Why do you still use Windows XP?

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , BeeJ
writes:

Win8 adds another crap layer that should be left to a phone.

I've not seen it yet. AFAIK, it's not on general release (meaning in
high/main street computer stores).

The Windows 8 Preview was available for download. With that,
you could install and test Windows 8 (without the thing being
feature complete). It allows you to see the "phone" interface.
Unlike Ubuntu Unity, at least you can escape to more familiar
things when you want.

It's a Developer Preview, giving developers a chance to see
how their code is going to run in Windows 8, and give them a
chance to tweak for the Metro interface look and feel.

The only thing I found noteworthy about Windows 8, was the
minimum amount of memory it can be run in. Using a Virtual Machine
for testing, I dialed the available memory down to 128MB, and
the Preview continued to run with that amount of memory.
Microsoft is working on that aspect, so the OS can run on
more portable devices. The only problem I had at 128MB, is
a crash in one application, just as I was shutting down the
OS.

If you preview in a Virtual Machine that lacks good graphics
emulation, some of the animations don't work. To evaluate the
animations fully, you need to install on a real physical computer.

I think I couldn't get it to run in VPC2007 (and that fact was
announced at the time), but it did run in VirtualBox. So it's not
even completely VM friendly, for the preview version I was using.

When something crashes in Windows 8, the familiar BSOD or dialogs
with hex in them, have been removed. (Everything has that "plastic look".)
I presume with enough work, I'd eventually be able to figure out,
where the real crash info is stored. I had a few instances, where
the screen was entirely black, and it's pretty hard to debug something,
without a dump on the screen to look at.

If you use Virtualbox for testing, the idea is to not get too
creative with changing the hardware emulation settings. Part
of my black screens and the like, were due to being a bit
too clever with the hardware emulation. Virtualbox has a number
of settings in that regard (it's a bit more of a pain to set up,
compared to VPC2007).

The reason for using VMs, is to avoid disconnecting all disks
while installing the OS. For safety, when installing OSes
on my computer, I unplug any non-involved hard drives. And to
avoid that kind of thing, for junk-type testing, I use a VM instead.
(I've tested and discarded, many Linux distros, just by looking
at them in a VM.) The OS can't "escape" from there, and do some
collateral damage. OS installers are not to be trusted.

Paul

On Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:21:08 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , BeeJ
writes:

Apps are designed to have to switch back and forth from mouse to
keyboard. Not ergonomic. MS has no quality control and no ergonomic
design.

(Mind you, a lot of users of common software switch back and forth far
more than they need to - for example, typing into a form, they mouse to
the next box, rather than tab. And then mouse to the OK button rather
than enter. Apps may be a bit more mouse-minded - I haven't got any. [I
dislike the word for a start.])

We mostly take proper tab order for granted. It's one of those things
we've all come to expect in the software we use. That's why it was so
irritating to use a program called The Rename v1.4, a file renaming
program that I grew accustomed to using for a few years. Pressing tab
would take you all over the UI in no predictable order. Even after two
years or more, I never learned where tab would take me. Other than
that freak of nature, which I otherwise liked for its simplicity, tab
is usually a better way to move through a form than clicking.

From: "Paul"

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , BeeJ writes:

Win8 adds another crap layer that should be left to a phone.

I've not seen it yet. AFAIK, it's not on general release (meaning in high/main street
computer stores).

The Windows 8 Preview was available for download. With that,
you could install and test Windows 8 (without the thing being
feature complete). It allows you to see the "phone" interface.
Unlike Ubuntu Unity, at least you can escape to more familiar
things when you want.

It's a Developer Preview, giving developers a chance to see
how their code is going to run in Windows 8, and give them a
chance to tweak for the Metro interface look and feel.

The only thing I found noteworthy about Windows 8, was the
minimum amount of memory it can be run in. Using a Virtual Machine
for testing, I dialed the available memory down to 128MB, and
the Preview continued to run with that amount of memory.
Microsoft is working on that aspect, so the OS can run on
more portable devices. The only problem I had at 128MB, is
a crash in one application, just as I was shutting down the
OS.

If you preview in a Virtual Machine that lacks good graphics
emulation, some of the animations don't work. To evaluate the
animations fully, you need to install on a real physical computer.

I think I couldn't get it to run in VPC2007 (and that fact was
announced at the time), but it did run in VirtualBox. So it's not
even completely VM friendly, for the preview version I was using.

When something crashes in Windows 8, the familiar BSOD or dialogs
with hex in them, have been removed. (Everything has that "plastic look".)
I presume with enough work, I'd eventually be able to figure out,
where the real crash info is stored. I had a few instances, where
the screen was entirely black, and it's pretty hard to debug something,
without a dump on the screen to look at.

If you use Virtualbox for testing, the idea is to not get too
creative with changing the hardware emulation settings. Part
of my black screens and the like, were due to being a bit
too clever with the hardware emulation. Virtualbox has a number
of settings in that regard (it's a bit more of a pain to set up,
compared to VPC2007).

The reason for using VMs, is to avoid disconnecting all disks
while installing the OS. For safety, when installing OSes
on my computer, I unplug any non-involved hard drives. And to
avoid that kind of thing, for junk-type testing, I use a VM instead.
(I've tested and discarded, many Linux distros, just by looking
at them in a VM.) The OS can't "escape" from there, and do some
collateral damage. OS installers are not to be trusted.


This has the 'nix community up in arms (sorrty about the pun) over Win8

"Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices"
http://www.softwarefreedom.org/blog/...ocks-down-ARM/

"...Microsoft has wasted no time in revising its Windows Hardware Certification
Requirements to effectively ban most alternative operating systems on ARM-based devices
that ship with Windows 8."





--
Dave
Multi-AV Scanning Tool - http://multi-av.thespykiller.co.uk
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp

David H. Lipman wrote:
From: "Paul"

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , BeeJ writes:
Win8 adds another crap layer that should be left to a phone.
I've not seen it yet. AFAIK, it's not on general release (meaning in high/main street
computer stores).
The Windows 8 Preview was available for download. With that,
you could install and test Windows 8 (without the thing being
feature complete). It allows you to see the "phone" interface.
Unlike Ubuntu Unity, at least you can escape to more familiar
things when you want.

It's a Developer Preview, giving developers a chance to see
how their code is going to run in Windows 8, and give them a
chance to tweak for the Metro interface look and feel.

The only thing I found noteworthy about Windows 8, was the
minimum amount of memory it can be run in. Using a Virtual Machine
for testing, I dialed the available memory down to 128MB, and
the Preview continued to run with that amount of memory.
Microsoft is working on that aspect, so the OS can run on
more portable devices. The only problem I had at 128MB, is
a crash in one application, just as I was shutting down the
OS.

If you preview in a Virtual Machine that lacks good graphics
emulation, some of the animations don't work. To evaluate the
animations fully, you need to install on a real physical computer.

I think I couldn't get it to run in VPC2007 (and that fact was
announced at the time), but it did run in VirtualBox. So it's not
even completely VM friendly, for the preview version I was using.

When something crashes in Windows 8, the familiar BSOD or dialogs
with hex in them, have been removed. (Everything has that "plastic look".)
I presume with enough work, I'd eventually be able to figure out,
where the real crash info is stored. I had a few instances, where
the screen was entirely black, and it's pretty hard to debug something,
without a dump on the screen to look at.

If you use Virtualbox for testing, the idea is to not get too
creative with changing the hardware emulation settings. Part
of my black screens and the like, were due to being a bit
too clever with the hardware emulation. Virtualbox has a number
of settings in that regard (it's a bit more of a pain to set up,
compared to VPC2007).

The reason for using VMs, is to avoid disconnecting all disks
while installing the OS. For safety, when installing OSes
on my computer, I unplug any non-involved hard drives. And to
avoid that kind of thing, for junk-type testing, I use a VM instead.
(I've tested and discarded, many Linux distros, just by looking
at them in a VM.) The OS can't "escape" from there, and do some
collateral damage. OS installers are not to be trusted.


This has the 'nix community up in arms (sorrty about the pun) over Win8

"Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices"
http://www.softwarefreedom.org/blog/...ocks-down-ARM/

"...Microsoft has wasted no time in revising its Windows Hardware Certification
Requirements to effectively ban most alternative operating systems on ARM-based devices
that ship with Windows 8."

Yeah, that's the walled garden approach for you.

Maybe we'll have to hack the UEFI :-) No problemo.
Nothing a soldering iron can't fix. (Two ROMs and switch
between them.)

Paul

Because it works fine for what I do: Surfing the web, playing Flash
games, listening to music, watching videos, etc. I will go to 64-bit W7
when I need to reinstall, something don't work in XP, etc. Why upgrade
when old things work just fine?


On 2/9/2012 7:00 PM PT, Industrial One typed:

Give your reasons.

Do you plan to upgrade ever? If so, when and why?

If you use both XP and 7, do you ever plan on ditching XP for good?

What will you do when support is dropped to the point where this OS
will be problematic with new hardware?

Personally I'm waiting for Windows 8 to release a second service pack.
XP sucked when it first came out until SP1. Even then, I find the
moron-babysitting idiot trend really annoying. It took me forever to
figure out how to shut off that piece of **** UAC on Win7 because
simply disabling it didn't work, it had to enabled then disabled to be
disabled for real. Sigh...
--
"The ant's a centaur in his dragon world. Pull down thy vanity, it is
not man... Made courage, or made order, or made grace,... Pull down thy
vanity, I say pull down. Learn of the green world what can be thy
place... In scaled invention or true artistry,... Pull down thy
vanity,... Paquin pull down! The green casque has outdone your
elegance." --Ezra Pound's poem
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
/ /\ /\ \ Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
| |o o| |
\ _ / If crediting, then use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.
( ) If e-mailing, then axe ANT from its address if needed.
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on this computer.

And ... MS is still providing patches to XP so maybe it is a much more
stable / safe OS that Vista or Win7 (?)

On Feb 9, 10:26*pm, "Mayayana" wrote:
| Give your reasons.
|

* Because 98SE won't run on my current hardware. Actually,
once I got onto XP I found it notably more efficient than
98 on the same hardware, but it took some getting used to
the bloat and "brittleness". I spent about two weeks figuring
out the differences and figuring out how to clean up XP.
(By brittleness I mean the susceptibility, which increases
with each Windows version, to losing the whole system due
to relatively small things like a disabled service or a new
motherboard. 98 crashed more, but it was very rare that one
couldn't get out of a bad boot.)

| Do you plan to upgrade ever? If so, when and why?
|

* That sounds like one of those people who plans when they'll
buy a new car. They don't wait until the old one dies. They
only wait until their current car no longer impresses the
neighbors.

* I don't "plan" to upgrade. I buy a new one when the old one
is no longer usable.

I agree with you totally.

Too many people are materialistic and forget that God gave them
everything they have.

Andy

I don't "plan" to upgrade. I buy a new one when the old one
is no longer usable.

I agree with you totally.

Too many people are materialistic and forget that God gave them
everything they have.

----------

Yet one can see how so many people end up thinking
they need to "upgrade". Here's an example from a couple
of days ago:

http://www.businessinsider.com/micro...mpanies-2012-2

Business Insider shamelessly ran a Microsoft PR piece
that's really not news in any way. But what do they care,
so long as it provides something to fill the space between
ads? In the piece, the "Microsoft investor relations chief"
shamelessly proclaims that MS needs to get businesses sold
on Win7 so that they can then sell them Win8, without
losing out on a version sale that the businesses clearly
don't need. The man is saying, without any attempt to conceal
it, that MS needs to cheat their customers before it's too late!
That kind of MS PR fluff, usually posed as expert tech. advice,
gets published almost daily, generated by either MS or one
of the numerous "analyst groups" that issues recommendations
to business.

"Mint" wrote in message
...

On Feb 9, 10:26 pm, "Mayayana" wrote:
| Give your reasons.
|

Because 98SE won't run on my current hardware. Actually,
once I got onto XP I found it notably more efficient than
98 on the same hardware, but it took some getting used to
the bloat and "brittleness". I spent about two weeks figuring
out the differences and figuring out how to clean up XP.
(By brittleness I mean the susceptibility, which increases
with each Windows version, to losing the whole system due
to relatively small things like a disabled service or a new
motherboard. 98 crashed more, but it was very rare that one
couldn't get out of a bad boot.)

| Do you plan to upgrade ever? If so, when and why?
|

That sounds like one of those people who plans when they'll
buy a new car. They don't wait until the old one dies. They
only wait until their current car no longer impresses the
neighbors.

I don't "plan" to upgrade. I buy a new one when the old one
is no longer usable.

I agree with you totally.

Too many people are materialistic and forget that God gave them
everything they have.

Andy

On Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:34:31 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

STILL USE XP????

I still use Win98.
I never liked XP, and never used it on my home computer. It came on my
laptop, and I found that the built in wifi dont work with anything
earlier. But that computer is just for use on the road. I can run
firefox and agent. Thats all I need on the road.

I can tolrate Win2000, but nothing later.

----
Alcoholics Anonymous - Created Under the Influence of Belladonna & LSD

In ,
wrote:
On Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:34:31 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

STILL USE XP????

I still use Win98.

How? While I still have a warm spot in my heart for Windows 3.1, 95, and
98, although I cannot use them for about the last 10 years or so. Lack
of drivers is probably the worst. And lack of application support is
probably number two. Another problem with Windows 98 that really
bothered me was constantly running out of System Resources. How do you
put up with that?

Windows 2000 was a godsend. That Resource problem disappeared, but it
was a slow bloated pig on a Celeron 400MHz with 192MB of RAM (maxed out)
on my Windows 98 machine. And Windows 2000 didn't normally need drivers
for such things like USB devices like Windows 98 always did. But Windows
98 really did play DVD movies really well even on modest machines. Only
if Linux could do so well.

I never liked XP, and never used it on my home computer. It came on
my laptop, and I found that the built in wifi dont work with anything
earlier. But that computer is just for use on the road. I can run
firefox and agent. Thats all I need on the road.

I can tolrate Win2000, but nothing later.

I never liked the early XP. But around 2005, I thought it was ready for
primetime and I loved it ever since. And with SP2 and SP3, I believe
Microsoft really did a very good job with XP (and it had taken them long
enough). And I believe Microsoft made a huge mistake marketing-wise with
XP by making it so good.

As earlier versions of Windows, always lacked a *must* have feature that
made me to want to upgrade. Although Vista and Windows 7 doesn't have
any must have features that I need. And I believe this is true of
millions of others as well. And thus Microsoft made XP too good.

Windows 3.1 lacked long file support. Time to upgrade.

Windows 95 lacked USB support. Time to upgrade.

Windows 98 lacked unlimited System Resources and limited USB support.
Time to upgrade.

Windows 2000 does very well, but lacked the support that XP enjoys. And
Windows 2000 is more focused on business use rather than consumer use.

Windows XP does everything I want to do and run.

Vista and Windows 7 takes a step backwards for me. As they run less
applications and has less driver support than XP has. Plus Vista and
Windows 7 runs slower than crap on a single core CPU (they really need
multi-core machines to run well). Plus they don't run games as well
either as well as XP can.

I say this after having three Windows 7 machines too. And I updated two
of them back to XP once again. ;-)

"We're thinking about upgrading from SunOS 4.1.1 to SunOS 3.5." -- Henry
Spencer

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz - 2GB - Windows XP SP3

In ,
Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:26:47 -0500, "(PeteCresswell)"
wrote:

Per BeeJ:
Windows in general is NOT ergonomic and MS is inconsistent from
Windows to its own apps like those in office.

Seems to me like it's getting worse.

Among the people I've been serving, there are those who say "Hey,
if this new solution involves Office 2007, just forget about it."

These are highly-skilled, really-smart, highly-paid people in the
financial industry who live and die by hundredths of a percent on
investment returns.

Office 2003 is doing the job for them and they just don't have
time to cope with mess that MS made out of the UIs in Office
2007. Yeah, it's ok once you reprogram your lower brain stem to
beat through all the new menus.... but they don't feel like they
have that time to invest for no particular benefit.

I felt the same way until I consulted at a company last summer where
they used Office 2010. I groaned when I saw it, but I was productive
within 5 minutes and fully comfortable within 15. Absolutely not the
big deal that I told myself it would be. Disappointing, actually, to
think how small the speed bump was.

Sounds nice, but not very convincing to me. I am still using Word 2000
and I have tried many others. But nothing does what I need better than
Word 2000.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz - 2GB - Windows XP SP3

"BillW50" wrote in :

I still use Win98.

How? While I still have a warm spot in my heart for Windows 3.1, 95, and
98, although I cannot use them for about the last 10 years or so. Lack
of drivers is probably the worst. And lack of application support is
probably number two. Another problem with Windows 98 that really
bothered me was constantly running out of System Resources. How do you
put up with that?


Easily. Run code that does not wastefully consume them, and which returns
them properly to be used again. W98 had a huge base of software. Shortage was
never the problem. Drivers can be a problem, but even there ways can be
found. Sound Forge and Cakewalk and many other things like LnS firewall all
depend on their own drivers). Same goes for decent hardware, the maker
usually supports it with their opwn driver. If maker doesn't care enough to
do that, it's a BAD idea to use their hardware anyway.

Last but not at ALL least, W98 SE can be small, stable, fast, and it's a 32
bit OS with an extremely powerful API. The advances from W98 SE till now are
small, incremental, compared to the jump between DOS and W98 SE. W98 won't
ever become useless, even if the distant future sees lots of people still
around with decent living standards, and fast computers that make today's
stuff look like 1980's gear, there will still be people running W98 on a
virtual machine because it does what they want.

The only current development likely to make W98 anythign like obsolete is the
huge growth in ARM chips instead of i386 chips. And this doesn't apply to
desktop machines.

BillW50 wrote:

STILL USE XP????

I still use Win98.

How? While I still have a warm spot in my heart for Windows 3.1,
95, and 98, although I cannot use them for about the last
10 years or so. Lack of drivers is probably the worst.

Lack of drivers has only really affected win-98 since maybe early 2006.

More than 75% of the hardware (motherboards, video cards) available at
retail in early 2006 still came with win-98 drivers.

My own win-98 systems have socket-478 or socket-775 intel pentium CPU's
running anywhere from 2.6 to 3.5 ghz, with 512mb and 1 gb ram, with SATA
hard drives up to 1.5 tb in size, with Nvidia 6200 and 6600 AGP 8x video
cards.

Take a system like that, add KernelEx, and there isin't much software
that you can't run on it.

And lack of application support is probably number two.

KernelEx.

But truth be told, Firefox 2.0.0.20 (the last "win-9x/me" version) can
still correctly render 99% of web pages today. But with KernelEx, you
can go to higher versions of FF. I have Opera 11 when I absolutely need
to access a handful of web-sites, but otherwise FF 2 is my default
browser.

Another problem with Windows 98 that really bothered me was
constantly running out of System Resources. How do you
put up with that?

It's no issue, because you're recalling the days back in 1999 - 2001
when your average win-98 system was running with maybe 62 or 128 mb of
ram and had buggy hardware drivers AND application programs. Over the
next 2 to 4 years drivers and software improved.

I simply don't have resource problems - and I have a taskbar with
usually 10 or 20 apps running at any given time.

Windows 98 lacked unlimited System Resources and limited USB
support. Time to upgrade.

There are universal USB drivers for win-98. System resources are no
problem.

98 Guy wrote in :

I have Opera 11 when I absolutely need
to access a handful of web-sites, but otherwise FF 2 is my default
browser.


Do you find that FF makes a pig's ear of eBay CSS rendering? That was what
drove me to use OperaUSB 10.63.