Before everyone loved Windows XP, they hated it

wa8yxm wrote:
I wonder how many people use Windows without any firewall or anti-mal-ware programs. I know I have one computer here which is now virus free...

i'll take issue with that statement as there is no way to prove that any system is virus/Trojan/malware free. the best that we can say is that no nasties are discovered by whatever detection software is installed. and that statement really only applies to the latest signature file. we don't know what we don't know but it's the best we can do short of pulling the plug on the internet.

I wonder how many people use Windows without any firewall or anti-mal-ware programs.

I know I have one computer here which is now virus free, but it was given to me with the following command "If you can get it working, it's yours" took me about 15 minutes or perhaps a bit less if I do not count waiting for it to fix itself.

You see, it caught a virus

Took me about an hour to slap that virus silly

But I had to update all the protection and install one more layer to do that.

Alas, that is an XP machine that is soon to hit the recycle bin,, But for other reaons.. It's old, battery died, After so many security patches XP is slowing down.. But it is STILL virus free and it is still protected

One popular museum I work with in DC will begin blocking any WIN XP systems on its intranet beginning June 1. WIN 7 Enterprise is the primary OS anyway. But just represents too much a risk to everyone now that security support officially ended. And that an estimated 25% worldwide still use WIN XP, which makes it a prime target for hackers to exploit unpatched systems.

When XP came out, I was mainly using Windows 2000. So, installing XP and putting it in "classic" mode pretty much gave me what I was used to.

Compared to Windows ME, which was the typical OS at the time, XP was leaps and bounds ahead. I remember how happy we were, as IT people, to have gotten all users onto XP so we didn't have the 16/32 bit issues and driver incompatibilities.

Altern wrote:
Why is it that Mac's do not have the same type problems with OS upgrades?

Probably has something to do with the fact that all OS X releases combined have a smaller market share than Windows 8!

Okay, gotcha.

But the sunset versions also have online access in that you can download statements that do what you say you don't need. I like that since I don't have to worry about whether I got everything off the online statement, since I don't get paper statements.

fj12ryder wrote:
What do you mean by "online access"? I just use it for my check register, and as long as I can download my statements and such, I'm happy.

I'll admit that I liked MS Money 2004 better than I like MS Money Deluxe Sunset version. But actually the changes are minimal and mostly in appearance, and it works fine with Windows 7, but then so did Money 2004.

Sorry for the wrong terminology. Some folks prefer to download their financial stuff from the institution's website to "automatically" enter transactions into their money program. I don't want or need this "online access" and use MS Money 2005 as a checkbook and credit card register where I manually enter transactions and reconcile accounts.

I follow what the bigger business networks are doing. They held onto win2k as long as they could then went to XP after SP1, prior to that XP was a complete mess. Vista was junk in the business world even after the 1st SP. My current office did not start moving to Win7 until after SP1 for that, and they have been testing W8 and W8.1 with near Vista levels of junk, not to mention a tablet based touch OS on a multi headed (monitor)non-touch machine is just annoying to use. I was happy when the 1 week test on a desktop for my team was done and I could go back to my nice stable and usable W7 machine.

What do you mean by "online access"? I just use it for my check register, and as long as I can download my statements and such, I'm happy.

I'll admit that I liked MS Money 2004 better than I like MS Money Deluxe Sunset version. But actually the changes are minimal and mostly in appearance, and it works fine with Windows 7, but then so did Money 2004.

fj12ryder wrote:

Tom N wrote:
I stayed with DOS for a few years after Windows was introduced.

I still keep my checkbook in CHEX. CHEX is a DOS pgm and runs in a DOS window in XP. But alas, Win7, 8 and 8.1 will not run a DOS pgm. Even with the emulator.

I need a good Windows checkbook pgm. No, not Quicken.

Have you tried MS Money? It an excellent checkbook program. Nothing really fancy, just a good program.

Personally I loved XP when it came out. But then I'm always attracted to new shiny things. :)

I was very surprised to see THIS LIST of discontinued Microsoft software. Scroll down to "M" and you'll see that MS Money has been discontinued as well. :( If you click "Microsoft Money", you'll see alternatives as well as MS Money's "sunset" version, but many reviewers don't like it. I still use MS Money 2005 which still works very well, but has no online access, just like the sunset version.

The list needs to be updated to include XP!