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My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

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Re: My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

#81

Post by Aeolun »

bakugo wrote: post #69
jollyllama wrote: post #64

Many times have I lost hours, days, or functionality that was never regained to an update/"upgrade." Never have I had my personal computer owned by some exploit that resulted in data loss/breach. Thus, undesired upgrades are a greater risk for personal computing than security. Simple as.

Corporations like Microsoft have successfully hammered this idea into people's heads that the evil hacker known as Anonymous will hack into your fridge and make it explode and burn your house down if you forget to update it for two weeks. Almost nobody who makes a big deal out of this has ever actually been affected by it, they're just parroting what they're told.

I mean, I used to say that updating was important when updates were painless and worked. Now that we've successfully convinced everyone to always update, corporations use it to push fresh malware/ads.

Re: My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

#82

Post by masswerk »

I can feel this. My main work computer was/is a late 2008 MacPro, running OS X 10.9.5 (the latest MacOS you can run officially on this). After one and half years, I've still not transitioned fully to a shiny, yellow M1 iMac standing next to it. The usability and productivity on the MacPro, its OS and the apps on it are much better, and, on top of it, it's all software that I own.

The real dealbreaker is evergreen browsers and websites updating from whatever is available on Github, making up-to-date browsers a requirement. The newest browser you can run on this is Firefox 78.15.0esr, which, funny enough, tells you that it's up to date. I also second that security by out-of-date obscurity may be a concept. (The vectors available just don't scale, if you're not a target prominent enough to make this a sensible investment. Moreover, old hardware gives you things like ECC memory, which is also immune to rowhammer attacks, as it's slow and not that tightly integrated. Having no privileged network connections to any cloud services may help, as well.)

(However, I'm writing this on a rather fresh Apple Silicon MBA, because, well, the Web…)

Re: My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

#83

Post by snozolli »

Dalewyn wrote: post #35
capableweb wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

95 was trash, 98 was gold. XP was great, Vista was trash. 7 was great, 8 was trash. 10 was gold, 11 is trash. Seems Microsoft has to squeeze in at least one bad version between good ones. But never has a new Windows version been made available where people didn't initially hate them at first, XP, 7, and 10 included. It's not until the version after gets released when people really start appreciating what once was.

>11 is trash. 11 has all the same problems 10 has, but brings many significant improvements both in the backend and frontend. Hardly trash. >never has a new Windows version been made available where people didn't initially hate them at first Windows 95 and 98 were both received to applause and fanfare, 95's stellar reception in particular is probably still unmatched to this day.

95's stellar reception in particular is probably still unmatched to this day.

The only shift in user experience that I can equate it to is maybe the jump from candy bar and flip phones to the iPhone and Android. In addition to the UI, it brought real multitasking to a consumer OS.

Re: My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

#84

Post by snozolli »

bakugo wrote: post #71
capableweb wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

95 was trash, 98 was gold. XP was great, Vista was trash. 7 was great, 8 was trash. 10 was gold, 11 is trash. Seems Microsoft has to squeeze in at least one bad version between good ones. But never has a new Windows version been made available where people didn't initially hate them at first, XP, 7, and 10 included. It's not until the version after gets released when people really start appreciating what once was.

> 10 was gold, 11 is trash If you think 10 is "gold" and 11 is "trash" I assume you're suffering from some sort of stockholm syndrome from using 10 too long and haven't actually tried 11 yet because it's just a reskinned 10 (and visually, it looks a lot better).

haven't actually tried 11 yet because it's just a reskinned 10 (and visually, it looks a lot better).

I've been on 11 since it was released and I find it to be objectively a worse experience. On Win 10, I could game on one screen and stream a video in a browser on the other. On Win 11, I get stuttering on the streamed video.

It's also failed to update twice now. I invested hours into debugging the issue the first time. This time it's been days and I'm about to just do a fresh Win 10 install over this nightmare.

Re: My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

#86

Post by skissane »

causality0 wrote: post #68
branon wrote: post #57

This is not a sensible or technically sound thing to do. It is purely irrational. Win7 is already stuck on Chrome 110/111(?). You are not gaining much by doing this, and are assuming significant risk. Even if specific portions can be quantified away, it's the unknown unknowns that should scare you. Try a Linux distro again maybe? With some non-default themes and Wine, it really should make a better WinXP than WinXP.…

"We're going to write security updates for this OS but we won't give them to you" is such psychopathic behavior.

Writing security updates costs money-and as the software gets older, the cost generally goes up too. Is it wrong for them to decide, after a reasonable period, to stop spending that money on outdated versions? What happens then when a small subset of customers says “we need those updates so much, we’ll pay extra for them?” Is it wrong to take their money and spend it on writing the updates they request, with a reasonable margin on top? But once you are selling updates to that small subset of customers, if you start giving the very same updates away for free to everyone else, those customers are going to ask for their money back. I don’t see any “psychopathy” here, just rational business decisions.

This doesn’t just happen for operating systems. Many vendors of on-promise proprietary software do the same-databases, middleware, ERP suites, etc-most of them have a special program for customers who want to stay on really old versions, in which they pay extra $$$ for updates compared to customers willing to move to a more current one. If you accept proprietary software as ethical, I can’t see how this practice can reasonably be accused of being unethical.

Re: My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

#88

Post by bee_rider »

causality0 wrote: post #68
branon wrote: post #57

This is not a sensible or technically sound thing to do. It is purely irrational. Win7 is already stuck on Chrome 110/111(?). You are not gaining much by doing this, and are assuming significant risk. Even if specific portions can be quantified away, it's the unknown unknowns that should scare you. Try a Linux distro again maybe? With some non-default themes and Wine, it really should make a better WinXP than WinXP.…

"We're going to write security updates for this OS but we won't give them to you" is such psychopathic behavior.

I think a lot of companies agree with you more or less — well, companies don’t have personalities or psychologies, so psychopathy is not really possible. But charging for security updates is too much of a reputation risk.

Of course because they are profit driven entities and they can’t charge for security patches, they just stop writing them.

Re: My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

#89

Post by amatecha »

Jerrrry wrote: post #43

I actually RTFA and was thinking, "this dude should upgrade and run Win7 like me," - and was pleasantly surprised to find he is. The only issue I've had was a few months ago Google Chrome now gives a small nag-bar on startup - supposedly dismissisable with a -flag, but the flag itself is either no longer functioning for some smirk sanctimonious reason, or more likely, hilariously not tested, and has since ironically…

Steam just announced[0] their client will no longer work on Windows 7 come Jan 1st 2024. I figured this would happen as soon as I noticed they adopted Chromium Embedded Framework, guaranteeing that Google's supported OSes become Steam's supported OSes. I'm not exactly sure how I'm supposed to play Steam games from 2004 (or whatever) on the OS they were designed for, when Steam won't even run on that OS anymore. I guess I can hope that compatibility layers work well enough in newer Windows versions? Just kidding, my Windows gaming PC will now be a Linux gaming PC :)

[0] https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/4784-4F2B-1321-80...

Re: My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

#90

Post by wrp »

lostgame wrote: post #3

I still use XP 90% of the time when I just need a quick VM to run some odd Windows utility or other. It's lightweight, it's not filled with the intrusive privacy issues of 10 or 11, and a surprising amount of software is still compatible.

Same. I have WinXP on VirtualBox for all my Windows work. I do have a Win7 image on hand, but I've only had to use it twice over the past several years.
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