Why do you still use XP?

I use Windows XP because it's fast, stable, and secure.

My Windows 7 notebook (1.3gz i3 dual) is slow and crashes occasionally. My Windows 7 tablet (1.6 ghz Atom) is in a box in the shed because it's too slow to use.

Security=privacy. Windows Live, all Google products, and all Microsoft products after 2011 are spyware. No, I don't have anything to hide. Why do these weird people want my personal data and every detail of my life? It's none of their business.

XP has features like the menu panel on the left that are not in Vista, 7 or Linux. I have downloaded all of the Power Toys, Fun Packs and other stuff for XP from Microsoft's download center. Get yours while you still can. There are a lot of these useful utilities on the CDs included with Microsoft's "Step by Step", "Do Amazing Things", and other books currently cheap on ebay.

I can add Gadgets to the desktop - Yahoo, Google, Desktop Sidebar, "Standalone Widgets" (gadget like mini apps) and Supposedly Active Desktop, Gadgets, HTML, Flash and Java. I even have Microsoft's secret "Sideshow" sidebar.

I've even seen XP with so many UI cusomizations it looks just like Vista or 7. I'm pretty happy with Energy Blue for now.
 
Hello all,

I can never leave well enough alone, especially when it comes to Operating Systems.
Full circle, yep, back with XP and loving it.

Tried - Vista Starter, Home Basic, Windows 7, all versions in 32 bit and 64 bit.
XP Professional 64 bit. Linux (a dearth of software is the drawback) in several flavours.

In this circular journey my tired old mind did pick up a few tips and tricks mainly from Windows 7. And, now delving into XP Professional 32 bit, these tips and tricks are in XP. Buried deep but there to be used.

I suppose I became tired of a new OS merely for full screen Solitaire game.

Performance with XP is brilliant. Always has been, always will be.

Now if I can convince myself in the morning to leave well enough alone and NOT start mucking about with yet another OS simply "because it is there".
 
Last edited:
Leon said:
I use Windows XP because it's fast, stable, and secure.

My Windows 7 notebook (1.3gz i3 dual) is slow and crashes occasionally. My Windows 7 tablet (1.6 ghz Atom) is in a box in the shed because it's too slow to use.

Security=privacy. Windows Live, all Google products, and all Microsoft products after 2011 are spyware. No, I don't have anything to hide. Why do these weird people want my personal data and every detail of my life? It's none of their business.

XP has features like the menu panel on the left that are not in Vista, 7 or Linux. I have downloaded all of the Power Toys, Fun Packs and other stuff for XP from Microsoft's download center. Get yours while you still can. There are a lot of these useful utilities on the CDs included with Microsoft's "Step by Step", "Do Amazing Things", and other books currently cheap on ebay.

I can add Gadgets to the desktop - Yahoo, Google, Desktop Sidebar, "Standalone Widgets" (gadget like mini apps) and Supposedly Active Desktop, Gadgets, HTML, Flash and Java. I even have Microsoft's secret "Sideshow" sidebar.
I've even seen XP with so many UI cusomizations it looks just like Vista or 7. I'm pretty happy with Energy Blue for now.
Click to expand...

Care to divulge a little more? Where's the dl link?
 
Aunty Jack said:
Hello all,

I can never leave well enough alone, especially when it comes to Operating Systems.
Full circle, yep, back with XP and loving it.

Tried - Vista Starter, Home Basic, Windows 7, all versions in 32 bit and 64 bit.
XP Professional 64 bit. Linux (a dearth of software is the drawback) in several flavours.

In this circular journey my tired old mind did pick up a few tips and tricks mainly from Windows 7. And, now delving into XP Professional 32 bit, these tips and tricks are in XP. Buried deep but there to be used.

I suppose I became tired of a new OS merely for full screen Solitaire game.

Performance with XP is brilliant. Always has been, always will be.

Now if I can convince myself in the morning to leave well enough alone and NOT start mucking about with yet another OS simply "because it is there".
Click to expand...

Yup, I'm back to XP after what I would consider my longest streak on Win7 (a few months). W7 is just a lame excuse of a sluggish OS! >.<

I'm conspiracy-minded, so my only fear is MSFT could secretly sabotage XP thru IE8 thru various websites and other channels right around W10 launch...
 
Because it does not require permission to edit something and almost everything can be turned on and off, there are minor annoyances when I use windows 7 and 8 which keeps me from liking them over XP

I would 100% agree that windows 7 is faster but windows XP lets you do almost everything and they are both stable

secure? was any OS ever secure in the first place?

Just backup and reinstall, best practices

Windows 8? I will hold onto windows 7 until 2030 if that's what you are curious about
 
I'm running a netbook and also I love Windows XP.

It's faster and even Microsoft cared about it enough for it to last another two years than it should have done on extended support.

Also the fact a lot of programs (old ones) are compatible with XP especially. Like IE6, Outlook Express, the old Movie Maker, Media Player, WordPad and Paint... plus other third-party programs are compatible. Windows 7 looked like Office 2007 on those particular programs (IE6 = IE9 and OE = WinMail, but you get it) which is annoying.
 
I have done every OS MS has devised 95, through 7. I have found that Windows XP the most user friendly by far. Nothing windoz 7,8,10 can offer me anything XP does not not allow me what I need,want, or use, with less trouble. Perhaps Games. I don't know. I just want information and XP gives me that.
In my case, Windoz 7 is MUCH much slower, and trouble prone. I have had well over 400 updates from windoz7. Slows my use a lot!
 
Last edited:
I'm sure most people got 7 for the theme, since 7 is Vista with more pointlessly removed programs (Windows Mail is hidden, which I patched once) and also less control over your computer. I remember the first time I saw it, I thought it was a Vista update.

Oh yeah, and the first Windows to have ribbons for everything, and ribbons are the worst thing to be invented (read: Office 2007).
 
xperia said:
Just an informal survey: Why do you still use Windows XP? Is it because your workplace requires XP? Or does XP benefit you in ways that newer versions don't?
Click to expand...

The computer isn't all that old, bought it quite late, working good and fast and why upgrade?
 
Because I love the nostalgia, the design and the performance.

You can edit Windows 7 as much as you want, but it will never ever be the same look and feel as Windows XP. Never.

I'm running XP on a Dell Latitude D600 laptop, and a Pentium 4 desktop rig for old-school gaming. I do have Windows 7/8.1 on mostly all of my other computers (11 laptops + 5 desktops), however XP is the preferred OS in my opinion.

So I guess I use it just because I can, and because it works.
 
hawkiee552 said:
Because I love the nostalgia, the design and the performance.

You can edit Windows 7 as much as you want, but it will never ever be the same look and feel as Windows XP. Never.

I'm running XP on a Dell Latitude D600 laptop, and a Pentium 4 desktop rig for old-school gaming. I do have Windows 7/8.1 on mostly all of my other computers (11 laptops + 5 desktops), however XP is the preferred OS in my opinion.

So I guess I use it just because I can, and because it works.
Click to expand...

I triple-boot XP/7/8.1 on one of my Ivy Bridge laptops. XP puts the rest to shame when it comes to performance...
 
I still use WinXP on all my computers because I've tried Win7, Win8 and Win10, and didn't like them. What I found on them didn't excite me so much (mostly plenty of pointless bells and whistles), but what really discouraged me was what i did NOT find: for instance WHY the disks were ceaselessly accessed without any apparent reason, WHY sometimes I had to wait several seconds before regaining access to my machine, WHAT tasks were covertly running under the hood without telling me, and so on.
If I don't trust a doctor that tells me to take those pills and don't ask questions for he knows better and I'm an ignoramus, why should I trust an OS that behaves exactly the same way?

Point 2: I value my privacy and see no reason to share my own files and personal info with Big Brother Microsoft, whatever they may promise me not to do with them. And no, call me paranoid but I don't believe that just clicking on a 'disable' box will actually disable an unwanted feature: after all the software was written by the same company that seems to be so morbidly interested in my own business...

Point 3: all I ask of an OS is to decently handle my files and run my software, which already DOS did almost satisfactorily 40 years ago. Then the first versions of Windows came and began adding some levels of comfort, then each further Windows version kept adding more and more scarcely needed but amusing things, then... well, you know.
And while the software complexity and the OS use of system resources grew exponentially with each new version, the overall OS usefulness grew only logarithmically.
At some point this perverse trend must be stopped before the OS takes the lion's share of the system and relegates the users and their software to a dusty corner. I believe XP is that point.
 
I've been using Windows since Windows 3.1, and have now accumulated a whole load of software and hardware which just won't work on the later editions of Windows. I'm particularly fond of my Sony MD Minidisc recorder. I also have a superb Canon scanner that not only scans pictures etc. but also negatives and slides. Far too good to scrap!
I do have a Windows 10 Laptop. As well as an iPad Pro.
 
This is an interesting post to read over time. It started as people having bottom of the barrel tech, and then it turned into hobbists and diehards.

Me, I have an older computer I'm using as an HDD for my backups. Windows XP is my OS on that. However, I'm considering trying to get it to run on my main computer which currently runs Ubuntu 18.04 and Debian Buster.

Realistically if I were to use an Windows OS as my main, I'd choose Win7
 
I use XP for it's Classic start menu and interface, ease of use, almost no privacy concerns, no advertisements being pumped into my system and for maximum control over what my machine is doing.

It serves my purposes well.

Mainly use browsing of the web, but also have some old games, emulators, multimedia content, word processing (before it got an overly complicated interface) and audio recording software.
 
Sokrates said:
Point 3: all I ask of an OS is to decently handle my files and run my software, which already DOS did almost satisfactorily 40 years ago.

And while the software complexity and the OS use of system resources grew exponentially with each new version, the overall OS usefulness grew only logarithmically.
At some point this perverse trend must be stopped before the OS takes the lion's share of the system and relegates the users and their software to a dusty corner. I believe XP is that point.
Click to expand...
If there was a way to do a slow clap on a forum, this would be the post I would appllaude in such a manner. Dead on point. Word processing hasn't changed by 16 million times and yet you need that much more memory to do the same thing in a few decades? Something is wrong with that picture.

Today win10 is using 50% of most people's ram just for the OS--people can add more ram, so they do...but this isn't the long term solution for sure. Now as a MSFT shareholder, I don't mind and will keep using XP. :D
Great Canadian Moose said:
This is an interesting post to read over time. It started as people having bottom of the barrel tech, and then it turned into hobbists and diehards.
Click to expand...
Yes, a very interesting change for sure.

Personally, I use XP because the hardware I had around the time I needed to build an IT infrastructure could run xp well. It was understood by my senior parents and was able to be locked down thanks to the steadystate add-on. As machines became cheaper (almost free if not free), I was able to upgrade them with more ram, graphics cards and better storage. Since over 90% of our general office work is on the local lan, these machines are perfect for it. Some of our oldest are Pentium 4s that originally came with XP over a decade ago--still running.

One of the biggest reasons I like xp is that keyboard shortcuts are still important and viable. You don't need a mouse, you don't need windows keys--you can keyboard a lot of what you need to do. And if the machine is lightning quick, even at 140wpm it will keep up with you. It used to shock my dad to see how quickly I would launch programs and rearrange windows just using the keyboard. Win 7+ is too mouse centric for my tastes and slows me down.

And I plan to take XP into territory it's not been in before as I have been acquiring servers and ram. I plan to use the hypervisor proxmox and run hundreds of xp instances on a single piece of hardware. I've calculated that I should be able to run almost 200 instances of xp on the 3 servers I can cluster together. And since I've got even more servers, I should be able to run 400 instances of xp--each doing a single task of my choosing, and I will just remote desktop into them and put the server rack in another room.
 
Samir said:
If there was a way to do a slow clap on a forum, this would be the post I would applaud in such a manner. Dead on point. Word processing hasn't changed by 16 million times and yet you need that much more memory to do the same thing in a few decades? Something is wrong with that picture.

Today win10 is using 50% of most people's ram just for the OS--people can add more ram, so they do...but this isn't the long term solution for sure. Now as a MSFT shareholder, I don't mind and will keep using XP. :D
Yes, a very interesting change for sure. ....
.
Click to expand...

That thing about RAM is exactly why I moved to Linux. I bought a computer to use for online schooling in 2015, and it was hardly a step above a chromebook. Acer Aspire, E15, 4GB RAM, Pentium, integrated graphics you get the picture. Within two years, I was faced with a dilemma. I had a computer that was struggling to my basic web based work, even with defrags and keeping files to a minimum. So I switched.

Now, almost 4 years later after switching to Ubuntu, even though the work I do on the computer has been a lot more resource intensive, I'm still fine on the same computer I bought for under 500 Canadian. Interestingly, I'm in a similar state to what I was in 4 years ago, and will likely switch to a lighter Linux distro. In many cases, it's not the hardware, it's the software it runs on. In my quest to find ever lighter weight software, I found programs like Dillo, which can run on a DOS computer, mpv, which can play full HD video while using resources less than the minimum requirements for Windows 2000!

Here's to keeping our computers running as long as possible!
 
Great Canadian Moose said:
That thing about RAM is exactly why I moved to Linux. I bought a computer to use for online schooling in 2015, and it was hardly a step above a chromebook. Acer Aspire, E15, 4GB RAM, Pentium, integrated graphics you get the picture. Within two years, I was faced with a dilemma. I had a computer that was struggling to my basic web based work, even with defrags and keeping files to a minimum. So I switched.

Now, almost 4 years later after switching to Ubuntu, even though the work I do on the computer has been a lot more resource intensive, I'm still fine on the same computer I bought for under 500 Canadian. Interestingly, I'm in a similar state to what I was in 4 years ago, and will likely switch to a lighter Linux distro. In many cases, it's not the hardware, it's the software it runs on. In my quest to find ever lighter weight software, I found programs like Dillo, which can run on a DOS computer, mpv, which can play full HD video while using resources less than the minimum requirements for Windows 2000!

Here's to keeping our computers running as long as possible!
Click to expand...
It always amazes me how fast a particular system can be on linux. I keep a lot of older linux live cds just to see how fast a system can be before determining what OS it will permanently run. If linux had a fast and easy way to remote in like RDP on windows, I probably would have the systems that have more than 4GB of ram on linux. That's the power of a hypervisor if there's enough ram--then I get the best of both worlds. :)

You bring up a good point about the software. In the beginning, you didn't upgrade hardware for software, it was more or less the other way around--you upgraded hardware just to upgrade so existing software would just run faster. Somewhere along the line (win3.1 enhanced mode?), the push for faster hardware started chasing the software...and it has been ever since. But that's only if the software that has these hardware demands is what you need to get work done. Hence why there's a lot of DOS era machines that run $100k CNC machines and a whole cottage industry surrounding keeping these older machines running--because they do the job.

The 'killer' application today that has runaway hardware requirements is the browser. It has become a memory eating, cpu guzzling, ethernet packet eating slob monster of bloatware. But without it, system requirements and everything else can really be pared down. Just think about xp and not needing to be connected to the Internet--how many requirements and updates and patches and extensions just aren't needed anymore? It's the same with anything if we cut off from the Internet monster. Unfortunately, a lot of 'work' has shifted to the Internet, so there is that aspect. But with security starting to become so dangerous that anything sensitive is pretty much better NOT being connected to the Internet, I think there will actually be room for systems that don't connect to the Internet and have a different upgrade cycle.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top