burlmart wrote:
I know this sounds like an old timer reminicing, but our 1996 Gateway with Win 95 and Office 97 would still do MORE than I need today. I gave it to St. Vincent's along with 200 vinyl albums and a turnyable after buying this HP Pavillion w/ XP in 2004.
If I recall, the issues of all-in-one printers and camera interfacing is what prompted the new PC (no USB). But really, that old rig would serve me just fine today, and XP is not radically different from W 95, and as Gdetrailer says, I might be more secure running it instead of a newer OS.
Perhaps there will be a retro Win 95
There is a lot of "chicken little" sky is falling hype going way overboard, mainly by good intentioned folks posting on forums such as these without really having some good IT type background..
I have mentioned in other posts, MOST LARGE companies NEVER, EVER allowed their PCs to directly see the MS update servers. No instead the IT group would REVIEW EACH AND EVERY "update" and determine if the update would cause unintended harm to their software and systems or not..
They do not BLANKETLY install ALL updates issued by MS..
Once the updates are determined to be good AND NEEDED then they copy the updates to their OWN IT update server. Then and only then the updates are installed..
Lack of XP "support" for most folks is not all that big of a deal provided they keep their "important" files backed up (You do this anyway, right?).
Not to mention MOST computer hardware which XP was sold on WILL BE EXPIRING IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS ANYWAY. This is due to age of the capacitors and there was (and still is) a lot of extremely junky capacitors sold at that time (and to some degree are still being sold).
These capacitors dry out and often will cause your PC to get unstable and eventually to fail to power up or boot..
Folks will basically move to a new or newer OS when they replace the PC due to the system board and or power supply failing or even the hard drive failing..
Average time frame I have seen on these bad caps typically is 3-4 years with 24/7/365 power on and with intermittent power on (4 hrs a day) usage 8 years or more so it isn't a matter of the OS not being patched but just how long until the caps go bad...
XP support ending.. Much to do about nothing..
