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Windows XP Pro: Best Windows Desktop Operating System Ever

Windows XP Pro: Best Windows Desktop Operating System Ever

Postby Grav!ty » Sun Aug 02, 2009 6:39 pm

Windows XP Professional: Best Windows Desktop Operating System Ever


Face it, there has never been as good an Operating System as Windows XP Professional. It's endured for eight going on nine years already. I'm not including Windows Server 2003 modded for desktop use or XP Professional X64. They're a different kettle of fish entirely...rock solid operating systems.

XP had bumpy origins but with the continuous stream of service packs, patches,updates that just never seemed to stop and took forever to be released, it turned out to be a solid operating system that let us do much more with our PC systems than ever before. It has it's limitations like the amount of RAM it can recognize, vulnerability to malware and open door exploits, but it just works now if one takes care of things like that with third party software. There are probably at this point more applications, device drivers, utilities and security software available for it than other operating system. I don't think even Mac OS and other Linux distributions have the same range of availability.

The jury is not yet in on Windows 7 although it's a big improvement on Windows Vista. By Microsoft's own admission, Vista was a failure like that of Windows ME. The stability of Windows 7 is an improvement and there are enhancements in Windows 7, many yet to be fully explored and appreciated. It also is less hardware demanding, but remains subject to many of the same Vista limitations. Most software vendors have Vista compatible versions that will work with and run on Windows 7. I may be wrong about Windows 7 64-Bit not having used it yet, but nothing I've seen lets me think signed device drivers are no longer an issue. These niggles will be overcome in time though.

It's going to be interesting to find out whether Windows 7 will endure as long as Windows XP. I wonder what's in store for us all after that. The thought of "cloud computing" gives me the creeps.
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Re: Windows XP Pro: Best Windows Desktop Operating System Ever

Postby mnemonicj » Sun Aug 02, 2009 10:47 pm

I think the reason that Windows XP had a rocky start was because many of the people that were switching to XP were switching from Windows 98 and many programs and drivers were incompatible. I used Windows 2000 for over a year before I switched to Windows XP, so switching was very easy since almost every program and driver was compatible.
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Re: Windows XP Pro: Best Windows Desktop Operating System Ever

Postby JabbaPapa » Mon Aug 03, 2009 12:56 am

Hehe, as usual Graham we're going to have to agree to disagree on the topic of Windows XP :P

In my opinion, the "best" Windows prior to W7 was W95. W95 was rock-solid, and had a very tight codebase, and it was most importantly, an utterly revolutionary Operating system.

XP's best feature IMO was Service Pack 2 -- and Microsoft sacrificed a HECK of a lot by not releasing SP2 as a new Windows version. This is the Windows release that took the internet into adulthood, let's never forget it...

XP has several other positive qualities -- but personally, I just can't stand it !! :P

It is the only mainstream Windows version of the past 15 years that I have not deliberately sought to obtain a copy of -- and the copies of XP MCE 2005 that I have were actually given to me by MS unsolicited LOL

I do not find it to be particularly stable ; Of course it is clearly more stable than any W9x/Me version, but this is a feature of NTFS versus FAT32 more than anything else.

If asked to choose between XP and Vista, it would depend somewhat for which computer, but in most cases I would choose Vista, despite this version's three major issues : 1) the longstanding desktop interface bug which often causes applications to run m.u.c.h. m.o.o.o.r.e. s.l.l.o.o.o.o.o.o.w.w.w.l.l.y.y.y.y.y.y on screen than they ought to... 2) that Intel was successful in imposing that certain XP-era hardware of theirs was oficially "Vista-compatible" rather than being outdated ... 3) as you suggested, the overly stringent hardware requirements

I just find that Vista feels more intuitive and less clunky than XP

Device Drivers signatures have not been that much of a problem for several moths now -- They should certainly not be a problem in W7.

In my opinion, W7 just completely blows its predecessors out of the water.
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Re: Windows XP Pro: Best Windows Desktop Operating System Ever

Postby shreader » Mon Aug 03, 2009 1:26 am

On test rig:
In my Xp X64 OS my 3COM 3c940 Gbit ethernet is broken but can be fixed using a self decorated driver.

In Vista x64 SP2 the 3COM decorated driver wont work & there are none available, last time I checked, so no internet w/o another card.

In Windows 7 RC x64 the 3COM ethernet driver is included w/ the OS install & works great.

On Main rig:
I cant wait for my Windows 7 RTM copies & hopefully the XP Mode will RTM soon also (I may need that for 1- app. that wont run in W7 x64, but runs in XP x86 & W7 x86 but not Vista x86).
I plan on installing both W7 x86 & x64 & dump XP & Vista.
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Re: Windows XP Pro: Best Windows Desktop Operating System Ever

Postby mnemonicj » Mon Aug 03, 2009 2:00 am

JabbaPapa wrote:Hehe, as usual Graham we're going to have to agree to disagree on the topic of Windows XP :P

In my opinion, the "best" Windows prior to W7 was W95. W95 was rock-solid, and had a very tight codebase, and it was most importantly, an utterly revolutionary Operating system.


Ugh! Windows 95 was my least favorite operating system. I used it for a short time personally and I have never had so many BSODs since I got rid of it (I have has less BSODs in 98, 2000, XP, Vista, and 7 combined than 95). My first professional job was also behind the ball in 2002 and still had everyone on Windows 95 clients. I would use the mouse to scroll through a program and would get a BSOD and it wasn't the program's fault because it happened on every program (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Explorer, IE, Visual Basic 6.0, etc.).

Windows 98 was better, but BSODs still happened too often, so I went with 2000 on my personal computer and never went back. I was using my new Windows XP machine at home for 4 months before I was forced to use Windows 95 at my job. Finally a year later they upgraded to 2000 and everyone was much happier.
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Re: Windows XP Pro: Best Windows Desktop Operating System Ever

Postby JabbaPapa » Mon Aug 03, 2009 7:15 am

mnemonicj wrote:Ugh! Windows 95 was my least favorite operating system. I used it for a short time personally ...


It does sound as if you were using it past sell-by date, though.

It was *great* in 1995-1997, but it did not work so well after the ATX form factor (and associated hardware) and Windows 98 were released.

Despite the quality of the product, it had some inherent limitations which basically made it unusable after around 1998-1999 -- particularly its hardware and its security limitations.

W98 though started the trend by Microsoft to release more and more bloated versions of Windows, often at the expense of stability -- and I think that Microsoft's two big stability-focused and stability-centric releases, XP SP2 and W7, have been the best work they have ever done, apart from the revolutionary and seminal work that they did on W95.
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Re: Windows XP Pro: Best Windows Desktop Operating System Ever

Postby Grav!ty » Mon Aug 03, 2009 8:24 am

I used DOS (no idea which version) for letters and spread sheets from the mid 1980's to early 1990's, saving my documents on 5.25 floppy disks, and then got a system with Windows 3.1 around 1994 and WOW, what a difference that made to using a PC. It also had a built in modem and I got my first rather disappointing glimpse of the internet. All one could get on the net at that time, at least where I was, was access to some research educational institutions...boring. I must say that the basic structure of Windows via Windows Explorer has changed little since then, even through to Windows 7. That's the reason I think it remains the dominant OS...familiarity being continued along the releases.

That Windows 3.1 system, a Siemens with a 33 MHz CPU with *Turbo Charge* mind you :roleeyes I kept until about 1997 when I got a Intel Celeron 250 MHz system built for me with Windows 95. The launch of Windows 95 was a huge event here with a massive street marketing and media campaign. For days there were students passing out flyers at traffic lights. It didn't take long before I upgraded to Windows 98 probably 2001 and gave the old Siemens, modded with a CD drive mounted on top and with Windows 95 installed to a girl friend.

Windows 98 SE saw me through around 2003 mainly because the cost of upgrading software I needed for my business to XP was really high. I got a P4 2.4 GHz with XP Pro and by then I had ADSL available. The net sure had progressed by then. When I joined PRO in 2004 I was still using the P4 and had heard of "Longhorn". It was a google search for that, which brought me here. I'm still stuck on Windows XP :eek: Honestly I see no compelling reason to move from it yet.
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Re: Windows XP Pro: Best Windows Desktop Operating System Ever

Postby NT50 » Mon Aug 03, 2009 11:44 am

I will be moving form Vista to W7 as soon as it is released. As for dropping my XP, I don't see it happening anytime soon. I am going to try to use W7 for everything at the beginning including my COD4, and Ventrilo. Now if I can not get my COD4 to hit the high FPS that I am getting now and without crashing, I will stick with it. But if it does not run well then I still have my trusty XP64 on the second hard drive. All it will take is the three files and a little magic with VistaBootPro.
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Re: Windows XP Pro: Best Windows Desktop Operating System Ever

Postby mido.813 » Mon Aug 03, 2009 1:54 pm

vista is better in the Internet and it's theme is boring after some months of using
Linux is too bad I hate it

I have a Hard Disk WD 6GB with windows 98 on it ^*^
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Re: Windows XP Pro: Best Windows Desktop Operating System Ever

Postby yeshuas » Mon Aug 03, 2009 2:31 pm

To me the worst version of Windows was ME
Game Over!!!!!!!!
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