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Windows XP Spotter (the club)


FranceBB

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6 hours ago, Dave-H said:

It doesn't look very old to me, the fact that it (presumably) has a touch screen rather than hardware buttons would bear that out.
:)

Yep that's a touchscreen indeed, but believe me it's very annoying when you press the buttons 'cause it's poorly calibrated.

 

EDIT: I did some research (I literally asked people xD) and people seem to recall those machines being installed in Northern Italy between 2009 and 2010. So... it's not as old as I thought.

Edited by FranceBB
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On 1/11/2020 at 6:31 PM, FranceBB said:

 it got stuck on "You can now turn off your computer" because of missing ACPI drivers, which is weird considering that it's an embedded machine.

Not weird at all. It is one problem with using Embedded OSes, you don't know what you are missing until you run into a problem. The issue being is that most software developers (or ISVs) write their software for, and test it on, retail Windows XP. When the time come to move to an Embedded product, presuming they are not opting for an Enterprise SKU, the OS is built from the ground up. The client sends a list of requirements, and a demo installation is created and sent to the client.* The client tests their software with their hardware and makes reports back any problems. The Embedded Partner then adjusts the OS and the ISV will retest until they are satisfied. Then the unit gets approved and is put on site somewhere.

The problem lies with situations where the client doesn't test for all situations that their product would be involved in, or they may not communicate a need properly. Then on the other side, the documentation of what package does what is not detailed enough when building an OS. So these things do end up happening. There are also situations where an expected OS component you would think is enabled by default ends up not. One example I can think is that even if you install the USB package for Windows 8.1 Industry Pro, USB (bi-directional) 2.0 or 3.0 doesn't actually work. One client I build this OS for got all the way past testing phase and had units on site when it was determined their machines did not have fully functional USB. The issue was discovered when they tried to do firmware updates using USB keys. There have been other situations where expected low-level functions are missing, and since they are not documented properly, can take a while to figure out. Another I recall is an OS (I forget which Embedded SKU it was) didn't support the function of RS232 (Serial Port) but did install the drivers for the device.

*This example follows the ISV/Embedded Partner model and not the in-house model.

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No. :angry:

The problem lies in the fact that noone has a clear idea of what testing or validation is, and programs are written, more often than not by lazy/sloppy programmers, but also by good, attentive and knowledgeable ones,  that do not know anything about the actual processes involved (because there are always one or more middlemen involved, so that the actual final customer, the guy/gal that actually has to use the program or maintain/service the machine never communicates directly with them and viceversa).

The program is anyway always late and what is released is invariably - in the best cases - an early beta, and all the bug finding and reporting is demandated to the client, that normally has no idea on how this is done (remember, the client is the one that pays the money to buy something that he has not the capabilities to develop in-house).

It is peculiar (and I believe rather unique to the (largely bad) software industry to provide "solutions" that are not working (or not fully working) AND to put the blame on the clients (you know, again, the ones that actully pay for the service)  OR asking them to lose hours, days, weeks into troubleshooting the crap they produced.

More loosely it is called "professionalism" and most of the software industry has no idea of what it is.

Imagine you go to your barber and he after taking your (good) money for a haircut gives you a pair of scissors telling you "If in the next few days you see some tuft sticking out of your head just cut it off" or - which is what the large software companies do - "You also owe me  100 bucks for a week of assistance, if you see some tuft sticking out you just drive here and I will cut it", or - alternatively - "In case you notice some hairs sticking out call me an I will be happy for a mere 200 bucks to come to your house and cut them level with the rest". 

Then you go to get your car from the mechanic and he tells you "Ok, I changed the tires, I am pretty sure that I did tighten the nuts properly, should you lose a wheel, don't worry, it is covered by warranty, you just bring me back the old wheel and I will fit a new tire on it for free".

Then you go to a restaurant and the cook tells you "The food I prepare is fine, should you by any chance get poisoned i will reimburse you part of the bill". 

jaclaz

 

    

Edited by jaclaz
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There are some computers in my school which use Windows XP. Computer which I use in the school also had XP but a person upgrade it to Windows 10 and it work so slow. That computer has got 956mb of ram

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On 1/14/2020 at 3:23 PM, Sergiaws said:

There are some computers in my school which use Windows XP. Computer which I use in the school also had XP but a person upgrade it to Windows 10 and it work so slow. That computer has got 956mb of ram

Oh God... 1 GB with Win10 means no RAM whatsoever is left for the user to open up programs and so on: everything is put on the paging files and moved back and forth from the HDD to the RAM and vice versa. Not only it's gonna reduce the life of the Hard Drive, but it's also going to be extremely slow...

Edited by FranceBB
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1 hour ago, FranceBB said:

Anyway, this group is about pictures, so... grab your mobile phone and take a picture, please.

I would also like to see a picture of the moron rectius "person" ;) that upgraded a 1 GB PC to windows 10, but unfortunately there are all the Privacy Laws, GDPR and what not, so that is not possible :(.

jaclaz 

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22 hours ago, jaclaz said:

I would also like to see a picture of the moron rectius "person" ;) that upgraded a 1 GB PC to windows 10, but unfortunately there are all the Privacy Laws, GDPR and what not, so that is not possible :(.

jaclaz 

You know what's worse? That it was probably paid to do it as he sold the "slowdown" as an upgrade. :(

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  • 1 month later...
2 hours ago, Nojus2001 said:

 

Image from a recent news article, my guess they use XP as they can't easily upgrade emergency centers, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.:P

And - specifically - given the (hopefully already past) known issues of WIndows 10 with multiple monitors and DPI scaling they made the wiser choice.

jaclaz

 

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It's just like some recent Chromebook commercials which also suffer from a bit of a time warp. Windows 7 and XP error dialogs followed by a 9x blue screen.

There was a Canadian commercial for an insurance company that actually featured a nice recreation of the Windows 95/IE3 interface to depict someone trying to obtain insurance online. But the background of the web page had an early '80s-style isometric 2D (Tron-like?) background. They can never get this stuff right!

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  • 3 weeks later...

I was watching a documentary made in 2019 about Chinese PCB (Printed Circuit Boards) factories and what happens when an engineer submits its order with the circuit to the factory in order to print it and I found something interesting: our beloved OS, Windows XP.

It's funny, though, how factories are relying on Windows XP to produce hardware that is shipped all over the world, most of which doesn't support that OS...

C3OA8UI.png

Windows XP booting in the background:

WK0DdKJ.jpg

qO3xq4R.jpg

Edited by FranceBB
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10 hours ago, FranceBB said:

I was watching a documentary made in 2019 about Chinese PCB (Printed Circuit Boards) factories and what happens when an engineer submits its order with the circuit to the factory in order to print it and I found something interesting: our beloved OS, Windows XP.

It's funny, though, how factories are relying on Windows XP to produce hardware that is shipped all over the world, most of which doesn't support that OS...

Vista and 7 (let alone 10) have changed a few things that make *somehow* more difficult (or however "different") to create drivers for hardware, so a lot of tools that are used in the manufacturing would need new drivers for the new OS's and possibly noone wants to risk production issues due to some possible bugs when they already have tested and working ones.

A common example is those "manufacturer tools" for USB stick controllers, some need a dedicated driver to talk to the controller, and AFAIK those were made for XP and never re-created for later OS's.

jaclaz

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