XP and Windows 8.1 dual booting here (well, removable drives)

Booting back into XP it's always a shock just how awful it is compared to 7 or 8, both for productivity and gaming. I cannot for the life of me comprehend why anyone would choose to cling to it like some of you seem to be doing. Nice to have it around for retro games, but for modern games it's getting close to useless now, with that 4gb memory limit and no DirectX past 9.

BuckoA51 wrote:

XP and Windows 8.1 dual booting here (well, removable drives)

Booting back into XP it's always a shock just how awful it is compared to 7 or 8, both for productivity and gaming. I cannot for the life of me comprehend why anyone would choose to cling to it like some of you seem to be doing. Nice to have it around for retro games, but for modern games it's getting close to useless now, with that 4gb memory limit and no DirectX past 9.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/OS-Enhanc … -for-Windows-XP.

Yeah, you may be right, but people have ported DirectX 10 to Windows 2000, Server 2003 and XP.

That link is a 404. Besides, unless something dramatic has changed, said 'ports' were barely functional at best.

BuckoA51 wrote:

XP and Windows 8.1 dual booting here (well, removable drives)

Booting back into XP it's always a shock just how awful it is compared to 7 or 8, both for productivity and gaming. I cannot for the life of me comprehend why anyone would choose to cling to it like some of you seem to be doing. Nice to have it around for retro games, but for modern games it's getting close to useless now, with that 4gb memory limit and no DirectX past 9.

Are you really finding much retro games you have to dual boot to XP for?

I mean, I know they're out there, but all the games I wanted to play work fine in Windows 8.1.

BuckoA51 wrote:

XP and Windows 8.1 dual booting here (well, removable drives)

Booting back into XP it's always a shock just how awful it is compared to 7 or 8, both for productivity and gaming. I cannot for the life of me comprehend why anyone would choose to cling to it like some of you seem to be doing. Nice to have it around for retro games, but for modern games it's getting close to useless now, with that 4gb memory limit and no DirectX past 9.

Awful for productivity? I just don't understand what you mean at all... it's easier to navigate, easier to diagnose problems with (thanks to actually being able to find most of the options and config panels) and also much more familiar for most of us that used Windows 9x back in the day (and continue to today). Also it's much less flashy compared to Windows 7 and 8 so it runs faster and smoother...

You really are going to have to explain this one to me because what you said just doesn't make any sense...

(Don't get me wrong though, I am no fan of windows XP. I hated Windows 2000 at the time because of the incompatibility with my old software and games. Windows XP was really no better, I mean yeah it was new and the games that ran on it were all graphically impressive and stuff but in the end it really was a slightly better version of Windows 2000 with a really shit skin on it.)

Are you really finding much retro games you have to dual boot to XP for?

No, not really that many, some old DirectDraw games...um....Breath of Fire only worked on XP, Silent Hill 2 was the last game I played under XP since in Windows 8 I just couldn't get the surround sound to work. There's a few others but really not that many.

Awful for productivity? I just don't understand what you mean at all... it's easier to navigate, easier to diagnose problems with (thanks to actually being able to find most of the options and config panels) and also much more familiar for most of us that used Windows 9x back in the day (and continue to today). Also it's much less flashy compared to Windows 7 and 8 so it runs faster and smoother...

It's only easier to navigate because you're familiar with it, given time you could get equally familiar with Windows 7 or 8, which, incidentally, have a search function built into almost everything, making it a doddle to find most things.

On modern hardware it most definitely does NOT run faster and smoother, Windows 8 and 7 boot faster, lock up less (both temporarily and permanently) and are better optimised for multi-core CPUs. XP probably has the edge when it comes to older hardware but certainly not on anything new.

Plus on XP there's the 4gb memory cap, you're limited to two monitors (I run 3), don't get the nice window manager improvements (particularly snap and peek), don't get support for AHCI (easily at least), no search on the Start menu, no support for hardware acceleration for the window manager.

Finally XP has always been a security nightmare due to it having no SUDO/UAC equivalent, and it's just worse now there's no security updates.

Maybe to call it awful was hyperbole but it's definitely lagging behind 7 and 8 in a lot of ways.

Lol who the hell needs more than one monitor? 🤣

Also why should I ever want to search for something like I'm using a browser? It's my computer! I should be able to find things easily and quickly! A person should never need to use a search function to find files and programs. 🤣

Yeah I'll give you the fact that it is a security nightmare and it's not really designed to take advantage of modern hardware but that's just because of it's age. It's interface was pretty decent in that it was very similar to the classic windows interface.

I use linux almost all of the time now that windows XP has lost support and I'll tell you I never use any sort of search box at all, everything is quick and easy to find. Plus using the terminal to install things or edit configs is great. I have an easier time using and learning Fedora Linux now than I've had adapting to Windows 7 or 8. That should tell you something...

Yes, obviously Linux is so much more like XP than either Windows 7 or Windows 8 🤣

I never said linux was like Windows XP all I stated was it's easier to use than windows 8. 🤣

I drew this two years ago. Bing image search does not index it 🤣

BuckoA51 wrote:

No, not really that many, some old DirectDraw games...um....Breath of Fire only worked on XP, Silent Hill 2 was the last game I […]
Show full quote

Are you really finding much retro games you have to dual boot to XP for?

No, not really that many, some old DirectDraw games...um....Breath of Fire only worked on XP, Silent Hill 2 was the last game I played under XP since in Windows 8 I just couldn't get the surround sound to work. There's a few others but really not that many.

Awful for productivity? I just don't understand what you mean at all... it's easier to navigate, easier to diagnose problems with (thanks to actually being able to find most of the options and config panels) and also much more familiar for most of us that used Windows 9x back in the day (and continue to today). Also it's much less flashy compared to Windows 7 and 8 so it runs faster and smoother...

It's only easier to navigate because you're familiar with it, given time you could get equally familiar with Windows 7 or 8, which, incidentally, have a search function built into almost everything, making it a doddle to find most things.

On modern hardware it most definitely does NOT run faster and smoother, Windows 8 and 7 boot faster, lock up less (both temporarily and permanently) and are better optimised for multi-core CPUs. XP probably has the edge when it comes to older hardware but certainly not on anything new.

Plus on XP there's the 4gb memory cap, you're limited to two monitors (I run 3), don't get the nice window manager improvements (particularly snap and peek), don't get support for AHCI (easily at least), no search on the Start menu, no support for hardware acceleration for the window manager.

Finally XP has always been a security nightmare due to it having no SUDO/UAC equivalent, and it's just worse now there's no security updates.

Maybe to call it awful was hyperbole but it's definitely lagging behind 7 and 8 in a lot of ways.

Some gamers still prefer XP, especially with the DirectX 7 aliasing case with PopCap games. But if you want the new Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare, you'll need the new Windows 7, 8 or 8.1.

King_Corduroy wrote:

Awful for productivity? I just don't understand what you mean at all... it's easier to navigate, easier to diagnose problems with (thanks to actually being able to find most of the options and config panels) and also much more familiar for most of us that used Windows 9x back in the day (and continue to today).

I feel like it is increasingly pointless to attempt to discuss these things, but I feel like I should nonetheless point out that the Classic control panel in Windows 7 (or View By Large Icons) is practically indistinguishable from the XP control panel.

BuckoA51 wrote:

On modern hardware it most definitely does NOT run faster and smoother, Windows 8 and 7 boot faster, lock up less (both temporarily and permanently) and are better optimised for multi-core CPUs. XP probably has the edge when it comes to older hardware but certainly not on anything new.

None of the NT versions of Windows are going to lock up unless something is seriously wrong. Speed wise, I've sometimes felt my web browser on 64-bit linux was a bit quicker than it is under XP32. I suspect the use of 64-bit instructions may explain that. Maybe also the additional RAM, but I don't think so, as it shouldn't need that much RAM anyway. I'd like to try XP 64-bit sometime to see how it runs. I know it's abandoned but I'm still curious.

Boot speed doesn't matter IMO, but from what I can tell XP boots faster than 7, and at least as fast as 8. Since 8 is using that "hybrid boot" trick, where it's secretly half hibernating and not fully shutting down, I think XP gets more credit overall. If you need to truly shut down Windows 8, the only way to do it is with the command line, and then the subsequent boot shows itself to be very slow. Granted, this isn't something that would be needed very often.
XP doesn't have hybrid boot, but even without that it still boots quickly. Personally I always liked using S3 standby, which is very fast.
I've never made a thorough comparison between XP/7/8 using matching hardware, but they're all fast enough. I used to have a computer that took 5 minutes to boot. 4 minutes for the stupid BIOS and 1 for Win2k. Even that didn't bother me.. much. 😀

Plus on XP there's the 4gb memory cap

Certainly true, but even now I hardly notice any problem with it. It's very rare for me to fill the 3.25GB usable RAM on my machine. I don't keep up with the latest games though, so I'm sure it might matter by now for some of those. The RAM thing is one more reason I'd like to try XP64 some time.

you're limited to two monitors (I run 3)

I'm using a 3 monitor desktop right now. It's easy to do, I just plugged them in and enabled them in the control panel.

Are you talking about ATI/nVidia's driver support for stretching a game across multiple monitors? It's true that they both chose not to implement driver support for that on XP. I was disappointed by that. I've used a software utility "softth" to do this, but it's a pain to set that up. From the little bit that I tried a game on 3 monitors, I'm not sure if I actually like playing that way, but I'll be fiddling with it some more. The driver support probably does make it easier to set up on Vista+.

Finally XP has always been a security nightmare due to it having no SUDO/UAC equivalent

"runas" is similar to sudo, it's in Win2k and XP, I don't know if it's in NT4. There's a right click option to run things as an alternate (presumably elevated) user. Most people run XP with full-time administrator permissions, but that's just a user preference, it doesn't have to be that way. You can right click and run things as an admin account when needed, while otherwise staying as a restricted user.

None of the NT versions of Windows are going to lock up unless something is seriously wrong.

Ok just to explain, Explorer on XP has a tendency to freeze for a second or two and this happens much more frequently than in Windows 8. The whole thing just feels more sluggish.

I've tried running XP as non-admin in the past and it's a nightmare. "Runas" is a joke.

My XP will only ever see two monitors out of the four I have connected (only ever use 3 or 1 at once, one is a TV for gaming). Though in fairness I never spent much time trying to get that to work as I didn't need to.

KJ_Jose wrote:

But if you want the new Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare

What kind of stupid garbage are people playing these days? 🤣 , and why does the laughing smiley look like it's angry?

Anyways, any OS left to it's own devices will soon become a burden and a potential disaster. They require relatively constant, manual maintenance and a certain degree of knowledge on the user's part to get the best out of them, for default settings are seldom ever optimal.

KJ_Jose wrote:

BuckoA51 wrote:

No, not really that many, some old DirectDraw games...um....Breath of Fire only worked on XP, Silent Hill 2 was the last game I […]
Show full quote

Are you really finding much retro games you have to dual boot to XP for?

No, not really that many, some old DirectDraw games...um....Breath of Fire only worked on XP, Silent Hill 2 was the last game I played under XP since in Windows 8 I just couldn't get the surround sound to work. There's a few others but really not that many.

Awful for productivity? I just don't understand what you mean at all... it's easier to navigate, easier to diagnose problems with (thanks to actually being able to find most of the options and config panels) and also much more familiar for most of us that used Windows 9x back in the day (and continue to today). Also it's much less flashy compared to Windows 7 and 8 so it runs faster and smoother...

It's only easier to navigate because you're familiar with it, given time you could get equally familiar with Windows 7 or 8, which, incidentally, have a search function built into almost everything, making it a doddle to find most things.

On modern hardware it most definitely does NOT run faster and smoother, Windows 8 and 7 boot faster, lock up less (both temporarily and permanently) and are better optimised for multi-core CPUs. XP probably has the edge when it comes to older hardware but certainly not on anything new.

Plus on XP there's the 4gb memory cap, you're limited to two monitors (I run 3), don't get the nice window manager improvements (particularly snap and peek), don't get support for AHCI (easily at least), no search on the Start menu, no support for hardware acceleration for the window manager.

Finally XP has always been a security nightmare due to it having no SUDO/UAC equivalent, and it's just worse now there's no security updates.

Maybe to call it awful was hyperbole but it's definitely lagging behind 7 and 8 in a lot of ways.

Some gamers still prefer XP, especially with the DirectX 7 aliasing case with PopCap games.

The one that can be entirely fixed by changing resolution before playing the game, which is a five second process?

If anyone's sticking to an outdated OS for that reason, they really should rethink their priorities.

Anyways, any OS left to it's own devices will soon become a burden and a potential disaster. They require relatively constant, manual maintenance

😕 What? Sorry but that's nonsense. I can't even think what "manual maintenance" you would be doing "relatively constantly". Registry cleaning's been debunked lots of times, disk defragmentation is automatic these days, updates are installed automatically, what else is there?

Anyway I am sure the XP hold-outs will continue to use it for whatever often befuddling reasons they have. Interestingly, I was checking out the Windows 10 preview. So far I like it except for the way Microsoft is trying to force you to switch to a MS account to log on (you can bypass it, but then Skydrive and Cortana don't work, not that you're missing much by not using those two features). I suppose since Goole, Apple etc all try the same things it's to be expected. Anyway, I digress, on the beta feedback thing, there are a number of users now moaning that the Start screen has been "gimped", "puked on" and now "sucks", all words that in internet speak of course mean "I didn't personally like it". Really goes to show that you can never please everyone.

BuckoA51 wrote:

😕 What? Sorry but that's nonsense. I can't even think what "manual maintenance" you would be doing "relatively constantly"

I'll give you an example, a very common situation. How long will it take before performance starts dropping as the amount of useless services and startup applications increase? you've got to deal with that manually and on a regular basis, unless you stick with a barebones installation and never update anything.

BuckoA51 wrote:

Registry cleaning's been debunked lots of times

I didn't even know someone had tried to "debunk" registry cleaning to begin with. It has it's place, it serves it's purpose, but it isn't going to help much if everything else is neglected.

BuckoA51 wrote:

disk defragmentation is automatic these days, updates are installed automatically, what else is there?

Oh boy...

Oh Boy what?? I just don't get what these manual maintenance tasks are you claim we need to do? Fair enough I prune startup applications now and then (like 3 or 4 times a year perhaps, because to be fair I do try out a lot of junk on this machine) but I don't do any constant manual maintenance, so far I haven't seen my computer dramatically slow down, crash or whatever. Tweaking services rarely yields any performance benefit, maybe I'll run apt-get update apt-get upgrade to manually update my linux machines now and then, or manually check on Windows update perhaps...maybe a malware scan with Malwarebytes if something odd seems to be happening, just to be on the safe side but.. I dunno, I don't really feel I'm doing much manual maintenance at all, clearly in your opinion I'm doing it wrong and I'm headed for certain disaster.

As for registry cleaning, PC tune-up utils etc, pretty much complete waste of time in my opinion:-

http://www.edbott.com/weblog/2005/04/why-i-do … istry-cleaners/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/29/revie … sofware/?page=6
http://imgur.com/gallery/ddER5
http://lifehacker.com/5482701/whats-the-regis … whats-the-point

There are folks that swear by the likes of CCleaner etc and those at least seem to find and remove temporary files and get you some disk space back which can be useful.

I've seen tons of computers slowed down by maintenance. I've not seen a single computer helped by maintenance.

If your computer gets slower over time that's pretty revealing in how much shitty software you're installing (yes I'm specifically refererring to maintenance tools here).