IT Professionals

Windows XP To Again Compete With Newest Version Of Windows?

Posted by on Jun 22, 2009 | One Comment

On so many levels, I think that Windows 7 is going to be a trip. From the OS being able to run on machines running as little as 96-128 MBs of RAM to trying to correct the dog performance I found happening with Vista on PCs right out of the store. In short, it’s likely to be Microsoft’s new standard. Sort of like XP was after Windows Me. It just hits all the right bases, assuming the driver releases are fairly smooth as the OS launches.

But when looking at the fact that some Windows 7 functionality is obtainable on an XP system, it has me wondering what it’s going to take to get casual PC users to upgrade off of XP finally? Stopping the updates altogether is one approach. But considering how many people out there are still running unpatched systems, I am not all that sure this is enough by itself.

Maybe what it will take is simply waiting for people to upgrade their systems outside of the fact the existing ones are not running as well as they used to. Speaking as a guy who used to be in PC repair, I can tell you that many home users would sooner drop $300-500 on a new Dell than pay my old rates.

What do you think? We know Windows 7 is looking pretty good. Can it finally help non-geek users put XP to bed?

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  • Christopher

    Its sad to Mr. Hartley jumping on the Win 7 groupie bandwagon. I find it interesting and telling that history is being rewritten when it is asserted that Win XP followed Win ME. Firstly anyone stuck with Win ME was either a fool or without media access. The only viable upgrade from Win 98SE was Win 2K.

    When Win XP hit the street, it was akin to Vista, slow as molasses in January, buggy as hell, needed new, unavailable drivers and generally dissed by industry media as a great boondoggle and oft compared to Win ME.

    When Vista was on the horizon, as with every MS release, popular media, dutifully ensured their flow of MS dollars by saying nice things about and focusing coverage on the gee whiz interface and few other positive features. The pattern has been consistent, dis a new OS, after its been foisted on system builders and the public, whilst singing its praises while in development.

    No article discussing MS OS’s should fail to point out that since DOS, MS has always lagged behind in functionality and feature development and when they do release a new OS, it is always unstable, unreliable, slower than previous generations. As with XP, it takes years of patches, fixes and service packs to get the OS to where it is finally out of what anyone else would deem beta and finally reasonably functional.

    Win 7 is essentially Vista, release candidate 2. It is, in effect a the rework that should have been done before Vista was pushed into the world, considerably premature. After this many years it is foolish and unconscionable to suggest that anything coming out of MS will actually work, on initial release.

    It is equally important to point out that all the problems and motivation for changes to OS’s has been to assure a steady flow of income to company which is shows absolutely no integrity or commitment to customer service or providing good value.