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Why people still love XP

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First post, by Jo22

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Hi everyone,

Just found a video that sums up things pretty well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdRtzwshSI4

Personally, I can relate to that.
I was running XP up to 2014, if memory serves, along with Win 7.

After XP lost software support, I continued to use Windows 7.
While I found it to be very stable, it wasn't as pretty and ambitious as Vista anymore.
Also it felt very cold, by comparison.

When Windows 7 was reaching EOL, I abandoned Windows altogether and used a Pi+Raspbian as an interim solution.
Which I still do, because none of the other platforms currently available feel sane to me anymore.

Well, that's just almost true.
Still use Windows XP on laptops, whenever I need proper software from the past.

Anyway, please enjoy the video.

Best regards,
Jo22

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

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Reply 1 of 107, by Caluser2000

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It was the last version of MickySoft Windows I've used on a regular basis both at home and at work....

Using my computer has been a far my stable experience ever since for some strange reason.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 2 of 107, by Jo22

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^Sometimes, it really shocks me how much we have in common! 😁

But yes, Windows XP was a friendly OS.
I think we can agree on that. At least, in comparison to the last recent releases.

And for someone like me, who came from Win98, XP was nothing less than amazing!

Before XP, I tried a few other "true", non-DOS OSes, before.
(Including some DOS-like OSes, that were true OSes. Like PC-MOS/386.)

Windows NT 3.1 and NT 4, which both were interesting, but had got compatibility issues with the software that I used to use.
Ironically, that wasn't Win32 software, even.
I had been a loyal Real-Mode DOS (VGA applications) and Windows 3.10 user.

Ironically, that exactly was the type of software that required emulation on NT.
Yeah, I wasn't lucky at the time. 🙁

OS/2 Warp 3 was another type if "true" OS that I loved.
Because, it was very Windows 3.1 friendly and integrated Windows so well into itself.
As if it was giving 3.1 a big hug each time.

So it was no surprise that I got myself a full version of OS/2 Warp 4.
The blue spine, that contained Windows 3.1 and networking, but could be used like the red spine, too.
So an existing installation of DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1x could be integrated.
(DOS could be used for dual-boot.)

That being said, I also have had (still have) got a soft spot for Windows 98SE.
Maybe even more than I have got for Win95, despite being Win95 part of my early childhood.
98SE had got its issues, but most were likely caused because of poorly written third-party VXDs.
I liked the fact that it could use Windows 3.1 drivers still.
Also, it had got a useful UI with and supported all kinds of devices and standards.
Like tape drives, zip drives and infrared connections.

That being said, Windows 98SE had got issues with several of my emulators.
Things like SNES9x or Marukun's MZ700 emulator never worked on my Win98 installation.

On Windows XP, on the other hand, all these issues went away.
Sure, XP SP0 was a few magnitudes slower on my Pentium MMX 166 than 98SE was,
but the reason was lack of memory.
Windows 98SE could run reasonably with 24MB, but XP was slow with 64MB, even.
It constantly had to swap to disk.

Anyway, that's another story.
Real OSes need more memory, due to their powerful capabilities.
The DLLs etc loaded into memory have many functions, that applications could make use of but rarely will in practice.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 3 of 107, by ala_borbe

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well , the way i see it, its simple...

WinXp was all around ok, not perfect but ok.
lasted long and people got familliar with it.
improved quite a bit in comparison to previos versions and during its lifetime (SP1, SP2, SP3)
all versions after are WAY WAY WORSE than WinXP (Win7 with SP1 is not that bad, but everything else after XP may be disregarded as OS if you ask me)

with all that said, my favourite still is Win98SE with all its quirks and bugs...

Reply 4 of 107, by Joseph_Joestar

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I started using WinXP around 2003 and stayed with it all the way up to 2013. Having spent ten years with that OS (both for personal use and work) it just feels familiar and cozy to this day. Here are a few reasons why I like it:

  • Much better stability and reliability than Win9x
  • You could still get that nice, classic Win9x look by simply turning off the default theme
  • Felt very lightweight and snappy until SP3, which made it a bit more demanding
  • You could tweak pretty much anything to your liking
  • Had an excellent selection of games during its long run
  • EAX was still properly supported in games, no need for wrappers or emulation

That said, I think Microsoft's UI design started going downhill even with WinXP, though you could revert most of the silly stuff there. That "Fisher Price" default theme was kinda weird. The "Personalized Menus" were even weirder and used to cause me a lot of headaches at work (people kept asking me where their programs went).

Like most people, I skipped Vista. Win7 was ok, and I still found things reasonably manageable there. But when Win8 came along with that Metro look, I just said "no thanks" and switched to Linux.

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Reply 5 of 107, by chinny22

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I have mixed feelings about XP. The Desktop theme, that you no longer could control what accessories to install during setup, forcing you to uninstall after
Little things like that makes it feel dumbed down and amateurish.

It's not my favourite OS but I do have love for it, excluding old games reasons It's still my most used OS on my home network.
It's the most flexible. It'll happily network with newer and older OS's and can still be used for just about anything that's not based on the internet.
It's UI is basic and streamlined, Every version of Windows since has been making things harder unless you go to the effort of customising.

Starting with Vista making things pretty seemed to start taking preference over ease of use. XP had the balance just right (even if I wasn't a fan)
I don't really like Win7 but at least I find it useable. Every version since it feels like I have to fight the OS to do what I want unless I'm simply clicking on a shortcut that may/may not show up in the stat menu

Reply 6 of 107, by 386SX

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In my opinion XP clearly appeared really stable after the Service Packs while I think to remember at the early release time things weren't exactly great on hw support/drivers etc.. I remember many still preferred at work Win 2000 and at that time it was even more stable. But anyway the graphic fresh new air of XP GUI was a big jump from 9x/2000 systems and those primary GUI colors were probably not choosen casually for the same reason why OLED display does give a more impressive look compared to any TFT.
Also support for any new/old hardware drivers that came later and the o.s. was very light and didn't feel having unnecessary processes that the Users didn't ask for eating cpu cycles and ram memory in background and as said it had an impressive long life supporting a big amount of hw and sw even from the past.
I think most overestimate the digital needs of the common person that are probably the same of two decade ago but still nowdays are needed much more cpu/ram/gpu and hundreds of running processes in background. The weight of modern o.s. can't find a reason from the User point of view to be there. If XP ipotethically were supported even nowdays it'd still be preferred no matter if becoming boring after so much time.

Nowdays I have only a retail boxed Win 8.1 I use from time to time cause I might need Win compatibility for modern softwares and it's not a bad o.s. but still quite heavy and might need a powerful config even if the drivers support permit obviously to use the hardware as factory intended while not always on Linux the same kernel modules feels optimized at the same level.
Since the fall of the netbooks I began to use Linux distributions that gives possibility to run on older hw with lighter GUI without unnecessary sw. I also tried most Rpi SBC board but I have mixed opinions about these even if there're good points to have a low power quite powerful micro computer.

EDIT: grammar correction and more compact post.

Last edited by 386SX on 2021-08-18, 11:30. Edited 3 times in total.

Reply 7 of 107, by The Serpent Rider

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Mostly imprinting and lack of any viable alternative until Windows 7 release. Which arguably also needed some polish on launch. With OS 10+ years lifespan people grew up with Windows XP, so of course there would be a cult of some sort.

remember many that still preferred at work Win 2000 and at that time it was even more stable.

Windows 2000 is no-nonsense Windows XP, which I found to appreciate recently.

P.S.
It's funny that Microsoft will allow Windows 7 users to migrate to Windows 11 and to this day allow migrate to Windows 10 freely. Recent Linux activity and shrinking desktop market really makes them nervious, huh.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 8 of 107, by 386SX

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Windows 2000 is no-nonsense Windows XP, which I found to appreciate recently.

I remember finding it very stable at work and considering the early 2000's hardware, already quite fast. We had mostly Pentium III and later Pentium IV OEM computers and it ran quite well that's why when XP first was released I remember some were discussing about xp not being "that good" maybe for the initial missing dedicated drivers.
But after the SP1 I think to remember things got better in stability.

Reply 9 of 107, by Gmlb256

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The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-08-18, 11:23:

Mostly imprinting and lack of any viable alternative until Windows 7 release. Which arguably also needed some polish on launch. With OS 10+ years lifespan people grew up with Windows XP, so of course there would be a cult of some sort.

Windows XP was the very longest OS with mainstream support due to multiple initial problems with the development of Vista.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-08-18, 11:23:

It's funny that Microsoft will allow Windows 7 users to migrate to Windows 11 and to this day allow migrate to Windows 10 freely. Recent Linux activity and shrinking desktop market really makes them nervious, huh.

I believe that Microsoft offering both Windows 10 and 11 for free to existing users has to more do with the mobile market rather than Linux, since the most of the casual activity are now mainly on smartphones and tablets. Another thing is that they are no longer a Windows-centric company as they used to be, they are lately more focused toward cloud-oriented services and they even offer applications for iOS and Android.

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Reply 10 of 107, by The Serpent Rider

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do with the mobile market

Which is Linux variation or Apple. Former is now supported by Windows 11.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 11 of 107, by Gmlb256

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The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-08-18, 15:48:

Which is Linux variation

While Android is based on Linux, the ecosystem is very different than a desktop-based Linux distro.

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Reply 12 of 107, by rmay635703

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I skipped XP and Vista at home and work
Work Went 2k -> 7 -> 10

My main home rig was 98se right through 2016 when the internet broke hard
I still have most of my highly specialized software on 98 with no migration possible (besides a virtual 98)

I have had 2k on secondary systems for many years and prefer it over all the other NT flavors
Briefly had XP on “for sale” systems and my rarely used 7 tower blew the Proprietary PSU and motherboard recently

Just using Mobile devices now while I wait out GPU/Pandemic hell

Reply 13 of 107, by dormcat

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I like XP for its "lightness" compared with Vista and beyond. Fully patched,

XP: 300 MHz CPU / 128 MB (256 MB for x64) RAM / ~6 GB HDD
Vista and later OS: 1 GHz CPU / 1 GB (2 GB for x64) RAM / 16 GB (20 GB for x64) HDD

While no longer supported or updated, basic computing experience with Firefox 52.9.0esr, AVG Antivirus 18.6.3983.0, and LibreOffice 5.4.7.2 (all ended supports to XP in 2018) are not too different from any modern computer, and that's more than sufficient for the majority of computer users (who are not keen to familiarizing different user interfaces).

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-08-18, 07:30:

I started using WinXP around 2003 and stayed with it all the way up to 2013.

Same here. 😀

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-08-18, 07:30:

Much better stability and reliability than Win9x

Better than most, but personally I'd say Win98SE was roughly on par with WinXP in this regard.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-08-18, 07:30:

Felt very lightweight and snappy until SP3, which made it a bit more demanding

Well that was where my experience differed: My first WinXP build was an AthlonXP 2200+ (1.8 GHz) / 512 MB DDR / 80 GB PATA build, and the startup could take longer than my Win98 build (P2-400 / 128 MB SDR / 8.4 GB PATA). Windows Update and svchost.exe could really eat up CPU and HDD (although not as bad as TrustedInstaller.exe on a non-SSD system disc with Vista and beyond). Installing WinXP on a Core i + SSD build would be completely different, though.

Overall IMHO the most important advantages of XP over 98SE were:

  • Supports RAM larger than 512 MB
  • NTFS and much improved partition management
  • Native USB storage devices support
  • User account and clearance control

Add "native SATA support" (so one doesn't need to press F6 and have a floppy drive ready at the beginning of a clean installation) and I bet most users don't feel WinXP much different from, say, Win10, other than the slightly polished user interface.

Reply 14 of 107, by The Serpent Rider

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"native SATA support"

Windows XP works with SATA just fine. What you want is AHCI protocol support.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 15 of 107, by Caluser2000

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Did some one mention OS/2 v4 Warp?

Wow it even had curved edges as part of is visuals- https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssiali … num=ENUS296-375

That in 1996 even. Man that is damn innovative......

I don't think there was a Red Spline version of OS/2 v4 Warp though.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 16 of 107, by MrFlibble

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For a very long time, I've had an ASUS laptop with a preinstalled WinXP SP1, regularly used it over 10 years with almost no issues. I remember when it was new back in 2003/4 or something, I was rather conservative then and used a PC with Win98 as the main machine, and wasn't excited, but grew fond of that XP PC too. I liked the autumn road wallpaper and had it on the desktop for a while, but after that it was mostly the default theme with minimum decorations.

I think it was the last Windows version of the "old generation" for me, when computers and OSs in general still felt exciting and a bit mysterious, as opposed to mostly a utilitarian thing. The startup animation and the sound effect (which at some later point I replaced with "Hail to the great Yuri" from Yuri's Revenge), it all felt a bit like magic, and quite an organic extension of my previous experience with Win95 and 98.

While that XP laptop worked almost flawlessly for a very long time, I have to note that my attempts to upgrade to SP2 and SP3 failed miserably, somehow. I first downloaded the SP3 upgrade CD ISOs from Microsoft, burned on a CD-RW and installed it successfully, and it worked, but the entire PC's performance dropped to some hideous lag that made it effectively unusable. I did a factory reset and repeated the same process with SP2 CD, to exactly the same effect, even though the specs were above minimum system requirements for either upgrade. In the end I decided not to bother and abandoned the upgrade idea altogether. Looking back at it, I think that maybe it was because the version I had was some OEM thing that was not supposed to be used with Microsoft's upgrade CD, perhaps I should've downloaded something from ASUS instead.

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Reply 17 of 107, by gerry

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Interesting reasons to read through, i don't use it day to day anymore but still find it runs fine on anything from a P3 with over 256mb ram, very scalable and runs a huge breadth of software from the past via compatibility mode and into the present, there are lots of gaps, growing each year now, but still impressive. Always found it stable and easy to set up and get going too

Reply 18 of 107, by BitWrangler

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Running raw naked XP pre SP1 is fine as long as you keep it airgapped from critical infrastructure, about 3 miles away from the nearest powerlines with a solar panel and inverter should do. 🤣

Even windows 7 is making me nervous these days... yes, firewalls are a thing, but with retro machines, it feels like putting a 2 million sea wall around your beach house, then drilling it full of holes so you can still enjoy the view.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 19 of 107, by 386SX

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Considering probably how many people actually use everydays linux based phones on very old kernels, APIs and patches, old browsers versions, I suppose the amount of time spent on any desktop pc itself is probably still less than that. Beside which o.s. when there're monthly patches or "patches for the previous patches that patched the latest bug" seems like problems are discovered everydays and even hw components need drivers upgrade nowdays for security bugs until they will stop release drivers for those and that wall would be useless anyway even on a modern o.s.