The only thing really wrong with XP is that it wasn't designed for the current needs of the internet and online security.  XP had a fantastic run, but it's time to move on now to Win7.

Oh it's not that I don't like it... hehe.  I just never loved it.

I mean, it's not that it was unlovable... um... yes, it was... IS.

Beneath the Fisher Price GUI, though, it did have some redeeming features, like.... uh, no it didn't.

Nah, as hard as I try, I can't find anything nice to say about it.... though I still keep a copy.

That's right, I keep a copy, if only to remind me how Stardock saved my insanity with Windowblinds.

Yes there is Kona. I checked the size of your avatar and its 50 x 39. It should be 100 x 100 square. Sizing it up makes it blurry. You can re-do it in Photoshop at 100 x 100 or, if you have Illustrator you can re-do it as a vector image that will be nice and crisp.

Sorry, don't mean to hijack.

I fail to see how age alone is of interest.... how old are you? When may we terminate your life?

As for the GUI.... if you like XP look or not is up to debate..... but compared to Win 2000 or 98 it was clearly an improvement.... you know most people get depressed over time by gray on grey on grey.

Better OSes? I see two... Win 7 and Linux.... which has several other issues itself. Windows 8 though looks really like it had been stolen out of a toy shop.... not for kids... but for babies.

Ironically the GUI improvement of Vista/Win 7 was removed in 8..... those crappy mobile phones cannot handle the power requirements. 

Better wasting time on a dinosaur... then drive the point home to your customers that they are wasting THEIR money by using windows at all.

Out of its misery? What misery? You know... I really should point out that ever since the FIRST BETA of Sins of a Solar Empire I had FOUR minidumps..... and I play nearly every day for hours. On the other hand many people running Win 7 claim the game has been unplayable..... now... who is in a misery?

Again... just because something is old, says nothing about its value or current use. As for fugly.... that is the description I would use for Win 8.... although that word is actually far to nice.

You wanna go back to 98? Seriously? Because until Vista was released that more or less had been your only choice.

It occurs to me that you might never have had to deal with 98..... otherwise you wouldt state such things.

XP was the first home OS that was built on the NT core..... (from their servers). That led to a stability unheard of windows home systems so far. You know... the core fundament of the Vista, win 7 and 8 system.

Skinning..... you know you can make windows XP look like 7 with skinning? Just tends to be cheaper than buying the actuall thing. So I suggest you write your beloved 98 GUI for a Win 8 mod...

I am sorry, but that nonsense.

The only thing holding back PC gaming is the strong console market.... consoles they use up to today that my 8 year old family PC could run circles arround.

Because consoles have considerable inferior performance compared to PCs there is no incentive for developers to create high quality content for the PC. if a large ammount of your sales is consoles.... it makes no sense to develop cool but demanding stuff that only the PC can handle. Why increase development cost when your main target (console) wont notice at all and many PC users will pirate it anyway?

Dirext X.... is a API... nothing more... nothing less. Windows XP is quite capable of using Dirext X 10 or 11..... it is merely Microsoft didnt wanted that back then... because it desperatly needed something to sell shitty Vista to people. You know they ported Dirext X 9 to Linux... speak about an OS that is different from the very core architecture.

32 Bit.... ahh yes.. of course... but if i look arround an see all those mobile devices with less than 4GB of RAM.... those wont profit a bit from having 64 Bit.

Not to mention.... one of the reason people are moving to mobile devices is the fact that the average user doesnt need more calculation power than generated by an ARM CPU in combination with 2 GB of RAM. (Surface for example)

The same average user will never ever reach even 2 GB of RAM usage in his desktop..... so installing an 64 Bit OS with 16 GB of ram will cost money..... while not offering any advantage.

You show me one game... that even on a 64 Bit OS uses more than 2 or 3 GB of RAM..... so..... enjoy your 16 GB..... but even if Windows is getting heavy, that leaves 11 Gigs sitting arround, costing money and power and doing nothing at all.

Consoles are imho a bad deal... because the moment a new generation arrives you can dump all of your games and rebuy them.

In time... I will upgrade my XP..... to 7.....that is supported to 2020 minimum.... and 2021.... we will see if MS is still in a competive market position.

Yes, it's an API tied into the new graphics tech in Vista and up that would've been a considerable effort to backport into an ancient broken OS, at which point it'd have been a completely different OS.

Or, they could've just done the API and had vastly different performance from it in different OSes.  Wouldn't that be awesome?

I care about mobile devices why?  This is about PC gaming, and even most cheap laptops have four or more gigs for the last four years (possibly longer.)

I can't enjoy my 16gb, I only had 6 (now it's 4 cause one stick went bad.)  That $45 I'd need to get 6 right now is so expensive!

Also quite a few games support LAA and can use more than 2GB when its available.  Skyrim is probably the most notable for actually needing it (especially if you mod it) but it's definitely not the only one.  Hell, I'm fairly sure Fallen Enchantress does.  And you know why nothing uses it?  I already said!  There aren't any 64 bit games, even though there has been some related promises from EA (and Stardock iirc) for this year.

So, to be perfectly honest, I can't continue this conversation civilly because you're technologically illiterate, so I must be off.

Just because some people might choose to be fossils in terms of tech and use software/play games from years ago on old operating systems or not become used to mobile gaming/tech the way the younger generation already is doesn't mean newer operating systems and/or tech serve no purpose and have no genuine advantages.

For instance as someone else pointed out much earlier in this thread (and I reiterated at the top of page 8) Hyper-V support out of the box alone makes Windows 8 an attractive choice for some of us as well as the fact that Windows 8 runs infinitely better/leaner/smoother on older hardware than previous versions of Windows on that same hardware.  I have documented my experiences testing this theory on an old DELL notebook from 2005 (with only 2GB of RAM) in a separate thread on these forums.

Consoles are a bad deal?   Speaking as an original computer gamer (fond memories of my first few computer games ie.  Loderunner, Joust and Rescue Raiders) I have to say investing in a console has been a god-send in gaming for me.  Games are so much more optimized (because they can be) for my consoles, I don't face nearly as many bugs and while the graphics/sound can be better on PC, I find the less hassle with consoles more than makes up for that.  So there will be newer console versions coming out in the next year or so.........when was the last new console released?  How long have the Wii, PS3 and 360 been around?  Longer than the latest iteration of my 'gaming rig' that's for sure (I've upgraded that beast at least 3 times in the timespan of having owned consoles that didn't change).

Sure you can still run XP (if you want), sure you can still game using that old hardware/OS but that doesn't make newer technology pointless.  Sure you can still opt to not browse the internet from your smart-TV or from your tablet while taking a shit, but does that mean it is pointless to do so?  Newer tech is being devoured by the newer generations almost faster than we can come up with it.  The newer generations (my grown children included) can text, surf, create/edit documents and play games in many cases better/faster on their 'tiny-ass' screens than some people can on their antiquated PC's attached to their 'giant-ass' CRT monitors.

If none of the other innovations/advantages to Windows 8 I and others have listed on the numerous pages of this thread tickle anyone's fancy at least this one (which I have now repeated a few times) should.  Windows 8 (priced like an 'upgrade') running much better on (older) hardware than previous versions of Windows proves at least to me that some things other than 'look/feel' have obviously changed.  To me (especially at the current price-point) those 'changes' are worth it and non-deserving of the "Lets face it Win8 Sux" thread title.

I find your lack of technical background knowledge amusing.

Are you running Win Vista, 7 or 8? Ohh... dear it is broken.... because you know technically... it is Windows XP with upgrades....

We are actually speaking about Windows NT here:

Win NT 4.0 = NT Version 4

Win XP = NT Version 5

Win Vista = NT Version 6

Win 7 = NT Version 6.1

Win 7 = NT Version 6.2

Of course the newer versions are more advanced in some areas, but they are all based on the same - ancient  - Windows NT.

A good part the of code that keeps your system running right now is XP code... actually NT code... but you are getting the point.

It is like comparing an car engine from 1980 with a car engine from 2000. Yes, the year 2000 engine is more refined but the basics havent changed much. You still have an 4 cylinder inline engine..... yes, they fuel is injected a bit more precise, a few details here and there have been altered and advanced.... but the core is still the same.

You can remove the "new" parts.... and you still have a car engine.... certainly not as good as the year 2000 one but still an working engine. (Leaving aside development failures... Vista cough... 8 shudder)

On the other hand if you remove the core parts.... your new engine is broken. Even the most modern engine will not move a centimeter without pistons and such things.

If you purge all NT 5 code from your beloved Windows 7/8 you will find yourself without an - working - operating system.

BTW.. Congratulations on using an 20 year old file system.... yes.. NTFS is that old.... it was part of the first Windows NT. Now go and format your harddrives with something modern.... because there is no way in hell something 20 years old can still be good enough for you!

From an technical and business standpoint it makes no sense to remove or change parts of the code base that work perfectly fine. If - just an example - the printing queue has been already organized in a efficient way all the way back in NT 4.0 why change it without need? And so you probably will still have the age old NT 4.0 printing queue (add any basic OS function inside here) in Windows 20.

Ahh.... if I remember correctly... and I do.... the reviews were all over the net back then... Windows Vista with DirextX10 did perform considerable below Windows XP in games and in software. Although you cannot blame a poor API for failing to meet expectations when it is forced to run on the piece of junk Vista was on release. The Servicepack helped matters a bit but only Windows 7 managed to be on par with XP.

Which is quite unimpressive, considering they had 5 years of development time for Win Vista and even 7 years for Win 7.... although to some extent Win 7 is just Vista without bugs and most performance bottlenecks removed. Basically a Servicepack.

Had an brand new Vista Laptop back then at work.... runned terribly..... made me wonder what they really had a large team working for 5 years or rather had some trainees put the pieces together 6 month before release.

There are no 64 Bit games because there is no market for them yet. At least not one of reasonable size. Say thank you to the consoles.

To be perfectly honest... I am not so sure who is the technologically illiterate here.... but anway... have a nice day.

Compared to Win 8 a 10 year old Linux distribution looks good.... and no.... that is not a compliment.

Taste is of course a personal matter.... but if the rumoured sales figures of 8 are true.... it appears most desktop users lean more forward to the classical taste.

No notable difference in speed to Win 7 at work (inferior system), but much faster than old Vista Laptop.

Yes, there are some games out there finally that do profit from more RAM. It is still somewhat funny to see how many people buy all that RAM and then use the comp for word processing.

1. How do you know my location?

2. Ahh, ok, I didnt knew that.

I tend to disagree. Rendering (cool hobby BTW ) is not what the average user uses his computer for.

XP runs on 128... but you need a lot of patience

on 256 it is bearable

512 and you can work normally

1 GB and above... speedy

as long as you dont play any games of course.

Vista probably didnt run worse than XP on release day on the average hardware on release day. Part of Vistas problem might have been that people were used to XP running at lightning speed on modern hardware.

Yes.

The problem for MS is that leaving gamers/other hardware demanding hobby aside the demand for powerful desktops is in a decline. On the mobile market however, they face fiercy competition.If they dont manage to claim a good portion of that market they will no longer be capable of doing business on this magnitude.

They will still exist 2020.... but depending on their success on the mobile market they may be a lot smaller than today.

MS knows that.... they have the numbers and they see the storm that is approaching them.

The enforcement of the new GUI over the desktop is driven by desperation. All of their attempts so far have been unsuccesful in entering the mobile market in any reasonable capacity. They need to make this work.... they are running out of failures that they can afford.

People no longer think

Computer = Desktop = Windows + Office

and for a company relying on selling Windows and office for a large part of its revenue that is very very bad news. For all of its attempts, MS has only very few cash cows.... and now those are endangered, too.

That a misunderstanding, I am not saying that newer operating systems have no advantages. Of course they have many advantages. The question is merely if those features justify an early upgrade for the average home user. And that I have my doubts about..... and if the sales are any indication... I dont seem to be alone.

I will answer your remaining points tomorrow.

@ Uvah

@ kona0197

Please keep your off topic out of this thread. Thank you.

If you re-read my post you'll see that that is exactly what I've done.  

That's for the site Moderators to determine whether a comment is objectionably off-topic.

And it is 'preferred' that users do not describe other users as 'illiterate', not if they wish to continue participating on these forums...

Why do you seem focused on 'the look' (or topical) aspect of the OS?    

As mentioned I care about the actual performance of same (organisational boost through start SCREEN as opposed to the antiquated/disorganized start MENU, boot times, program load and stability, browser load/surf times, memory footprints etc.) and finally including such things as windows-to-go, secure-boot and the inclusion of Hyper-V etc.  

Lastly, I don't need instruction on 'running clean' as I'm the one who indicated that I prefer to run command-prompt / powershell in previous posts.

I would prefer that Win 8 for the desktop still had Aero and looked more like Win 7, but it hasn't and doesn't. Thing is, I like how Win 8 handles and I'm prepared to wait until Neil has Windowblinds ready to dress it up.  I could get one of those patch thingumies from over a devArt to suffice 'til then, but frankly, Win 8 doesn't look so bad [with the Start8 panel looks a lot like 7 anyhow] and I'm not that desperate.  Fact is, I have a faster, smoother OS that performs much to my satisfaction and the look isn't unbearable, unlike XP's butt ugly UI.  Now that is something that HAD to be covered up ASAP to prevent nausea and upchuck in the keyboard.

Touche........

Yay!!!!!! I won a point....

...took a decade of debate...but it had to happen eventually...