Before everyone loved XP, they hated it.


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Many users here ( and even more that you may support) have looked back upon XP as the greatest OS to come out of Redmond. But very few remember that before XP was loved, it was hated. In fact, it was more than hated, users loathed it. WGA (product activation), the Luna theme, and numerous other technologies had users in a fury, ready to pounce on Redmond as if they were a misbehaving child not listening to their mother (customers), in much the same way users are now with Windows 8. Thanks to the Flux Capacitor we know as the Internet, traces of the frustration can still be found. Ars Technica writer Peter Bright (@DrPizza) brought forth some of that evidence in a new article of his. 

 

Ready for a trip down memory lane? Let's take a look... Memory lane: before everyone loved Windows XP, they hated it!

 

 

 

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I remember switching from W2000 as soon as RC1(or possibly RC2) was released, just for the media features. Having said that, WGA (genuine advantage...yeah, right... :rolleyes: ) remains an awful idea, and the Luna theme really did and does make XP look like a Fisher-Price toy. But I don't actually seem to remember a reception that was in any way similar to the one that 8 got. 

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Hated it.  Didn't get passable till SP2, and still wasn't a fan of it's ability to cheese me off at every turn.  Especially liked how Explorer would randomly seize up or crash on a whim, even better when it left "trails" all over the screen.  Spent more time in BSD and Linux during those years, although they won me back bigtime with 7.

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Yup, lots hated it until severel updates came out.  Same will be said for Win8 probably, but not after several updates.  Which is MS problem.  They cant release a good OS from the start and have to go back and make corrections.

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Not me, I hated 2000 and ME, XP was a godsend compared to those (for me at least)

 

(That, and this site, where I found all sorts of tech help reading posts when I did run into problems)

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I remember saving up money to switch my eMachines eOne from Windows 98 to XP. Still to this day remember how ###### I was that, I couldn't get any drivers to install or find any drivers and had to revert back to 98SE. Loved XP when I finally got my Sony Vaio a year later, but remember how quick I ditched the Luna theme

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No offense, but some of those reasons are very weak.  The "Luna" theme could easily be disabled and you could use schemes similar to Windows 9x. The Windows activation...well...it is what it is and hasn't changed since.  The other growing pain was going to the NT kernel...but once again...that is what it is.  Windows 8, on the other hand, made unnecessary changes and forced a Frankenstein mash up of mobile and desktop interfaces.  Where as Windows XP was a success (by all accounts and longevity), Windows 8 is becoming the next Windows ME.  Granted, with each Windows 8 update they are improving it and with the return of the start menu and hopefully the ability to bury Metro into a deep dark pit where it belongs (for me anyways).

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I loved it. I said at the time "it was the best OS yet". Until Win 7. I'm speaking of stability and security. Xp was the end of Blue screens for me with the exception of a hardware issue from time to time. With Win ME Microsoft should have paid me for the blue screens I received. 

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XP wasn't much of a usage/workflow change for people who migrated from 95, 98, or 2K.

You consistently see harsh resistance when something alters workflow. UAC is an example. So is integrated search as a way of launching programs.

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I started using it right away coming from Windows 98se. I was one of the lucky ones to not run into any major hardware issues. Was using a Pentium 3 800mhz w/ 256MB RAM Compaq Presario 5k. The increased resource usage prompted me to move to 512MB rather quickly and then to 1GB a couple years later.

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I loved it but then I came from windows ME which would crash at least twice a day. :|

 

That is also my memory of the Windows ME to XP.  ME was horrible whereas XP was nice and stable.  A few weeks before XP was released I put together a new computer (Athlon XP 1500?) and in while waiting I had ME on there....horrible.  Before that Athlon computer I think I had been running ME on an older Intel Pentium II something something...but yea...it also crashed more than 98 which it had replaced.  XP to me ended the frustration of random bluescreens and lock ups.

 

That Windows XP royale noir theme was also really nice.

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I installed XP as soon as betas were available (to replace 2000, which was already a pretty drastic improvement over NT4), changed the theme to Windows Classic, and liked it just fine from there on.

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XP was awesome for me back in the day. Never disliked anything, except the lousy Luna theme. Always used em3's theme and Konfabulator to dress it up. I miss the days when you could easily customize Windows. Admittedly, I'd probably not bother now, beyond wallpaper.

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I miss the days when you could easily customize Windows. Admittedly, I'd probably not bother now, beyond wallpaper.

Me too, but I too, have reached the point where I need my OS to "just work." Admittedly, I just don't have the time anymore to invest in customizing as I once had.  

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I remember talking to a friend of mine that got an early XP computer that had 1Gb of ram and 32Mb graphics card on it and he kept telling me how the computer was blazing fast but he could not use any of his accessories because they were not supported on the new "Xtreamly Poor" version of Windows. and that he didnt have as much customizability with the OS than the previous versions.

 

and to this day he is still using XP because he does not want to upgrade to the newer versions because they take up too much system resources lol.

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I miss the days when you could easily customize Windows. Admittedly, I'd probably not bother now, beyond wallpaper.

You still can.. what can't be customized now? Still can change the visual style, icons, sounds, cursors, hell even the shell itself, add all sorts of fluff, just like before, no harder than it was in XP.

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win xp always ran great for me, especially if you had a good amount of ram

but for me windows 7 actually crashes waaay more than xp ever did

i do miss many features xp has, windows 7 does slow down my work flow

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Hated it.  Didn't get passable till SP2, and still wasn't a fan of it's ability to cheese me off at every turn.  Especially liked how Explorer would randomly seize up or crash on a whim, even better when it left "trails" all over the screen.  Spent more time in BSD and Linux during those years, although they won me back bigtime with 7.

That is what a LOT of Windows 2000 Professional fanatics said about XP.  (I was a beta-tester of XP while using 2000 Professional at work.)  However, one thing XP Pro DID have was the "Classic Menu" option - other than the base Luna theme, it was identical to Windows 2000 Professional.  However, what horked off a lot of folks about XP was driver issues - especially with non-discrete GPUs (onboard video especially gave XP testers, and early users, fits).  I had pretty much stuck with discrete GPUs by then anyway - which was why I didn't have that issue with any Microsoft OS since Windows 3.x.

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Yeah I remember those days.  Most people really liked Windows ME, despite how unstable it was.  Users didn't care for XP.  They didn't like the look of it.  "Who made this?  Fisher Price?"  Their devices didn't work right.  They couldn't print.  Etc. 

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It didn't help that XP (by default) had a child-like animated dog performing your searches...

 

xp_search_dog.jpg

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