cc333

I wonder if MS will extend the support period? It seems there's still a relatively significant minority of users out there, based on these findings.... c

He was also responsible for the Windows Vista debacle, wasn't he? Windows 7 was also released during his tenure, which, to be fair, was a decent and stable, albeit bloated OS that did much to clean up Vista's mess. To be clear, was he CEO from '03 or '04-ish to '13-ish? I don't remember, but I do know that Bill Gates stepped down sometime before Vista's release, which was late '06/early '07. c

Sure! I thought that was the point! It takes work to not only install the software, but to copy it all to the floppies. Not everyone has "Access" to that many disks anymore*, let alone the drives they go in. Oh, and here's another: it's not a pun per se, but kind of illogical. When MS designed the Windows 95 UI, why did they think it made sense to put the "Shut Down..." command in the "Start" menu? It just seems like an oxymoron to say "click the start button to shut down the computer". c

Excellent! Thank you very much! Does hibernation work? I don't care about standby, as I rarely use it, but working hibernation would be nice. No big deal if it's out too, though. c

This is fun! Regarding the missing backend stuff, can't one infer what it does by examining the frontend client stuff, and then re implement it somehow? How do the inner workings of v6 differ from v3/v4? Aside from cosmetics, I haven't noticed a huge difference in functionality, so maybe the v6 backend can be hacked for use with the v3/v4 UI? c

Whoever did this must have a lot of free time... It's an "Excel"-ent way to get bored out of one's mind! c

Funny. I remember people saying more or less that same thing about XP it was still the latest and greatest. And Vista. AND 7.... It just keeps getting worse with each new release I guess. Me too. Computers, in many ways, seemed much more interesting then, despite their limitations. The hardware industry has, in my opinion, become rather boring and unimaginative lately. The data mining, ad and SaaS industries, however, are in their prime right now. c

That sounds about right to me, based on my limited experience. However! I think that only really applies if you're creating partitions from within the Windows 7 installer, as it prefers to put boot-related files into that partition instead of the root of the C drive if it can. Not sure why, but I'm pretty sure that the Disk Management GUI creates normal partitions without that extra System Reserved stuff. c

Does this mean that little puppy thing is gone? c

And speaking of the DoD, XP was released right around 9/11 (release to manufacturing August 24, public release October 25), which really puts into perspective how long ago that awful tragedy was! (it could've been so much worse!) And it still feels like it just happened.... I remember that day pretty well.... Likewise, XP, despite being 18 years old now, still feels modern enough that it can still do 95% of modern things (there are some edge cases, but we have Windows 7 for those). c

XP simply refuses to die, doesn't it? My current PC can't run it right now, or else I'd probably still be using it. c

c

OK. c

@daniel_k I am! Let's try it!! The patched BIOS shouldn't interfere with any other OS once it's installed, correct? c

It's this kind of ridiculous nonsense that, in part, has caused the situation where we only have ond or two mainstream options when it comes to browsers. If he'd be a bit more open minded and do what some other developers have done ("we don't support XP or Vista anymore; our software may still work, but it's untested, so try it at your own risk, and don't expect us to help you if anything goes wrong") PM could've been much more open. Instead, his attitude is, "I refuse to let my software run on anything not supported by MS, and anyone trying to do so is banned from any discussion". What an excellent way to push users away! c

Hi, I just built a new-ish PC using a Gigabyte z270p-d3 and I was wondering if its BIOS could be patched for XP as well? Thank you! c

This is yet another reason why I refuse to use Google Chrome! I don't trust Google, because they're always trying stuff like this! And if Mozilla follows suit, I'll probably use some fork that isn't affected (there is, of course, Pale Moon and such for Windows, but what about for Mac? ArcticFox, a fork of PM ported to the Mac, is a compelling option (it runs on Snow Leopard (the Mac equivalent of XP) and later, which is nice)). c

I'm chiming it a bit late here, but which series of XP extended kernel is better/more reliable/has more features? R or M? c

@quadriped True points, but thanks to @roytam1, we have a fork of Pale Moon which runs wonderfully, and there are still some Antivirus programs which still get definition updates. c

@Jody Thornton MS's quality control is just a steaming mess of uselessness nowadays, it seems. Consequently, it also seems like a very bad idea to use average users (via the Windows Insider program) to test new updates! It's probably a stingy business decision designed to maximize profit margins, as it would appear that there was no other reason to cut the QA team at all, was there? Anyway, I decided to upgrade to 8.1 after upgrading my PC to Skylake (it had been based on Westmere previously), but mostly because I had to give up my beloved 7 and XP installs (the XP install simply won't work, and the 7 install could, except it's yelling at me, saying my license is counterfeit when it isn't). I plan to somehow repair the 7 install eventually, but I'm going to try to bite the bullet and use 8.1 for awhile to see how I like it. That is, when I'm not using macOS Sierra (my PC is also a Hackintosh ) That being said, I'll probably be hanging out in this forum somewhat more now, so I can follow up on the latest updates and tweaks. c

@greenhillmaniac Yes, but are POSReady 7's updates compatible with plain 7, either directly or with minor modifications? If they are, then you're correct! c

I agree with all of you. It's just FUD. I highly doubt that 7 will suddenly stop booting when it hits its EOL (it would be a very insidious thi0ng indeed if that were to happen). XP never did (I bought into the hype at first, but I've since smartened up, and now I use it (well, XP x64) in a VM on my MacBook semi regularly to do "PC things"). In fact, thanks to the efforts by roytam and other's (not to mention the POS hack) it's still quite alive and well, and, with so many talented and dedicated people, it will remain so for many years to come (as will Vista, 7, and 8.x). An OS is only worthless when it loses all software support; this happened with Win2k; it is largely the same as XP, and indeed, at first, many programs, unless specifically written for one version or the other, were 100% compatible with both. After XP SP2, however, it and 2k diverged quite a bit, with the eventual result being that they became mostly incompatible with one another on an API level (2k-era programs mostly ran fine on XP, but but trying to run many XP programs (aside from the simplest) on 2k was hit or miss). Again, thanks to Black Wing Cat, this disadvantage has been largely negated (many things still don't work 100%, but the important stuff does, like newish browsers). TL;DR is that when there's a certain percentage of very dedicated people who want to use a certain Windows version, no matter how unsupported it may become, they'll find a way to make it work. c

Is this real?! c

I'd wager that most modern-ish GPUs won't support anything before 7, *maybe* Vista (with much rigamarole) if you're lucky. This is via official drivers, of course. As for the unofficial ones (such as BWC's), I don't have a clue. c

I'm not sure of its legitimacy, but I have read that there's a *super* rare version of Windows 2000 Datacenter Server which is 64-bit (I think it was called "Limited Edition" or something similar, and only ran on Itanium CPUs). Perhaps if someone can find a copy of that, it can shed some light on how it compares to 32-bit 2k, allowing for ways to mod the 32-bit 2k kernel/user land to incorporate some 64-bitness? Another way might be to examine Windows 2k3, but that one's different enough that I don't expect it to be very relevant (else someone would've thought of it by now). That being said, modding 2k to run most XP-era stuff (and maybe some Vista/7-specific stuff too) is still more than enough to ensure that it'll remain relevant for at least several more years, as most Windows software still supports 32-bit CPUs, to an extent. That, in my mind, renders 64-bitness somewhat pointless in most cases (the only case where it would be genuinely useful is to allow more addressable RAM, but we have PAE for that). c