Why are people switching back to XP?

Moppie wrote in post #9239352
There are always going to be people resistant to change, and of course there are always people out there who like messing with old stuff.
I love old cars, some people love old computers and operating systems.
While I believe the world would be a better place if we all drove Triumph TR6's and Lotus Elans, it's only a dream. The reality is I've got all of my friends driving Honda's and Toyota's because they are safer, cheaper and more efficient.

That's not a valid comparison IMHO. Old cars are slower, pollute more, less safe. With XP I can do everything I want to just as well as with Windows 7, without extra DRM, warnings and authorisations popping up, it's perhaps faster than Windows 7 or at least around the same speed, and while XP may be in theory less safe i've never had a problem caused by a security problem with Windows. Because XP's smaller and older it's faster on some hardware.

Let's turn it around, given XP is smaller, faster, and works perfectly why would any sane person pay money to have a slower computer than will let you do exactly the same things? It's an OS, it's not like upgrading to the next version of photoshop, it's plumbing.

tim wrote in post #9240327
That's not a valid comparison IMHO. Old cars are slower, pollute more, less safe. With XP I can do everything I want to just as well as with Windows 7, without extra DRM, warnings and authorisations popping up, it's perhaps faster than Windows 7 or at least around the same speed, and while XP may be in theory less safe i've never had a problem caused by a security problem with Windows. Because XP's smaller and older it's faster on some hardware.

Let's turn it around, given XP is smaller, faster, and works perfectly why would any sane person pay money to have a slower computer than will let you do exactly the same things? It's an OS, it's not like upgrading to the next version of photoshop, it's plumbing.

This is the same thing my boss has been spouting for years. We run Win2K Pro on a bunch of old machines. But lately we are finding that more and more programs are not supported in Win2K. So we don't upgrade our software. Then when someone sends us a file, we can't open it. So then he decides we are finally going to upgrade. Problem is none of our computers will run new versions of Windows or most of the software anyway, so he changes his mind again. Rather than spending, say $1000 a year staying "up-to-date", we will now have to spend $5000-$10,000 to upgrade everything as well as the downtime from the upgrade.

Not upgrading will eventually bite you in the rear. It is a necessary evil. The question becomes "How long do you think you can last?"

tim wrote in post #9240327
That's not a valid comparison IMHO. Old cars are slower, pollute more, less safe. With XP I can do everything I want to just as well as with Windows 7, without extra DRM, warnings and authorisations popping up, it's perhaps faster than Windows 7 or at least around the same speed, and while XP may be in theory less safe i've never had a problem caused by a security problem with Windows. Because XP's smaller and older it's faster on some hardware.

Let's turn it around, given XP is smaller, faster, and works perfectly why would any sane person pay money to have a slower computer than will let you do exactly the same things? It's an OS, it's not like upgrading to the next version of photoshop, it's plumbing.

XP is not as efficient at (multi) threading as Windows 7, XP is more vulnerable to viruses/trojans (pollute the internet) and are less safe for the same reason. Technically, it's an OK analogy as analogies go.

Though, I agree with you in principal. There's no big reason to upgrade if you like XP and know how to protect yourself.

hughes_57 wrote in post #9240059
That is one thing that would interest me in Windows 7 its ability to break the 4GIG RAM barrier, I will wait and see how Windows 7 performs over the next 6 months before considering the upgrade when I build my new System, like I have always done even when upgrading from DOS to Windows 3.1

It doesn't break the 4gb barrier any better than XP did. It's just that XP x64 was the most poorly designed addition to XP that microsoft came up with. Horribly unstable, and even Vista in it's early day proved to be much better. If anything, XP x64 is the ME of our times, but Windows 7 x64 is just Windows 7 with larger memory limits.

tim wrote in post #9240327
That's not a valid comparison IMHO. Old cars are slower, pollute more, less safe. With XP I can do everything I want to just as well as with Windows 7, without extra DRM, warnings and authorisations popping up, it's perhaps faster than Windows 7 or at least around the same speed, and while XP may be in theory less safe i've never had a problem caused by a security problem with Windows. Because XP's smaller and older it's faster on some hardware.

I can do everything as well as with Windows 7, without warnings and popups, and probably faster than Windows 7, using Windows 7 You can turn off the popups and such (which run much less frequently than in Vista), yet it still tries to enforce safety (so certain programs should be run in admin mode). Windows 7 is an OS that looks like vista, sprints (when using more than 2 cores, it really does much more than just "run") like multiple copies of XP, and is more secure than both of them. And if you know how to install and clean up, it's about 4gb vs 3gb for XP, yet in the prime of XP, a 250gb drive was huge, and W7 has been out for a few months and we already regularly see 1tb-2tb drives. And if you turn off aero and do a few other tricks, you can get it to run on any XP compatible system

In2Photos wrote in post #9240366
This is the same thing my boss has been spouting for years. We run Win2K Pro on a bunch of old machines. But lately we are finding that more and more programs are not supported in Win2K. So we don't upgrade our software. Then when someone sends us a file, we can't open it. So then he decides we are finally going to upgrade. Problem is none of our computers will run new versions of Windows or most of the software anyway, so he changes his mind again. Rather than spending, say $1000 a year staying "up-to-date", we will now have to spend $5000-$10,000 to upgrade everything as well as the downtime from the upgrade.

Not upgrading will eventually bite you in the rear. It is a necessary evil. The question becomes "How long do you think you can last?"

That's reasonable, for a business that relies on specific software. Consumer software's less fussy AFAIK.

MaxxuM wrote in post #9240572
XP is not as efficient at (multi) threading as Windows 7, XP is more vulnerable to viruses/trojans (pollute the internet) and are less safe for the same reason. Technically, it's an OK analogy as analogies go.

Though, I agree with you in principal. There's no big reason to upgrade if you like XP and know how to protect yourself.

That's what they say, but i've never had a trojan, and the one virus I had was because I downloaded and ran software that could reasonably be expected to be trusted that turned out bad.

basroil wrote in post #9240744
I can do everything as well as with Windows 7, without warnings and popups, and probably faster than Windows 7, using Windows 7 You can turn off the popups and such (which run much less frequently than in Vista), yet it still tries to enforce safety (so certain programs should be run in admin mode). Windows 7 is an OS that looks like vista, sprints (when using more than 2 cores, it really does much more than just "run") like multiple copies of XP, and is more secure than both of them. And if you know how to install and clean up, it's about 4gb vs 3gb for XP, yet in the prime of XP, a 250gb drive was huge, and W7 has been out for a few months and we already regularly see 1tb-2tb drives. And if you turn off aero and do a few other tricks, you can get it to run on any XP compatible system

Ok, so with two cores and the fancy UI turned off it's as fast as XP. XP's just as fast as XP. How is that a reason to upgrade?

I have my older computer running XP network to my new Windows 7 machine. I really liked XP but honestly I like Windows 7 better. One thing I learned about Windows 7 is what Anti-Virus software to use without bogging down the system. was Microsoft Security Essetnials ( which is free ---- just google it download it and you'll see ) was the ticket. Remember to remove any Anti-Virus software first. I have since removed Norton from my XP system and put Microsoft Security Essetnials on it too . What a difference it made on the resources and usage on the CPU.

basroil wrote in post #9240744
It doesn't break the 4gb barrier any better than XP did. It's just that XP x64 was the most poorly designed addition to XP that microsoft came up with. Horribly unstable, and even Vista in it's early day proved to be much better. If anything, XP x64 is the ME of our times, but Windows 7 x64 is just Windows 7 with larger memory limits.

Is this not what I kinda said as I do not use XP x64 maybe thats why I find it so stable I could go on but why bother think you just like to disagree for the sake of disagreeing.

basroil wrote in post #9238463
Issue with XP is that one hung program can freeze the entire machine. That just doesn't happen in Vista/7 (unless in fullscreen directx mode, but that's only because some programs disable the windows key now, and that results in being unable to end the task)

That's a good point. In practice, however, the only programs I've had that mess up the whole machine are one's I'm in the process of writing myself

Moppie wrote in post #9237103
They are the same sort of people who believe XP is the best operating system ever developed and that the Intel P4 is the height of computing technology.

No, no no. The best one was NT4. Win2k comes second. XP only third.

Well, the biggest problem with upgrading is normally drivers. Everything is easy when using mainstream hardware. If working as a developer and using very special hardware, life sucks badly. You either run multiple computers or have a hard time figuring out if it is better to lose the support for some older hardware, or not being able to buy some new products because the new product doesn't have drivers for the older OS.

And the #1 reason for blue screens - besides broken hardware - is bad drivers. This world is swamped with them. M$ has managed to make it evilishly hard to write correctly working drivers. There are too many different events that a driver may need to react to, that no developer actually manages to implement and test all possible combinations - especially since many of the events have timing requirements that makes it even harder to fake the conditions.

In the end, there are no "XP is more stable" or "Vista is more stable". It is all just a question of what combination of hardware that is used, in relation to the driver quality for that set of hardware. If having a safe harbour, allowing you to ignore all the security updates, you can get a NT4 or Win2k or WinXP or Win Vista and quite reasonably Win7 to stay up and run complex tasks at 100% CPU load for a year 24x7 without a problem. Just as long as the combination of hw/drivers are ok.

tim wrote in post #9240844
Ok, so with two cores and the fancy UI turned off it's as fast as XP. XP's just as fast as XP. How is that a reason to upgrade?

This thread isn't about upgrading (please read the OP), it's about NOT DOWNGRADING. Basically, there's no point in downgrading because 7 is at least as good, and mainly better (especially if you can use aero, wddm, and have x64 capable machines)

basroil wrote in post #9241339
This thread isn't about upgrading (please read the OP), it's about NOT DOWNGRADING. Basically, there's no point in downgrading because 7 is at least as good, and mainly better (especially if you can use aero, wddm, and have x64 capable machines)

The only reason I can see to downgrade is when someone should not have upgraded that particular hardware in the first place. With the upgrade advisor available, that should normally not happen.

Wow! I didn't expect to come back and read all these responses. I agree that down the road, XP will be like a Windows 95. It will be unsupported and will limit you in the long run. I like to keep up with the times and that's just me. For those that like to drive their classic cars, have at it. No qualms there. At my job, we are using work stations that use XP but, on the outside of these machines it says Vista. Huh?! This is what lead me to make this post and wonder. Thanks!

jdizzle wrote in post #9242348
Wow! I didn't expcct to come back and read all these responses. I agree that down the road, XP will be like a Windows 95. It will be unsupported and will limit you in the long run. I like to keep up with the times and that's just me. For those that like to drive their classic cars, have at it. No qualms there. At my job, we are using work stations that use XP but, on the outside of these machines it says Vista. Huh?! This is what lead to make this post and wonder. Thanks!

Usually it's an IT decision to do that, it's much easier to conform new machines to old standards than keep different builds for each new machine. Sure IT doesn't want more work (learning, testing, upgrading, maintaining), but sometimes it goes to the point of lazyness (i.e. if they don't start using w7 in the next two years, someone's just not willing to put an extra 5 min today to save 10 tomorrow). My IT department (i only use them, i'm not part of them) already started testing W7 and just started rolling out remote access with server 2k8 (from 2k3), and should be ready with 7 by august... but the started when beta came out and that was a long time ago.

Choices for the end user should be slightly different, since you usually don't manage more than maybe 5 machines, but usually all five are very different hardware wise.