Something Paul Thurrott said about computer software

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..

chicken or the egg. Hardware companies do upgrades, and it is up to the software companies to choose to write software to be backward compatible.

Something people need to be aware of is that Windows 8 was designed around having a touch interface. It is Microsoft's answer to the iPad.

Microsoft does something that Apple doesn't. It actually tries to stay backward compatible as much as possible. Apple can care less about the past and even a relatively minor upgrade like 10.8 to 10.9 will break a lot of things. Minor compared to 10.5 to 10.6, which was the final transition from PPC to Intel processors. Then from 10.6 to 10.7 all PPC programs stopped functioning.

Something to note is that MS XP vs MX XP 64 were so much different that a lot of hardware never had drivers written for the 64 bit version. Not so much an issue with Windows 7, which is why I strongly recommend people that wish to have 4 GB or more of memory use Windows 7.

That all said, I agree with Redsky. I work in IT and we're about 50% Mac and PC and I spend more than 80% of my time working on Windows PCs than I do on Macs. Just about all the users (90%+) also have linux machines they use quite a bit. Most of the issues with Linux are just install new software or printer issues.

Sure the computer you had back in 1990 would work fine for 99% of what you do, however, new hardware, faster machines, make it necessary to upgrade software as well just due to what I said first. Do you need faster? Well, as you acquire more and more data, pictures, etc, you need larger storage. Larger amounts of data means your computer spends more time sorting, redrawing, etc. I remember working with a 2500 x 2000 x 32 bit color image on a 486 machine and it would literally take several minutes to just shift the image on the screen. Now we work with even higher resolution pictures with no delays at all.

That is the appeal of Apple computers with the Mac OS. I have worked professionally with UNIX, Microsoft's many operating systems, mainframes, and Macs. The most trouble free are the UNIX and Mac computers.

We used to have to do a daily reboot of all the Windows OS web servers at Hewlett Packard as there were constant problems with memory leaks and garbage collection and dlls. With the UNIX servers they would run for years without needing to be rebooted.

99.9% of my computer maintenance and fix it time is spent with our Windows computers. I run an OS update twice a year on the Mac's and that is it.

Windows is great for people who like to play with computers, Macs are great for people who like to do work with their computers. Unfortunately the offerings from Apple are very limited so my next workstation will not be one from Apple and our netbooks are from Lenovo.

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

1492 wrote:

burlmart wrote:


Thurrott is a serious MS fan who hawks strenuously for all XP users to STOP w/ XP. OK. Let go of the paradigm that everyone needs the latest new thing whatever the inconvenience that comes with it.

I haven't read the article, but WIN XP is hovering at the top of reported annual vulnerabilities for Windows based platforms. It's also estimated that hackers are going to have a field day when MS stops security updates/patches after April for those die hard users.

Among applications for 2013, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox were among the two most targeted apps for malware, requiring the most patches for vulnerabilities. With newer OS getting harder to breach, hackers are focusing on browsers and plugins, not to mention outdated OS.

MS has so many OS and "office" versions "offerings" I think you will find LESS malware activity pointed at older OS and office versions..

Take your pick..

OS versions of DOS 2-6.22, 95, 98, 98SE, NT4, 2K, ME, XP, Vista, 7, 8.x not to mention Server versions 3.5, NT4, 2K, 2003, 2008, 2012

Throw in browser versions plus Office versions and much much more..

Granted SOME of the OS "share" some common code, but for the most part the newer versions have enough changes that some exploits most likely will not ever work in an older OS if found in a newer OS..

Honestly this is so overblown way and above the Win2K debacle which everyone ran out and bought generators, bottled water and military ready to eat meals. All because folks though ALL computers would cease to function once the calendar turned to the year 2000, the grid would go down and cars would not start.

Guess what happened? NOTHING...

Much worry for nothing...

Banks, businesses, industrial companies, hospitals, ect. and I would be willing to bet government is still using XP...

What MS was finding and patching were exploits that were so obscure that it would be like killing a fly on a picnic table under a tree in the woods using a toothpick and launching the toothpick from the moon.

burlmart wrote:


Thurrott is a serious MS fan who hawks strenuously for all XP users to STOP w/ XP. OK. Let go of the paradigm that everyone needs the latest new thing whatever the inconvenience that comes with it.

I haven't read the article, but WIN XP is hovering at the top of reported annual vulnerabilities for Windows based platforms. It's also estimated that hackers are going to have a field day when MS stops security updates/patches after April for those die hard users.

Among applications for 2013, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox were among the two most targeted apps for malware, requiring the most patches for vulnerabilities. With newer OS getting harder to breach, hackers are focusing on browsers and plugins, not to mention outdated OS.

Fizz wrote:
The powerful top of the line desktop I had in the 90s had less power and capacity that what I now carry in my shirt pocket.

That's all I care about.
You'll never progress if you hang onto your buggy whip.

"progress" is a very subjective item.

What is "progress" to one person will be like going backwards to another.

The "progress" of the OS actually has gone backwards once the OS was "married" with the GUI (Graphical User Interface AKA the "desktop").

"progress" is taking $30 worth of OS (DOS or disk operating system) and a $50 GUI (Windows Desktop), blending it together then selling it for $200+

"progress" is taking items you depend on and hiding them or removing them altogether (think 8.x which removed the desktop and forces folks to "metro").

"progress" is forcing folks to buy new more expensive hardware since the newer OS doesn't support your current hardware..

Yep, that is "progress" :R

The powerful top of the line desktop I had in the 90s had less power and capacity that what I now carry in my shirt pocket.

That's all I care about.
You'll never progress if you hang onto your buggy whip.

Oh, now you say that. After much handwringing, I JUST bought a new laptop with Windows 8 this afternoon.

It's no different than the new car business. Who needs to buy a new car every 4 or 5 years? A good car should last upwards of 10 years. The only people that need you to buy a new car so frequently are the people who make and sell cars.