Windows XP, The Incredible Immortal Operating System!

Jul 13 by Ty Dunitz | 16 comments

I love Windows XP. A lot. I’ve been a user since day one, and three of the four computers in my home are still running it beautifully. The fourth is a Mac. So it comes as delightful news to me to hear that Microsoft is again extending downgrade rights to XP, until – get this - the end of Windows 7′s life cycle.

This means, simply put, that Windows XP will be alive and well in 2020.

Initially, Microsoft had planned to axe downgrade rights six months after the release of Windows 7, later extending that plan to 18 months, which would have given users hungry for XP until next year to downgrade. But now? Now you’ll have all the time in the world, should you feel the need (and assuming your copy of Windows 7 is OEM). “Our business customers have told us that the removing end-user downgrade rights to Windows XP Professional could be confusing,” said Brandon LeBlanc on Microsoft’s blog.

He’s not wrong: 74% of business machines are still running XP. And why fix something that isn’t broken, right?

Right?

What blows my mind is that XP was originally supposed to die one year after Vista treated the world to its bad self (the operating word here being ‘bad’). But we all know how that went.

WRITTEN BY TY DUNITZ

Ty is an illustrator who stays up too late, and has to wear glasses. You can follow him on Twitter if you want to (@glitchritual), but he's just gonna throw your stupid PR crap in the garbage, so don't email him.

COMMENTS
  • http://www.squiders.com Web Design Kent

    Long live xp, it ain’t perfect but its the nearest t have come. I’m still proudly using it!

  • http://www.refineryhq.com Patrick

    Begrudgingly, I have to agree. A solid operating system that does what it’s supposed to.

  • http://evologynow.wordpress.com Evology Now

    I almost forgot how good XP was!…Is!

  • http://www.survivaltime.org Troy Billington

    I have always had a rule for upgrades, wait 6 months to a year, let the bugs get worked out. Now this downgrade option, think I’ll take it and replace the VISTA on here and get back to something more stable.

  • Bob S.

    I’m seriously trying to understand what the point is to using Windows 7…I upgraded to 7 Premium to be able to use XP Compatability mode so that I could use my old dependable software, but it still really sucks. All the flashy windows and effects mean nothing to me because I can’t be productive without my old software.

  • Salami bin Throbbin

    XP is the only operating system since 3.1 that functions smoothly. If MS wants to slow the out migration to Apple, they need to keep XP alive and healthy.

  • forget

    xp is great, as a rule of thumb, do NOT upgrade yr computer with a newer op system,
    in most cases, the newer op sys usually required more resources & power than what
    yr computer has. so if u keep them the way they are when u bought the computer,
    rarely do u run into problems…my e-machine xp from early 2000 still works fine
    for what i need it to do, it’s a production machine (we make things with it) and i love it,
    it just works!

  • VICB3

    Vista is (was) crap. Windows 7 is crap a well. Installed Windows 7 Ultimate on my mom’s machine – high end gaming laptop BTW – to try and speed it up. No real improvement.

    Just bought a new netbook for myself. The fact that it was XP cinched the deal. Spoke with a woman about here new netbook about W7. (She had dumped a cup of coffee on here old XP netbook and this was a replacment.) Her verdict: W7 is WAAAAAYYY slower. Made my buy decision easier.

    Every one I buttonhole about Windows 7 says the same thing.

    Can’t help thining that W7 is just a Vista POS in a new bag. Microsoft ought to have stayed with XP and added useful features eg flash drive treated as RAM.

    Can’t wait for the day some smart kid in Russia/China/Thailand/India/Bumfuck cracks the source code and exposes MS for the compromised, backdoor laden POS it really is.

    (Can you imagine what a Mozilla operating system might be like, esp. it it was MS/Apple compatible??? Stable, Secure. Let you imagination run wild.)

    Just a thought.

    VicB3

  • gmathol

    OS aren’t as important as applications which are available for them – period.

    XP runs on 512 MB PC just fine – especial if you switch of the XP Style graphic.
    VISTA the same get rid of the VISTA annoying graphic interface and zip it runs fast and it should
    with 4 GB and 2 core processor power.
    Windows 7 runs ok, but wait a minute my old stuff has to run in XP mode?

    Hmm, so I came to the following conclusion – Sun/Oracle Virtualbox or Microsoft Virtual PC. Of course Microsoft Virtual PC runs only on Windows OS but I still need OS/2 to run inside. Sun/Oracle Virtualbox supports differn Unix ports, all Windows OS inclusive DOS not so much OS/2 but the 3.2 version let you install the Mac Leopard.
    Sun Virtualbox OS installations like Windows, Linux etc. can be exported and can run on all kind of PC’s, Laptops, within in 15-30 Minutes inclusive all the applications.

    Try and have fun.

  • http://www.maxfx.tv Mad Max

    I have had XP Pro since 2000 (came with my old computer) two years ago upgraded to a laptop (designed for XP) tried Windows Vista (Rubbish). Tried Windows 7 Ultimate, Rubbish!!!
    I write small applications in Delphi5 and found that W7 could not read my dll files containing icons, that was just one of the problems, also slow like you wouldn’t believe.
    Please Bill Gates, let’s go back to XP, maybe enhance it a bit but cut the lousy graphics, thyey’re not even cool, man.
    luv y’all
    Mad Max

  • http://myspace.com/cannaman Will Hannon

    Translation: Im too cheap to buy a new computer

  • dan

    All of these comments are from people living in the past.

    Good luck finding drivers for anything current in 2011! :-)

  • Jeff

    I have to agree and disagree with most everyone. As Windows XP is absolutely amazing, was and is still a very fast and semi bare-bones OS (compared to Vista lol), its days are done. It cant handle true 64 bit capabilities, its code is severely limited to computing across dual, let alone quad cores. It cant process a correct amount of RAM past 3 gigs. Dont get me wrong, its definitely up there as the best OS of the past.
    I have to give it to Windows 7 though. With a reformat and reinstall time of 20-30 mins max, faster boot up times then all previous Windows and trimmed down extras (again compared to bogged down Vista) it is just better for today’s newer computers. It can accurately handle dual and quad threads with ease, more gigs of ram then you even need and a TRUE 64 bit system. I have moved on to Windows 7 in all my computers. It has even shown itself to run better then XP on low end systems. Old school FX chips and even have it running on a old 1.2 Celeron with 1 gig of RAM.
    I do and always will love XP. But with the versatility and compatibility with hardware, I have to now say Windows 7 is my new pick.

  • Jesus Manson

    If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

    For only $50, I recently bought a 3.0 GHz Dell computer from the local Goodwill. It has 1 GB of RAM and I installed XP (with a bigger hard drive).

    Don’t be fooled by all the Windows 7 hype. It’s great if you want to fancier stuff. But Windows “7″ requires more computer power just to run the same damn browser (which is what most of you are going to spend your time in, anyways). YOU DON’T NEED WINDOWS 7. NOPE.

    XP, you are tried and true. All the major software is still out there for XP.

    W7 is just Vista 2.0.
    Don’t believe me? Just look up the version of Windows 7 within the OS = it says ‘Windows 6.1″.

    Vista was Windows 6.

    • http://www.google.com JOE

      @Jesus Manson
      Wow $50. Of course with a computer that shitty it doesn’t even matter what OS you put on there now does it? You could even put in Linux there and you know Linux is faster than both OSes. Wait , never mind, i take that back. You sound like someone who doesn’t even know how to turn on your computer. You could keep preaching XP > 7 but the fact is that XP is dead. Windows 7 is good and it is what Vista should’ve been.

      “Windows “7″ requires more computer power just to run the same damn browser (which is what most of you are going to spend your time in, anyways).”

      Wow…really? You should’ve said Windows 7 can deliver more computer power. I had a computer that was even worse than yours – 512MB ram and 2 something GHz cpu. AMD Athlon something. but I installed Win7 on it and disabled Aero and the OS was fast. As fast, if not faster, than XP.
      You say that most of us are going to spend our time in a web browser?

  • anonymous

    Windows 7 is just like Vista. Tons of features removed and broken. Poor usability. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_7 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_Vista . Unnecessary GUI changes. It would be much more intelligent (and probably much harder to do) innovation to improve Windows without changing the GUI. But changing the cosmetics has mainly one purpose: to conceal, that nothing really new happened. Vista was innonative but horrible and removed things. Windows 7 is Vista with two or three features and again tons removed.