing this on actual experience, as well of years of having customised various versions of Windows to work how I want them to. That’s one of the main points of Windows, to be able to get it to work how you want. What are you basing your criticism on? What is Windows 8 doing that bothers you so much that isn’t trivial to change?
Yes, Microsoft made some poor choices in setting the defaults for the interface, and in not providing enough documentation when it was first shipped, but they are extremely minor issues. Assuming you can work Google, anyway.
But that’s not the argument you initially made. You said that Windows 8 was a “failure” and a “sinking ship” and “a pretty bad system.”
It’s not. It’s a perfectly good operating system with a few badly-thought-out user interface decisions. As others have noted, you can install Windows 8 and have it act and appear virtually the same as Windows 7.
I’ve got an XP machine, it works well for me and I’m keping it. I have good backups of my data and I understand how to use good security measures. Fuck MS and their planned obselescence.
I can appreciate your irritation - XP is still a perfectly fine OS that still does what needs to be done.
But saying “Fuck MS and their planned obsolence” does strike me as a bit silly. XP will have been around for nearly thirteen years when support ends. Please let me know what other major software company provides support for a particular version for 13 years. I honestly cant think of any.
If it’s a business user, which is who I deal with, I would still recommend Win 7 for better compatibility with existing apps. But that argument is becoming outdated fast (always the same with a new version - better to wait 18 months or so, by which time vendors have generally updated their software, drivers etc., if they are ever going to). If for some reason they want to use touch, then obviously Win 8. Otherwise, I don’t think there’s much difference.
For some people, this might be the opportunity to ditch Windows entirely. Some people will be satisfied with just a smartphone or just a tablet. Or a Google Chromebook might satisfy the needs of some people (basically just web browsing and email).
It’s mostly minor things, but they include better security, better multi-monitor support, improved file-copy dialogue*, easier system refresh ability, improved searching your files, better battery life on laptops, faster booting. Added up, to my mind they outweigh having to install one (1) program to restore the start menu and enable boot-to desktop (the latter is allowed in 8.1 anyway).
If you want more detail, read this.
To answer your other question, I would tell anyone buying a new PC to get Windows 8. It’s been out long enough that people have worked round any flaws in it, and the general issues with it being a new OS have been ironed out. 8.1 still has problems, apparently, not that I’ve encountered any, so I might not advise them to upgrade immediately. I’d make those recommendations knowing that, if they did have problems adapting to it or adjusting the settings, I’d be able to help.
I wouldn’t necessarily advise someone running Windows 7 to upgrade, frankly I’m not convinced that it’s worth paying that much extra for.
Finally, if I thought someone wouldn’t be able to use it even with my help, and wasn’t prepared to learn how to use Windows, I wouldn’t advise them to buy a Windows PC at all. Either get a tablet, if you’re mainly using it for entertainment, or a Mac or Chromebook if you need a computer but can’t be bothered to learn how to use it.**
*I know I keep mentioning this, and it sounds like such a minor thing, but it really does make a difference.
**Of course, not all Mac users are like this, but it’s obviously a better choice if working straight out of the box is a top priority. I like tinkering far too much to ever be happy with one, though.