Windows XP, 7, and 8

[RevDisk]

Remember how much people whined going from Win98se or Win2k to Win XP?

It's like 2002 all over again.

Difference is, Win XP is quite useful for most daily tasks. Even being 12 years old.

Admittedly, it didn't become fully that way until SP2, but after that, it was Pretty Decent. Folks have been using it for a decade or longer. Prior Windows OS's kinda sucked but sorta kinda did the job. NT was the first Microsoft OS that didn't lock up or crash on a regular basis, and had at least heard of the concept of "security". Lotta folks used NT for a very very long time because it worked well enough. I wasn't impressed by Windows 2000, but understand that someone might be if they hadn't used NT. I haven't seen any functionality in Vista, 7, 8 or 8.1 that most users really need or want. IMHO, Win 7 is a slightly more stable than XP. Most of my XP boxes I had to reboot at least once a week. Most of my Win7 boxes run for a month or two before needing a reboot.

Microsoft would have less upgrade aversion if they stopped HUGELY fapping about with vastly different interfaces that only a handful of people significantly like. Make a handful of menu options/themes for the eyecandy folks, then put your actual time into security, speed, stability, and value-added crap (like Paint, Snipping Tool, etc). Stop hugely fapping about with the core of the OS unless it's fixing something that is broken or it'd be a huge breakthrough in the speed of the user experience. 

[RoadKingLarry]

I still kind of miss 3.1, when it was still a program and not an OS

[lee n. field]

Remember how much people whined going from Win98se or Win2k to Win XP?

It's like 2002 all over again.

Leaving 98 was pure win.  Going from w2k to XP?  Not so much.  2k was a high point.  XP was w2k with an interface on crack look.

[Ben]

Win 2.1 to 3.1 - meh, dos is dos, man.
Win 3.1 to NT - pure win.
Win NT to Win 2000 - sure, okay (there was a win95 and 98? Who knew?).
Win 2000 to XP - win.
XP to Win 7 - not bad. Pretty good actually (what's Vista?).
Win 7 to Win 8 - grumble grumble grumble (At least there's classic shell. If I would have wanted a tablet I would have bought one. Touchscreen? How am I supposed to see my monitor with fingerprints all over it? LINUX!!!!!!!!!!).

[lee n. field]

Win 2.1 to 3.1 - meh, dos is dos, man.
Win 3.1 to NT - pure win.
Win NT to Win 2000 - sure, okay (there was a win95 and 98? Who knew?).

Oh, let's see.  You could reconfigure your networking, without rebooting.  USB worked.  You weren't forever reinstalling service packs, like you were supposed to with NT.  And Plug 'n Pray worked.

Four definite wins for the NT to 2K move.

Win 2000 to XP - win.
XP to Win 7 - not bad. Pretty good actually (what's Vista?).

Veesta == WinME redivivus.

Win 7 to Win 8 - grumble grumble grumble (At least there's classic shell. If I would have wanted a tablet I would have bought one. Touchscreen? How am I supposed to see my monitor with fingerprints buggers all over it? LINUX!!!!!!!!!!).

Stuff breaks, and it can't be fixed.  Maybe they figure 8 is self repairing, like ME was said to be.

Recovery Environment is super hard to get to.

[Ben]

Oh, let's see.  You could reconfigure your networking, without rebooting.  USB worked.  

I forgot about USB. That was big.

[zxcvbob]

Leaving 98 was pure win.  Going from w2k to XP?  Not so much.  2k was a high point.  XP was w2k with an interface on crack look.

I still like W2K.  It has everything 98 and NT did, plus has full-featured USB support.  XP is a step up, once you turn off "Use visual styles" in the advanced system settings (that turns off the Fisher-Price look), but a small step up, and it's kind of bloated. 

I like Win7, but it doesn't really do anything that I couldn't do with 2K -- except install programs that refuse to load on 2K because it's "not supported."

One of the church computers has Vista.  I don't use that one much, but it doesn't suck as much as everybody says (maybe because I don't use it much)

I've only had one encounter with Win8, but it was awful.

[Ben]

One of the church computers has Vista.  I don't use that one much, but it doesn't suck as much as everybody says (maybe because I don't use it much)

Vista isn't "tool of the devil" terrible, I just didn't find it elegant. It seemed very bloated to me. For run of the mill computer users, I don't think it was too much different than a lot of the other MS OSs. It was on a computer I bought for my sister years ago. I would cuss when I had to go over there and diagnose stuff on it, but she had no problem using it for basic web surfing and MS Office stuff.

[roo_ster]

Difference is, Win XP is quite useful for most daily tasks. Even being 12 years old.

Admittedly, it didn't become fully that way until SP2, but after that, it was Pretty Decent. Folks have been using it for a decade or longer. Prior Windows OS's kinda sucked but sorta kinda did the job. NT was the first Microsoft OS that didn't lock up or crash on a regular basis, and had at least heard of the concept of "security". Lotta folks used NT for a very very long time because it worked well enough. I wasn't impressed by Windows 2000, but understand that someone might be if they hadn't used NT. I haven't seen any functionality in Vista, 7, 8 or 8.1 that most users really need or want. IMHO, Win 7 is a slightly more stable than XP. Most of my XP boxes I had to reboot at least once a week. Most of my Win7 boxes run for a month or two before needing a reboot.

Microsoft would have less upgrade aversion if they stopped HUGELY fapping about with vastly different interfaces that only a handful of people significantly like. Make a handful of menu options/themes for the eyecandy folks, then put your actual time into security, speed, stability, and value-added crap (like Paint, Snipping Tool, etc). Stop hugely fapping about with the core of the OS unless it's fixing something that is broken or it'd be a huge breakthrough in the speed of the user experience. 

Yeah, mostly this ^^^.

Have not seen any useful increase in functionality since Win2000.  More just a whole lot of useless CPU/GPU/RAM-sucking bloat and GUI change for change's sake.

[41magsnub]

Yep, I dread each new OS release due to interface changes.  Windows 2000 was about the peak of the interface design.  I've thought most of the UI changes after that were negatives.  What my business users want is consistency.  We are still only recommending Windows 7.

[Tallpine]

Have not seen any useful increase in functionality since Win2000.  More just a whole lot of useless CPU/GPU/RAM-sucking bloat and GUI change for change's sake.

What!!??  You don't consider it to be an increase in functionality to move stuff around so you can't find it anymore

Or to remove the file system search feature...?

[charby]

Yeah, mostly this ^^^.

Have not seen any useful increase in functionality since Win2000.  More just a whole lot of useless CPU/GPU/RAM-sucking bloat and GUI change for change's sake.

If you run programs like I do that use multiple cores and more than 4GB of RAM Windows 7 64x is a god send.

[41magsnub]

If you run programs like I do that use multiple cores and more than 4GB of RAM Windows 7 64x is a god send.

And the back end improvements are great (x64 and more RAM).  The interface changes are the problem.

[Tallpine]

And the back end improvements are great (x64 and more RAM).  The interface changes are the problem.

It's not so bad once you get used to all the things that you can't do that you could do on XP 

[Ben]

I'm too lazy to look it up, but I wonder which post-DOS MS OS version remained in general use, at least for business and technical applications, the longest? I'm thinking it will be either NT or XP. I might give the edge to XP, especially since in the NT era, there didn't seem to be the rush from any OS maker to come out with "vastly new and improved" nearly as often as they all have in the last ten years (Even Linux seems to go nuts with the new versions). Given that so many people stayed with XP when newer versions came out, that says a lot about its usefulness and acceptance.

[Phyphor]

I'm too lazy to look it up, but I wonder which post-DOS MS OS version remained in general use, at least for business and technical applications, the longest? I'm thinking it will be either NT or XP. I might give the edge to XP, especially since in the NT era, there didn't seem to be the rush from any OS maker to come out with "vastly new and improved" nearly as often as they all have in the last ten years (Even Linux seems to go nuts with the new versions). Given that so many people stayed with XP when newer versions came out, that says a lot about its usefulness and acceptance.

Possibly 2000? At least, in the business around here, IME, it stayed in use for quite some time, due to a lot of the folks not wanting to risk breaking their existing networks (until SP2 or SP3 came out) by upgrading to an unproven OS.

...Much like they did with 7 initially, and much like they're doing now with 8.

[RevDisk]

I'm too lazy to look it up, but I wonder which post-DOS MS OS version remained in general use, at least for business and technical applications, the longest? I'm thinking it will be either NT or XP. I might give the edge to XP, especially since in the NT era, there didn't seem to be the rush from any OS maker to come out with "vastly new and improved" nearly as often as they all have in the last ten years (Even Linux seems to go nuts with the new versions). Given that so many people stayed with XP when newer versions came out, that says a lot about its usefulness and acceptance.

Uh...

Version 1.0 was released on 14 March 1994.
Version 2.0 was released on 9 June 1996.
Version 3.0 was released on 22 July 2011.

Yes, Linus Torvalds has indeed gone nuts. Nuts, I tell ya. Why, Version 4.0 will probably be released as early as 2020.

I think you mean Ubuntu, not Linux. They release a new version of their distribution every April and October, with a stupid animal name. Not sure who started the whole "whimsical adjective and noun" concept instead of a logical versioning convention, but they need to be stabbed, crucified and burned as a warning to other developers.

[Boomhauer]

I can get on board with going all stabby. the Amdroid version names aggravate me.

[Fitz]

Well , if we're simply talking about versions of the kernel, then there haven't been that many major revisions for windows, either.

3.51  Windows NT 3.51 
4.0  Windows NT 4.0 
5.0  Windows 2000 
5.1  Windows XP 
5.2  Windows Server 2003 
6.0  Windows Vista - Windows Server 2008 
6.1  Windows 7 / Windows Server 2008 R2 

[Ben]

Okay I meant ubuntu, smart aleck.  

[zxcvbob]

I think you mean Ubuntu, not Linux. They release a new version of their distribution every April and October, with a stupid animal name...

Doesn't Ubuntu do long-term support releases too?  (I know I've seen "LTS" somewhere, but that might be a different distribution)

[bedlamite]

Doesn't Ubuntu do long-term support releases too?  (I know I've seen "LTS" somewhere, but that might be a different distribution)

Yes, about every 2 years. The 6 month releases add all the fluff, and when they get the bugs worked out they release an LTS version. At least that's the way it's supposed to work. I'm still running 10.04 LTS.

[Ben]

Doesn't Ubuntu do long-term support releases too?  (I know I've seen "LTS" somewhere, but that might be a different distribution)

Yeah, 12 currently is. I'm typing on it on a VM as we speak (or, er, type).

[lee n. field]

Yes, about every 2 years. The 6 month releases add all the fluff, and when they get the bugs worked out they release an LTS version. At least that's the way it's supposed to work. I'm still running 10.04 LTS.

The current LTS is 12.04, and it will be supported until 2017.

For extended support,
choose Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS is a long-term support release. It has continuous hardware support improvements as well as guaranteed security and support updates until April 2017.

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop

I am strongly tempted to put it on this laptop (hp compaq 6715b), as this laptop seems to really, really not like Ubuntu 13.10.  The one thing I really need an up to date version of, I can compile from source.

[Hawkmoon]

I still kind of miss 3.1, when it was still a program and not an OS

Ditto.