Windows XP Anyone still using XP? And why
- Thread starter Matt
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williewillus
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- Nov 2, 2009
I had a machine with Vista on it. Dual booted with Windows 7 pre release versions, and a few months later, nuked vista completely 
I don't remember how I survived on Vista
I don't remember how I survived on Vista
Grub
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- May 25, 2010
I have XP on my old rig that the kiddies use. The wife also Photoshops on it as well.
I jumped on there the other day to find a file and was glad I upgraded.
There's nothing wrong with XP as such, I guess I'm just used to 7 now and its simplicity.
Now Vista is another story, vile thing.
I jumped on there the other day to find a file and was glad I upgraded.
There's nothing wrong with XP as such, I guess I'm just used to 7 now and its simplicity.
Now Vista is another story, vile thing
.
CommonTater
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2010
I still use XP every day... It remains the OS of choice for HTPC systems for reasons of superior sound quality and better video rendering.
The "Delayed Procedure Call Latency" (DPC) on windows 7 typically sits at 100 to 150 microseconds where as in XP it is almost always less than 50. This lower latency makes for far superior audio rendering with high-end DACs and much lower cpu usage on 1080p screens.
I have an ASRock ION330 system ( Link Removed due to 404 Error ). The thing works flawlessly with XP, never drops frames or misbehaves on audio. Renders BluRay disks and 1080p/AC3 5.1 movie files perfectly. Even plays flac files with amazing clarity..... Put in Win7 with the same players as before and it stutters and blinks and burbles like it's bringing up a hairball.
So yes XP still has it's place in the world.
The "Delayed Procedure Call Latency" (DPC) on windows 7 typically sits at 100 to 150 microseconds where as in XP it is almost always less than 50. This lower latency makes for far superior audio rendering with high-end DACs and much lower cpu usage on 1080p screens.
I have an ASRock ION330 system ( Link Removed due to 404 Error ). The thing works flawlessly with XP, never drops frames or misbehaves on audio. Renders BluRay disks and 1080p/AC3 5.1 movie files perfectly. Even plays flac files with amazing clarity..... Put in Win7 with the same players as before and it stutters and blinks and burbles like it's bringing up a hairball.
So yes XP still has it's place in the world.
Agent Data
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- Jan 9, 2010
Re: Sticking with XP for now
Like others say XP will remain mostly on old weak laptops with limited ram/disk space and for old software compatibility issues.
Like others say XP will remain mostly on old weak laptops with limited ram/disk space and for old software compatibility issues.
CommonTater
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- Jul 21, 2010
Re: Sticking with XP for now
Actually the two machines I have running XP are brand new and using up-to-the-minute drivers and code. But you are right, legacy hardware is one of the reasons XP is still around.
The HTPC market, as I mentioned earlier, is an interesting slice of the computer world. It's unlike anything else I've worked on. These guys do some seriously wild stuff... like hooking up $5,000 USB DACs to 1000 watt stereo amplifiers or setting up real theatre settings in their basements, complete with theatre seats and popcorn machines. They demand perfection and for the most part get very close to it. As one told me recently "If this system falls below 98% satisfaction, I intend to replace every last ounce of it". Now that's some serious "audiophile attitude"...
Win7 needs a lot of computer horsepower to do an adequate job of reproducing high bitrate music, even more for HD video. There aren't a lot of "off the shelf" machines that can do it to these guys satisfaction. XP gets the job done on Atom processors and ION chipsets... That's gotta tell you something.
To be plain... if it were not for MS cutting off support and upgrades (whatever happened to sp4?) I would still have all my machines on XP. There is a reason XP isn't dying as predicted... It's well developed, mature, stable as a rock, faster than win7 and less of a resource hog. It should surprise nobody it's still holding a better than 50% market share... A Dead OS, still the most used.
(As of July 15,2010)
Actually the two machines I have running XP are brand new and using up-to-the-minute drivers and code. But you are right, legacy hardware is one of the reasons XP is still around.
The HTPC market, as I mentioned earlier, is an interesting slice of the computer world. It's unlike anything else I've worked on. These guys do some seriously wild stuff... like hooking up $5,000 USB DACs to 1000 watt stereo amplifiers or setting up real theatre settings in their basements, complete with theatre seats and popcorn machines. They demand perfection and for the most part get very close to it. As one told me recently "If this system falls below 98% satisfaction, I intend to replace every last ounce of it". Now that's some serious "audiophile attitude"...
Win7 needs a lot of computer horsepower to do an adequate job of reproducing high bitrate music, even more for HD video. There aren't a lot of "off the shelf" machines that can do it to these guys satisfaction. XP gets the job done on Atom processors and ION chipsets... That's gotta tell you something.
To be plain... if it were not for MS cutting off support and upgrades (whatever happened to sp4?) I would still have all my machines on XP. There is a reason XP isn't dying as predicted... It's well developed, mature, stable as a rock, faster than win7 and less of a resource hog. It should surprise nobody it's still holding a better than 50% market share... A Dead OS, still the most used.
(As of July 15,2010) Last edited:
Agent Data
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- Jan 9, 2010
Re: Sticking with XP for now
Win7 only 13% market share? - wow, that is far far less than MS/media is trying to make us believe.
Well, the company my wife is working for is simply too afraid of moving up to 7 - they're all still on XP and won't take the risk! They can not have 1 minute downtime due to possible 7 complications or the steep learning to manage 7. MS did shoot in their own feet by releasing 7 in its current stage of backwards compatibility. The XP VM is a solution for experts and not for the ordinary corporate Win user.
my 2 cents of thoughts
Win7 only 13% market share? - wow, that is far far less than MS/media is trying to make us believe.
Well, the company my wife is working for is simply too afraid of moving up to 7 - they're all still on XP and won't take the risk! They can not have 1 minute downtime due to possible 7 complications or the steep learning to manage 7. MS did shoot in their own feet by releasing 7 in its current stage of backwards compatibility. The XP VM is a solution for experts and not for the ordinary corporate Win user.
my 2 cents of thoughts
Grub
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- May 25, 2010
CommonTater
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- Jul 21, 2010
Re: Sticking with XP for now
That should not surprise you... They are, afterall, trying to kill XP.
Personally, I would have much preferred they continued improving the Win2000 codebase (which includes XP) and come out with some "lean and mean" versions for Laptop, HTPC and Workstation targets. Win7 is bloatware taken to powers of magnitude... There's stuff in there I will NEVER use, some that I take out with VLite to make sure it's NOT there...
And you are right. This stuff is supposed to get easier, not bigger and more complex... While I like the look and feel of Win7 (Aero is way cool) I could do most of what I do in considerably less time on XP.
I do some coding in my spare time. I have one project that I cobbled together in about 3 weeks on XP that, over a year later, I'm still trying to get going the "Win 7 Way". Coding for Win7 is a nightmare, with all it's crap about UAC and user virtualization. The new networking is a royal kick in the butt. Every subroutine I call from the windows api has to be vetted for compatibility with XP. Toss in code signing, security certificates, side by side compatibility and the new registry rules and it's right on the edge of "not worth doing".
So Ya... I agree, MS shot themselves in the foot with this one. It's a real threat to Shareware and Freeware, which are the backbone of their success over the years.
That should not surprise you... They are, afterall, trying to kill XP.
Personally, I would have much preferred they continued improving the Win2000 codebase (which includes XP) and come out with some "lean and mean" versions for Laptop, HTPC and Workstation targets. Win7 is bloatware taken to powers of magnitude... There's stuff in there I will NEVER use, some that I take out with VLite to make sure it's NOT there...
And you are right. This stuff is supposed to get easier, not bigger and more complex... While I like the look and feel of Win7 (Aero is way cool) I could do most of what I do in considerably less time on XP.
I do some coding in my spare time. I have one project that I cobbled together in about 3 weeks on XP that, over a year later, I'm still trying to get going the "Win 7 Way". Coding for Win7 is a nightmare, with all it's crap about UAC and user virtualization. The new networking is a royal kick in the butt. Every subroutine I call from the windows api has to be vetted for compatibility with XP. Toss in code signing, security certificates, side by side compatibility and the new registry rules and it's right on the edge of "not worth doing".
So Ya... I agree, MS shot themselves in the foot with this one. It's a real threat to Shareware and Freeware, which are the backbone of their success over the years.
OldTimer
Banned
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- Jul 19, 2010
Win-7 reminds me of the new bully that just moved into the neighborhood. He's trying to make everyone believe he's the #1 dude around. Then one of the older kids steps up and slaps the snot out of him and sends him home crying.
I'm just saying that Win-7 jumped into a world that was pretty happy running XP in one version or another on hardware that was made for it, and running software that was written for it.
For the g'zillion people who are happy with the software they have, running on the hardware that's already paid for, Windows XP will continue to satisfy their needs for some years to come.
I guess that's where I am. Satisfied with a PC that runs like a scalded dog on XP and only so-so on Win-7.
Seven is a HOG, pure and simple. It eats up ram like a goose on a Junebug. It HOG's hard drive space like a 500 pound gorilla in a small foreign car.
It took me over two hours of tweaking and tuning and just beating it down to size to get it to run even remotely as good as my XP-Pro-SP3, on the same system. Win-7, 64 runs everything I've thrown at it, even a very old version of Mahjong that I got years ago on a single floppy disk. But the problem is all the things that were so quick, easy and just plain simple on XP, like increasing the size of a desktop icon font by one or two points, which is virtually impossible on Win-7.
For many simple things that I used to do on XP, I have to find work-arounds in Win-7.
That gets old after a while.
I'm still wondering why they thought it necessary to mess up Solitaire? The Classic Sol was great, but the Win-7 version looks like garbage.
I'm just saying that Win-7 jumped into a world that was pretty happy running XP in one version or another on hardware that was made for it, and running software that was written for it.
For the g'zillion people who are happy with the software they have, running on the hardware that's already paid for, Windows XP will continue to satisfy their needs for some years to come.
I guess that's where I am. Satisfied with a PC that runs like a scalded dog on XP and only so-so on Win-7.
Seven is a HOG, pure and simple. It eats up ram like a goose on a Junebug. It HOG's hard drive space like a 500 pound gorilla in a small foreign car.
It took me over two hours of tweaking and tuning and just beating it down to size to get it to run even remotely as good as my XP-Pro-SP3, on the same system. Win-7, 64 runs everything I've thrown at it, even a very old version of Mahjong that I got years ago on a single floppy disk. But the problem is all the things that were so quick, easy and just plain simple on XP, like increasing the size of a desktop icon font by one or two points, which is virtually impossible on Win-7.
For many simple things that I used to do on XP, I have to find work-arounds in Win-7.
That gets old after a while.
I'm still wondering why they thought it necessary to mess up Solitaire? The Classic Sol was great, but the Win-7 version looks like garbage.
Agent Data
Banned
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- Jan 9, 2010
Very nicely put, Oldtimer, but increasing the icon-font size is still exactly as in XP - in 7 under personalise themes.
Link Removed due to 404 Error
Link Removed due to 404 Error
Tombsmoker
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- Aug 30, 2010
My Dad's the same way. Refuses to upgrade to sp3 too.
OldTimer
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- Jul 19, 2010
Re: Idea!
After SP3, we really don't need no stinkeen MS Support. The OS will continue to run forever without it.
Forever, or till we who like it and run it die off.
I helped make brother Bill one of the richest men in the world by buying every new OS from DOS 2.0 to Windows XP-Pro.
Never in 30 years have I ever picked up the phone and called MS and asked them for any so called "Support".
I'll certainly not start now.
I had a problem on a Vista PC of a friends. It decided to just ignore the DVD drive.
I downloaded a DVD-FIX from MS which didn't solve the DVD problem and made Vista unbootable.
Vista then went through a Self Repair procedure which actually fixed the damage done by the MS Fix.
I hope I didn't loose y'all there with all that fixing.
I finally found the fix I needed on one of the Help Forums. Sorry to say, it wasn't this one.
Cheers Mates,
Old Timer
After SP3, we really don't need no stinkeen MS Support. The OS will continue to run forever without it.
Forever, or till we who like it and run it die off.
I helped make brother Bill one of the richest men in the world by buying every new OS from DOS 2.0 to Windows XP-Pro.
Never in 30 years have I ever picked up the phone and called MS and asked them for any so called "Support".
I'll certainly not start now.
I had a problem on a Vista PC of a friends. It decided to just ignore the DVD drive.
I downloaded a DVD-FIX from MS which didn't solve the DVD problem and made Vista unbootable.
Vista then went through a Self Repair procedure which actually fixed the damage done by the MS Fix.
I hope I didn't loose y'all there with all that fixing.
I finally found the fix I needed on one of the Help Forums. Sorry to say, it wasn't this one.
Cheers Mates,
Old Timer
Elmer
Extraordinary Member
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2010
Re: Idea!
Care to enlighten me OldTimer? I'm off to visit my daughter tomorrow who has a Vista laptop. Amongst other issues, Her DVD player suddenly stopped recognising anything you place in it.
You never know.....
Care to enlighten me OldTimer? I'm off to visit my daughter tomorrow who has a Vista laptop. Amongst other issues, Her DVD player suddenly stopped recognising anything you place in it.
You never know.....
Last edited:
OldTimer
Banned
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2010
Elmer! Dude! How the heck are you? Long time no see!
Ok, let me check my "Fix it" archives........
(you can't believe the trouble I had finding this among my many other "Fix It" documents.)
Follow this and it should be well:
1. Click START , and then click All Programs.
2. Click Accessories, and then click Run.
3. Type "regedit" in the RUN box, and then click OK.
(If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or click Allow.)
4. In the navigation pane, locate and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet \Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
5. In the right pane, click UpperFilters.
6. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
7. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.
8. In the right pane, click LowerFilters.
9. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
10. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.
11. Exit Registry Editor.
12. Restart the computer."
Of course, the drive may have just gone bad. They do that, you know.b-(
One friend of mine just bought an LG external (USB) CD/DVD, player/burner, because the drive in his two year old Toshiba laptop has quit working (sometimes).
Good luck to you!
Old Timer
Ok, let me check my "Fix it" archives........
(you can't believe the trouble I had finding this among my many other "Fix It" documents.)
Follow this and it should be well:
1. Click START , and then click All Programs.
2. Click Accessories, and then click Run.
3. Type "regedit" in the RUN box, and then click OK.
(If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or click Allow.)
4. In the navigation pane, locate and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet \Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
5. In the right pane, click UpperFilters.
6. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
7. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.
8. In the right pane, click LowerFilters.
9. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
10. When you are prompted to confirm the deletion, click Yes.
11. Exit Registry Editor.
12. Restart the computer."
Of course, the drive may have just gone bad. They do that, you know.b-(
One friend of mine just bought an LG external (USB) CD/DVD, player/burner, because the drive in his two year old Toshiba laptop has quit working (sometimes).
Good luck to you!
Old Timer
Last edited:
OldTimer
Banned
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2010
Ya know..........the thing I really liked about it, that it was so cheap!
No programs to buy or files to download. Just print it out and take it with you.
It sure helped me and I'm sure it's helped many others too. It's been floating around the internet for several years.
Good Luck!
OT
No programs to buy or files to download. Just print it out and take it with you.
It sure helped me and I'm sure it's helped many others too. It's been floating around the internet for several years.
Good Luck!
OT
Elmer
Extraordinary Member
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2010
Well, That seems to have resolved the DVD player non-recognition problem OldTimer!
As an aside, a daily run of CCleaner with a 3 pass erase method never takes longer than 20 seconds on my PC. A single pass erase method on my Daughters laptop took.... 450 seconds! I went to the pub for a beer while I was waiting!
As an aside, a daily run of CCleaner with a 3 pass erase method never takes longer than 20 seconds on my PC. A single pass erase method on my Daughters laptop took.... 450 seconds! I went to the pub for a beer while I was waiting!
OldTimer
Banned
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2010
Please don't shoot me! But I've tried CCleaner twice on my PC, over a period of several years and both times it's left my PC un-bootable. I won't let that program anywhere near my PC.
One program that I HAVE used with 100% success, on my PC and the PC's of hundreds of customers, is "Easy Cleaner 2", from 'Toni Arts'.
Yes, I still use Windows XP-Pro-SP3 as my everyday OS, with Win-7 on my second HD, which I can boot to anytime I want to.
To me, XP is just so much more user friendly, faster and takes up less space on the HD. With proper HD maintenance, I still back up my entire C: partition to a single DVD, using Ghost 2003 with HIGH compression. It takes a whole stack of DVD's and several hours to back up Win-7 to DVD's.
Cheers Mate!
Old Timer
One program that I HAVE used with 100% success, on my PC and the PC's of hundreds of customers, is "Easy Cleaner 2", from 'Toni Arts'.
Yes, I still use Windows XP-Pro-SP3 as my everyday OS, with Win-7 on my second HD, which I can boot to anytime I want to.
To me, XP is just so much more user friendly, faster and takes up less space on the HD. With proper HD maintenance, I still back up my entire C: partition to a single DVD, using Ghost 2003 with HIGH compression. It takes a whole stack of DVD's and several hours to back up Win-7 to DVD's.
Cheers Mate!
Old Timer
Grub
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 25, 2010
Whilst the initial tests I ran found XP to be faster in some cases, the more I use Win7 the more I am finding it to be far better.
I have XP on my work PC, Win7 just tightens things up and makes processes a bit more logical.
Also, overall, not saying in every aspect, just overall Win7 is faster, for me anyway lol.
I guess it comes down to finding something you like
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