Random reflexions regarding XP going EOL

[Tommy]

"Think about it, why the switch to NT? Why not redo 9X with ( DOS on the good stuff ), as it's base and have it act like dos? It was simpler to correct mistakes, in NT, since it was being sold to both private businesses, consumers, public funded facilities, and most important law offices. Because they are being trained to deal with the NT computers."

This part made a slight bit of sense. While I'm a Windows 98 lover myself, Windows NT provides much more security and features than Windows 98 ever could. It was easy to break into a Windows 98 system whereas Windows XP will not let you log in unless you have a username and password. I always felt they could redo Windows 98 with Windows NT security but I'm sure it's probably not feasible because of how much hardware is now in the world and the different amount of standards it has to support.

My biggest beef with Microsoft aside with Windows 8 itself, is the fact Windows feels bloated. It seems beauty for the lack of a better word, is more important to them than the inner workings themselves. The only thing is, what can you honestly do to an OS after many many years? We've come so far since Windows 1.0 and even Windows 95 that there isn't really much left you can change except for updating security and focusing on changing the actual interface. I love the old Windows 95/98 theme and have no problem with using it, and while I understand it's still in Windows 7 and maybe 8, it feels a bit broken and bulky to me. I think it's about time to start all over from the ground up on the new Windows OSs. Windows 7 in my opinion feels sluggish after a while even on some of the better computers. Windows XP runs on a lot of computers that were from the early to mid 2000s so I can totally see people not wanting to drop it for something else, especially if what they have now, works. For the average user, Windows XP just works. It's now what we can call a mature OS and people know what to expect from it. As for the direction Windows 8 took, I definitely would never install an OS that was designed also for tablets on my computer.

But honestly, Windows XP when it was new took a huge jump in OS requirements. Windows 98 only needed a 66MHz processor and 8MBs of RAM I believe where XP needed 233MHz at the minimum and 128MBs of RAM. Windows Vista+ in my opinion took the same turn. It's almost unusable for anything more than email or a little web browsing on a Pentium 4. So I honestly think the hardware requirements are a bit of a put off for upgrading from Windows XP as well.

Sorry for the little on/off post, but I think some of it needed to be said. I think it's safe to say a Tomasz and Blackwingcat will arise for Windows XP once it reaches EOL, if they themselves don't step up and do it as well as 2000. Regardless, if MS pulls the plug on XP, MSFN will plug it back in. Windows 2000 has been EOL for 4 years now and I'm still running it strong as ever and I barely have anything that won't run on it.

[vinifera]

//offtopic

think XP needed stronger rig

I remember when I switched from WinME to XP SP1

I had Pentium 4, 533 MHz and 128 MB RAM, and it lagged like hell

only when I got 1.3 GHz Celeron and 256 MB RAM, it ran ok

surprisingly 2000 pro ran as smooth as ME on 533 MHz rig (but game support sucked so I didn't used it long)

Edited March 1, 2014 by vinifera

[Tommy]

Haha, this threw me off so badly when I first saw myself as the topic creator XD

Anyway, my first computer to contain Windows XP Home Edition Gold was an HP Pavilion 532w which came with a 1.7GHz Celeron 4 processor and 128MBs of RAM. I thought at that time it was a bit slow but it didn't help that HP loaded it up with a bunch of garbage I didn't need, hence why I don't like OEM installs much at all. But removing everything and installing Windows 98 on it at the time, the computer was actually quite good. I think XP has improved a bit over the years but it still needs a decent processor and I always recommend a 7200RPM hard drive to go along with it. I remember buying Windows Vista Home Premium and installing it on my computer that ran at the time (and currently uses Windows 98), it had a 1.8GHz processor, an 80GB 7200RPM Seagate hard drive, and 768MBs of RAM. Vista ran horribly on it! XP did fine but it wasn't a beast. I think that's the biggest thing aside from compatibility that's stopping a lot of people from upgrading their OSes.

If Windows Vista, 7, or 8 had the same requirements as 98 or 2000 did, people would probably be a little more open to upgrading their computers. But Vista's slowness on my computer frustrated me to the point I took it off. So unless you have a computer from around 2006 or newer, using Vista on up is probably not going to be the best option there is and the way the economy is, I doubt many people are running out to buy new desktop computers, especially because tablets and smartphones are dominating the market and have become the primary computer of many people.

A little more offtopic, I ran Windows XP on a 100MHz Compaq Presario from 1995. It took 3 hours to install but for the basics, it truly wasn't horrible. It was slow of course, but you could still use it for things like word processing and maybe even a bit of web browsing since I did this back in 2004, before the web created a bunch of new standards that require a lot more power than they did back then.

So to end this, if Windows 2000 wasn't being supported like it is now, I'd most certainly be running Windows XP instead because it's still powerful even on lower end specs.

[epic]

"Think about it, why the switch to NT? Why not redo 9X

It's exactly what they ought to do. Instead of adding useless bloatware as its counter parts.

Edited March 2, 2014 by epic