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My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

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Re: My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

#161

Post by bullen »

There is no bigger security risk with using old OS over time as hackers stop focusing on the old stuff because the attack surface is reduced simply by the number of victims being so low.

As for why the mouse is fast in Windows the interrupts are handled by the kernel in a very special way to perform almost mind reading levels of speed even over the bloated USB stack.

I suspect it to be a nightmare to maintain as USB upgrades happen but who knows.

I used Windows 7 until my SSD corrupted pretty much 5 years on the day after I installed it on the 400GB Intel drive. It started with games crashing and then after one such crash (black screen, not blue screen) it just refused to boot because some important file was unreadable.

Choosing your SSD will be the most important choice you make in the future, as I said previously I have 2x Windows 7 and 2x linux machines on older drives that have lasted 10+ years 24/7. So something is wrong with modern SSDs, no doubt about it.

About sites deprecating browsers, you might be more lucky with really old browsers now a days. My bank refused to work on a 3 months old Firefox, but a 6 year old Firefox (installed to run Java Applets which BTW where WAAAAY better than .js + WASM, and no; they where not insecure like all the naysayers pretend) ran fine with some layout glitches.

Re: My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

#162

Post by IntelMiner »

wkat4242 wrote: post #115
Dwedit wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct3D 9.0c

It was also supported on Win2k. For D3D 10 you have a point though.

DirectX 10 required Vista

I remember being gifted Shattered Horizon (a DX10 launch title) and thinking "it really doesn't look that great"

Halo 2 for Vista also required DX10 even though the original Xbox was hardware DX 8.1 only

Re: My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

#163

Post by LightHugger »

bullen wrote: post #161

There is no bigger security risk with using old OS over time as hackers stop focusing on the old stuff because the attack surface is reduced simply by the number of victims being so low. As for why the mouse is fast in Windows the interrupts are handled by the kernel in a very special way to perform almost mind reading levels of speed even over the bloated USB stack. I suspect it to be a nightmare to maintain as USB…

a lot of samsung drives have firmware self-destruct degradation bugs lately for some reason, so absolutely avoid those.

People miss how much of a security risk using w10/11 is because microsoft is constantly pushing updates that break your install like an xp era virus used to, or just straight up doing malicious things adware and other malware used to do. these are not "security minded" operating systems. You are not "better" for using win10 in terms of security.

Re: My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

#164

Post by arnaudsm »

bullen wrote: post #161

There is no bigger security risk with using old OS over time as hackers stop focusing on the old stuff because the attack surface is reduced simply by the number of victims being so low. As for why the mouse is fast in Windows the interrupts are handled by the kernel in a very special way to perform almost mind reading levels of speed even over the bloated USB stack. I suspect it to be a nightmare to maintain as USB…

Early SSDs had poor reliability, but modern ones seem to be lasting longer than HDDs according to this BlackBlaze report : https://www.backblaze.com/blog/ssd-drive-stats-mid-2022-revi...

Re: My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

#165

Post by slim »

extr0pian wrote: post #73
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.…

The author said that their experiences with Linux was slow (Debian and Lubuntu were examples) and had no intention of using Linux because of these experiences. Personally, I don't know what they're talking about, but I've always had a smoother/faster (albeit a bit clunky/glitchy sometimes) with Linux than Windows. Even when I dual booted Win7 and Ubuntu, Linux was always faster. Currently, I'm using XFCE w/ Arch on a…

You should try, say, Debian 12 on an old computer with encrypted disks. it's unusable

Re: My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

#166

Post by rkagerer »

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…

The only gripe from XP->Vista->7 is the respective mediocre, to amazing, to abysmal local search functionality.

Grab a copy of FileLocator Pro and wire it up to Ctrl+F in Explorer. It's fantastic.

Re: My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

#167

Post by rkagerer »

My dirty little secret is that I like Windows XP. I know it inside out and it maximizes my productivity while sitting at the computer.

I wish our industry would realize you don't need to move everyone's cheese around and slap on new lipstick every few years. Each time you do it throws away all the muscle memory your users have built up.

Sometimes I lament that pixels are so cheap to repaint. Imagine if someone reorganized where you keep your dishes on a regular basis.

Re: My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

#168

Post by lionkor »

Ubuntu has always been this weird OS for me. Its not free enough or fast enough to be linux, it feels like a knockoff of something, but i cant put my finger on it.

Their DE is just such a horrible POS. I had one extension/addon (?), which, due to some JS problem (all those extensions/addons are written in js), was slowly, over hours, hogging more ram, until eventually OOMimg the entire DE.

Sure, this is just a one-off bug, but please just read that to yourself out loud. Addons are JS. They can OOM the machine. Their interface runs over so many different abstractions that there is a whole web browser in there.

So yes, the author may have had a horribly slow experience with Ubuntu, and I believe that. Try LXDE or LXQt or MATE or anything a little more lightweight, and you may have a very different experience.

Re: My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

#169

Post by sph »

ihateolives wrote: post #126
nextos wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the OP just needed to enable e.g. Nouveau with the appropriate kernel module parameters? I am regularly using a 14 year-old MacBook on plain X and it is surprisingly fast.

> just needed to enable e.g. Nouveau with the appropriate kernel module parameters? And that's why Linux will stay in the server for majority of people, not on their desktop. "You just need to enable something with some parameters and you're all set!" Seriously?

Do we need this comment parroted every single time someone mentions Linux on this forum? I get it, it's too complicated for you, can we move on instead of rehashing this point over and over again?

The past week we have had two major Linux discussions and in each thread there is a semi flame war that starts because some had to voice yet another "this is why Linux is so hard for nan to use", as if it was a novel or constructive observation. It's not.

Re: My long goodbye to Windows XP (2022)

#170

Post by password4321 »

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.

0patch is free for personal use, going back to Windows 7.

https://0patch.com/pricing.html

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