Windows XP, The Incredible Immortal Operating System!
I love Windows XP. A lot. I’ve been a user since day one, and three of the four computers in my home are still running it beautifully. The fourth is a Mac. So it comes as delightful news to me to hear that Microsoft is again extending downgrade rights to XP, until – get this – the end of Windows 7’s life cycle.
This means, simply put, that Windows XP will be alive and well in 2020.
Initially, Microsoft had planned to axe downgrade rights six months after the release of Windows 7, later extending that plan to 18 months, which would have given users hungry for XP until next year to downgrade. But now? Now you’ll have all the time in the world, should you feel the need (and assuming your copy of Windows 7 is OEM). “Our business customers have told us that the removing end-user downgrade rights to Windows XP Professional could be confusing,” said Brandon LeBlanc on Microsoft’s blog.
He’s not wrong: 74% of business machines are still running XP. And why fix something that isn’t broken, right?
Right?
What blows my mind is that XP was originally supposed to die one year after Vista treated the world to its bad self (the operating word here being ‘bad’). But we all know how that went.
16 User Comments
anonymous
Windows 7 is just like Vista. Tons of features removed and broken. Poor usability. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_7 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_Vista . Unnecessary GUI changes. It would be much more intelligent (and probably much harder to do) innovation to improve Windows without changing the GUI. But changing the cosmetics has mainly one purpose: to conceal, that nothing really new happened. Vista was innonative but horrible and removed things. Windows 7 is Vista with two or three features and again tons removed.
Jesus Manson
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
For only $50, I recently bought a 3.0 GHz Dell computer from the local Goodwill. It has 1 GB of RAM and I installed XP (with a bigger hard drive).
Don’t be fooled by all the Windows 7 hype. It’s great if you want to fancier stuff. But Windows “7” requires more computer power just to run the same damn browser (which is what most of you are going to spend your time in, anyways). YOU DON’T NEED WINDOWS 7. NOPE.
XP, you are tried and true. All the major software is still out there for XP.
W7 is just Vista 2.0.
Don’t believe me? Just look up the version of Windows 7 within the OS = it says ‘Windows 6.1″.
Vista was Windows 6.
JOE
@Jesus Manson
Wow $50. Of course with a computer that shitty it doesn’t even matter what OS you put on there now does it? You could even put in Linux there and you know Linux is faster than both OSes. Wait , never mind, i take that back. You sound like someone who doesn’t even know how to turn on your computer. You could keep preaching XP > 7 but the fact is that XP is dead. Windows 7 is good and it is what Vista should’ve been.
“Windows “7″ requires more computer power just to run the same damn browser (which is what most of you are going to spend your time in, anyways).”
Wow…really? You should’ve said Windows 7 can deliver more computer power. I had a computer that was even worse than yours – 512MB ram and 2 something GHz cpu. AMD Athlon something. but I installed Win7 on it and disabled Aero and the OS was fast. As fast, if not faster, than XP.
You say that most of us are going to spend our time in a web browser?
Jeff
I have to agree and disagree with most everyone. As Windows XP is absolutely amazing, was and is still a very fast and semi bare-bones OS (compared to Vista lol), its days are done. It cant handle true 64 bit capabilities, its code is severely limited to computing across dual, let alone quad cores. It cant process a correct amount of RAM past 3 gigs. Dont get me wrong, its definitely up there as the best OS of the past.
I have to give it to Windows 7 though. With a reformat and reinstall time of 20-30 mins max, faster boot up times then all previous Windows and trimmed down extras (again compared to bogged down Vista) it is just better for today’s newer computers. It can accurately handle dual and quad threads with ease, more gigs of ram then you even need and a TRUE 64 bit system. I have moved on to Windows 7 in all my computers. It has even shown itself to run better then XP on low end systems. Old school FX chips and even have it running on a old 1.2 Celeron with 1 gig of RAM.
I do and always will love XP. But with the versatility and compatibility with hardware, I have to now say Windows 7 is my new pick.
dan
All of these comments are from people living in the past.
Good luck finding drivers for anything current in 2011! 🙂
Will Hannon
Translation: Im too cheap to buy a new computer