is XP SP3 still a good OS for today's computing?

[Nguyen07]

wow, i didnt know i was going to start an OS war here ... oppsie :blush:

[eilegz]

for OLD hardware its recommended to stay with XP, computer with less than 2gb of ram its recommended to stay with windows xp too, (like those netbooks)

[nub]

Just look at the memory and disk access performance logs. XP wins hands down. Uses less then half the memory, and disk access is significantly less frequent too.

Windows 7 utilizes memory different. If half of your memory is not being used, then its not doing anything for you.

Your name fits your argument quite well.

[Frylock86]

Why waste money buying an OS when you can use it to upgrade the machine's components instead? It's certainly better value for money.

Really? Why is that?

Hold your horses batman. XP has the greatest marketshare of all windows versions, thus it also has the best driver/software support, and the most developers producing software for it.

Wishful thinking...

The last time I checked, the "consumer" as you call him, can do anything he likes, including installing XP on a 12GB memory, quadcore cpu, and a SLI graphics configuration if he so wishes. Quit with the proselytisation already. By all means make a recommendation, but there is no one prescription for preferred OS's. He can use XP, Ubuntu, or whatever he likes ;)

You'd be trollin'. I see what you're doing thar. :boo:

[sc302 Veteran]

Plus you didn't add the cost of a business making sure all their software are compatible with the new version of Windows. At my work we have many many applications that needs to be tested and some of them even need to be updated so they'll run properly....and that's expensive and probably a good reason why we're still running XP

1yr of R&D with who knows how many people need to be involved as there can be many specialists designated to work with many applications. The whole IT staff could end up working with that and anyone can hold up the go/no go status for months.

[Jan Veteran]

Hold your horses batman. XP has the greatest marketshare of all windows versions, thus it also has the best driver/software support, and the most developers producing software for it.

Only due to the fact that Vista took 5 years to come out.

And anyway, most developers are developing for Windows 7 and Windows Vista exclusively due to the brand new features.

[BajiRav]

It doesn't make any sense whatsoever to use XP instead of 7 if you are building/buying a new computer. As for systems that came with XP? :/ it's better if you can upgrade as Windows 7 beats XP (not surprisingly) in all regards. If using a laptop, then Win7 is a no brainer.

One major feature that I like on Windows 7 is how good it is at memory management (even Vista was) compared to XP. XP can't multi task like 7 does. Then add docking/undocking of laptop and XP feels like a sore loser.

[.Neo]

Why are many around here so extremely obsessed with memory usage? You have these people with 4, 6, 8 or more GB of memory who start to complain when the operating system and applications actually make use of it. For some weird reason that's completely beyond me they want to have RAM sit idle 95% of the time instead of it being put to good use.

Sometimes it goes as far as them installing Windows XP on a Core i7 rig because they think it's light on resources and will make their PCs run faster compared to Windows 7, when in fact the 10-year old operating system will only waste their state-of-the-art hardware away.

I have 8 GB of memory installed and couldn't care less about how much the OS or my browser is using. I know when I start opening other applications the OS will automatically reallocate it if necessary. Today's modern operating systems don't require me to worry about it. Free memory is only being wasted away.

[Frylock86]

Hold your horses batman. XP has the greatest marketshare of all windows versions, thus it also has the best driver/software support, and the most developers producing software for it.

Windows XP only has 3 more percentage points than 7 does in the US. I'm expecting that XP will drop below 7 in the next month.

Worldwide, XP still has the lead, but is quickly dropping. Currently it has dropped below 50%.

In the UK, Win7 has already surpassed WinXP.

You're argument is flawed. XP will drop below or already has dropped below Win7 in a month or two. :cool:

[Rigby]

Why are many around here so extremely obsessed with memory usage? You have these people with 4, 6, 8 or more GB of memory who start to complain when the operating system and applications actually make use of it. For some weird reason that's completely beyond me they want to have RAM sit idle 95% of the time instead of it being put to good use.

Sometimes it goes as far as them installing Windows XP on a Core i7 rig because they think it's light on resources and will make their PCs run faster compared to Windows 7, when in fact the 10-year old operating system will only waste their state-of-the-art hardware away.

They're the same people who used to use those "memory optimizer" programs to free up their memory (in other words dump the RAM contents to the page file and cripple their system performance). In other words, morons. :laugh:

Free memory = wasted memory. If you don't want it used you may as well remove it and throw it in the trash.

[.Neo]

They must be the type of people who only buy memory so they can look cool. :laugh:

[Frylock86]

I think people here seem to think more RAM = faster machine/CPU. I guess they seem to think that more RAM used somehow slows down their machine? Which I find curious, because it is far from the truth.

[.Neo]

A lot of people don't really know what they're talking about in the first and just repeat what they heard from other misinformed people on the streets of online to look intelligent without reading up on the subject themselves.

[sc302 Veteran]

I think people here seem to think more RAM = faster machine/CPU. I guess they seem to think that more RAM used somehow slows down their machine? Which I find curious, because it is far from the truth.

how so? Please explain the logic you see behind this. BTW this is far from the truth.

[Frylock86]

how so? Please explain the logic you see behind this. BTW this is far from the truth.

I'm getting a vibe that a few users here truly believe less RAM usage somehow is better. In the case of the OP, he is using 4GB of RAM in his machine, yet some believe if you go above 500MB or 1GB that somehow is bad and needs "fixed".

[sc302 Veteran]

Oh, I thought you meant adding more ram to the system would not show performance. That is how I read it.

[Udedenkz]

XP is a pathetic, fugly, ancient, insecure, unproductive and completely unusable OS. Here are a few reasons why XP is so pathetic compared to Windows 7:

1. XP has a horrible and incredibly fugly UI. Every time I look at the pathetic XP UI, I feel sick.

2. XP is a usability nightmare. It has a pathetic search system compared to Windows 7. There are no breadcrumb bars, no stacks, no libraries, no start menu search. The list goes on and on.

3. XP is the most insecure OS of ALL time. 99.9% of the security issues of the world are because of XP.

4. XP has pathetic memory management. With any system with over 1 GB RAM, XP is horribly inefficient. It can't handle that RAM at all. On the other hand Windows 7 utilizes the extra RAM for increasing performance.

5. XP can't handle 4GB RAM. Don't mention XP 64-bit as it has NO driver support at all, and is horribly instable.

6. XP has PATHETIC driver support. NO NEW PC's bought in the last 2 years has drivers for XP. On the other hand Windows 7 has excellent driver support.

7. XP has PATHETIC performance issues. Use XP for more than a couple of months, and the system gets almost unusably slow. Try to run 3 or 4 memory intensive programs simultaneously, and the system will crash/BSOD immediately.

Because of those reasons, XP has been COMPLETELY dead in the developed world.

1. XP now has only 40% market share according to Wikipedia. Vista/7 combined has much more than that. At current rate, by the end of 2011 it will fall below 25%.

2. XP has less than 35% market share in the developed world like North America, Europe and Oceania. Windows 7 is the SINGLE MOST POPULAR OS in these countries.

3. XP has about 87% market share in CHINA where 99% of systems run on pirated OS.

4. XP is dead as dodo in EVERY CIVILISED country in the world.

5. Windows 7 is the FASTEST SELLING OS in the history of computing with over 300 MILLION COPIES sold within first 15 months of release.

Because of these reasons only clueless people will decide to run XP in 2011. Windows 7 FTW. Microsoft FTW.

1. Interface works just fine, not great but fine. You do realize that you can customize XP interface, right (please don't tell me you wrote that thinking luna theme!!)? If you want something pulled out of someones @$$ try Ubuntu.

2. Some of that can be fixed with third party applications. XP has a hidden gem called "Classic Search" which is by far one of the best search tools I have ever seen in any OS to date - it is fast and doesn't search inside files. W7 search is nowhere as fast sadly.

3. Most security issues are a matter of intelligence. Being fooled by popups, getting popups, not using no script, not updating your software, not locking down the system, etc. Also XP is NOT the most insecure OS of all time. For example, I kill of UAC at its root (I kill the driver itself) and I never had any issues with this, it is user dependent really - therefore obviously Average Users (or as I call them, dum dums) would benefit from W7 babysitting.

4. This is quite misinformed. XP has good memory management. It requires less memory than W7 (memory that cannot be freed, NOT 'superfech') to run, thus offers more memory to the applications. Additionally, just like W7, XP caches dynamic link libraries used by the recently closed applications in memory - coined term, warm boot. The only difference is superfetch, but here is the kicker - XP starts applications as fast as W7 anyway (I tested this one a few setups, even my AMD rig).

5. You are an obvious troll if you think that XP x86_64 is unstable. XP x86_64 is as stable as a rock, support 4+ GB RAM, and doesn't have the backwards compatibility security issues of 32-bit XP. I bet you never even ran XP x86_64 or 2003 x86_64 OS, I did and I loved it!

6. Bull Sh*t! Bull Sh*t! Even dumb for loosers like AMD, you can eventually find XP compatible drivers to the present day! And NVIDIA still supports x86_64 XP.

7. Why do I get the feeling that I am talking to a troll? I ran Crysis x86_64 on my XP x86_64 (forgot if I had 4 or 2 GB RAM) and had defragmenter running on the other partition, guess what happened? I eventually got bored of Cryrysis.

There are many advantaged to W7. Many of them can be mimicked with additional applications in XP, many of them cannot.

But, screaming out loud that W7 is better than your wife in bed doesn't give you any rep points.

[Nguyen07]

1. Interface works just fine, not great but fine. You do realize that you can customize XP interface, right (please don't tell me you wrote that thinking luna theme!!)? If you want something pulled out of someones @$$ try Ubuntu.

2. Some of that can be fixed with third party applications. XP has a hidden gem called "Classic Search" which is by far one of the best search tools I have ever seen in any OS to date - it is fast and doesn't search inside files. W7 search is nowhere as fast sadly.

3. Most security issues are a matter of intelligence. Being fooled by popups, getting popups, not using no script, not updating your software, not locking down the system, etc. Also XP is NOT the most insecure OS of all time. For example, I kill of UAC at its root (I kill the driver itself) and I never had any issues with this, it is user dependent really - therefore obviously Average Users (or as I call them, dum dums) would benefit from W7 babysitting.

4. This is quite misinformed. XP has good memory management. It requires less memory than W7 (memory that cannot be freed, NOT 'superfech') to run, thus offers more memory to the applications. Additionally, just like W7, XP caches dynamic link libraries used by the recently closed applications in memory - coined term, warm boot. The only difference is superfetch, but here is the kicker - XP starts applications as fast as W7 anyway (I tested this one a few setups, even my AMD rig).

5. You are an obvious troll if you think that XP x86_64 is unstable. XP x86_64 is as stable as a rock, support 4+ GB RAM, and doesn't have the backwards compatibility security issues of 32-bit XP. I bet you never even ran XP x86_64 or 2003 x86_64 OS, I did and I loved it!

6. Bull Sh*t! Bull Sh*t! Even dumb for loosers like AMD, you can eventually find XP compatible drivers to the present day! And NVIDIA still supports x86_64 XP.

7. Why do I get the feeling that I am talking to a troll? I ran Crysis x86_64 on my XP x86_64 (forgot if I had 4 or 2 GB RAM) and had defragmenter running on the other partition, guess what happened? I eventually got bored of Cryrysis.

There are many advantaged to W7. Many of them can be mimicked with additional applications in XP, many of them cannot.

But, screaming out loud that W7 is better than your wife in bed doesn't give you any rep points.

wow, nice argument

[Windsinger]

Honestly XP is still your best bet if you like legacy support. I tried W7 for a month and found it was very unstable for my needs. While I did like all the eye candy, I found that it didnt serve me that well when my programs wouldn't run (or run sporatically). And it took me twice as long to find things in windows explorer. And just so you know, W7 is Steve Balmer's baby..not Gates. And it shows!

[BajiRav]

1. Interface works just fine, not great but fine. You do realize that you can customize XP interface, right (please don't tell me you wrote that thinking luna theme!!)? If you want something pulled out of someones @$$ try Ubuntu.

2. Some of that can be fixed with third party applications. XP has a hidden gem called "Classic Search" which is by far one of the best search tools I have ever seen in any OS to date - it is fast and doesn't search inside files. W7 search is nowhere as fast sadly.

3. Most security issues are a matter of intelligence. Being fooled by popups, getting popups, not using no script, not updating your software, not locking down the system, etc. Also XP is NOT the most insecure OS of all time. For example, I kill of UAC at its root (I kill the driver itself) and I never had any issues with this, it is user dependent really - therefore obviously Average Users (or as I call them, dum dums) would benefit from W7 babysitting.

4. This is quite misinformed. XP has good memory management. It requires less memory than W7 (memory that cannot be freed, NOT 'superfech') to run, thus offers more memory to the applications. Additionally, just like W7, XP caches dynamic link libraries used by the recently closed applications in memory - coined term, warm boot. The only difference is superfetch, but here is the kicker - XP starts applications as fast as W7 anyway (I tested this one a few setups, even my AMD rig).

5. You are an obvious troll if you think that XP x86_64 is unstable. XP x86_64 is as stable as a rock, support 4+ GB RAM, and doesn't have the backwards compatibility security issues of 32-bit XP. I bet you never even ran XP x86_64 or 2003 x86_64 OS, I did and I loved it!

6. Bull Sh*t! Bull Sh*t! Even dumb for loosers like AMD, you can eventually find XP compatible drivers to the present day! And NVIDIA still supports x86_64 XP.

7. Why do I get the feeling that I am talking to a troll? I ran Crysis x86_64 on my XP x86_64 (forgot if I had 4 or 2 GB RAM) and had defragmenter running on the other partition, guess what happened? I eventually got bored of Cryrysis.

There are many advantaged to W7. Many of them can be mimicked with additional applications in XP, many of them cannot.

But, screaming out loud that W7 is better than your wife in bed doesn't give you any rep points.

Killing UAC is dumb to say the least. Using UAC doesn't make you "an average user" or "dumb user" or something like that.

[Flawed]

Ugh this is BS. If you are so sure about running XP on today's hardware, then why not you try running Windows 3.1 or 95 (not the OSR 1/2.x) on your "most modern PC ever"?

*lends ear, hears silence*

XP has 50% marketshare. What does 3.1 or 95 have? What does 7 have? Developers and companies go where the users are, not where your preference lies, therefore your analogy is flawed.

Quite frankly, MS really should have abandoned XP after Vista is released and NOT extend XP support after SP2 (but noooo due to the so-called tech "pundits" that cling to XP ... quite pathetic).

And alienate 60% of their users? I don't think even Microsoft is that stupid, hence the reoccurring support extensions.

As for the case of IE9 on XP, this is falling on deaf ears. MS is not going to listen, because IE9 uses hardware acceleration, a feature available only on Vista and above. XP uses the CPU to render graphics, which is a 2000-2001 technology. Vista from 2006 and ahead uses the graphics card to render the GUI, which in fact puts the burden OFF the CPU. A big fat "Duh" moment.

Does anyone still care about IE? lol. I thought everyone had moved to Firefox, Chrome, or Opera by now. Seriously, your whole argument rests on a desire to update to IE9! XP doesn't need to do 3d composition through the graphics card because it doesn't have the eye candy that Linux has with compiz or 7/vista with aero has. Besides, XP does do hardware accelerated 2d rendering, which is good enough for it's UI demands. Before you install your graphics driver in XP, that's software rendering, not afterwards.

This XP and Vista/7 thing has been discussed ad nauseam already. Face it, XP is old. End of discussion, period, case closed.

For you perhaps, but 50% of windows users disagree with you. I'm afraid you're out numbered my friend ;)

[AntiLuddite]

1. Interface works just fine, not great but fine. You do realize that you can customize XP interface, right (please don't tell me you wrote that thinking luna theme!!)? If you want something pulled out of someones @$$ try Ubuntu.

2. Some of that can be fixed with third party applications. XP has a hidden gem called "Classic Search" which is by far one of the best search tools I have ever seen in any OS to date - it is fast and doesn't search inside files. W7 search is nowhere as fast sadly.

3. Most security issues are a matter of intelligence. Being fooled by popups, getting popups, not using no script, not updating your software, not locking down the system, etc. Also XP is NOT the most insecure OS of all time. For example, I kill of UAC at its root (I kill the driver itself) and I never had any issues with this, it is user dependent really - therefore obviously Average Users (or as I call them, dum dums) would benefit from W7 babysitting.

4. This is quite misinformed. XP has good memory management. It requires less memory than W7 (memory that cannot be freed, NOT 'superfech') to run, thus offers more memory to the applications. Additionally, just like W7, XP caches dynamic link libraries used by the recently closed applications in memory - coined term, warm boot. The only difference is superfetch, but here is the kicker - XP starts applications as fast as W7 anyway (I tested this one a few setups, even my AMD rig).

5. You are an obvious troll if you think that XP x86_64 is unstable. XP x86_64 is as stable as a rock, support 4+ GB RAM, and doesn't have the backwards compatibility security issues of 32-bit XP. I bet you never even ran XP x86_64 or 2003 x86_64 OS, I did and I loved it!

6. Bull Sh*t! Bull Sh*t! Even dumb for loosers like AMD, you can eventually find XP compatible drivers to the present day! And NVIDIA still supports x86_64 XP.

7. Why do I get the feeling that I am talking to a troll? I ran Crysis x86_64 on my XP x86_64 (forgot if I had 4 or 2 GB RAM) and had defragmenter running on the other partition, guess what happened? I eventually got bored of Cryrysis.

There are many advantaged to W7. Many of them can be mimicked with additional applications in XP, many of them cannot.

But, screaming out loud that W7 is better than your wife in bed doesn't give you any rep points.

Wow, pathetic "arguments", those.

1. I never bought that "customization" bull****. They cause all sorts of problems, because they modify system files. I tried the Vista Transformation Pack on XP 4 years ago, and the result was horrible. My Windows Update died, and there was no way to revert to the old system without formatting. Not to mention ALL of those "customizations" are half baked, and only introduce incosistency throughout the UI. They are usability and stability nightmares.

2. XP's "classic search" feature is the worst crime ever committed against humanity. Why on earth should I have to memorize names of thousands of files on my computer to search for files? And even then it was slow as molasses. On the other hand, on Windows 7, I have my ENTIRE hard drive indexed. So I type something on the start menu search box, and within a fraction of a second the result appears. I no longer have to remember file names, or organize files. All I do is to type ANYTHING I remember about that file, and immediately it appears. It also helps me to launch applications and Control Panel applets within a fraction of a second. On XP I had to hunt the cryptic Control Panel to launch what I wanted.

3. You can say all you like about how you are a super man and never get infected with malware, but the reality is for the vast majority of users, XP's pathetic security was the sole reason for security problems. Windows 7's security is infinitely better than XP's.

4. XP DOES NOT have good memory management. Yes it shows more free RAM available. But free RAM is wasted RAM. What's the point of that if it can't use that RAM to improve performance? Windows 7 runs programs much faster than XP because it can USE those extra RAM.

5. XP 64-bit is the most instable OS I have ever tried. It has ZERO driver support and keeps crashing ALL the time.

6. On Windows 7 I don't even need to install drivers manually any more. It automatically finds those drivers for me, or offers them via Windows Update. Finding drivers for XP, and successfully installing them is a nightmare.

7. I had to reinstall XP every 4/5 months because of slow startup time and overall poor performance. On the other hand I have been running Windows 7 on my main desktop system for 20 months with absolutely no issues whatsoever. It's still incredibly fast and shows no sign of slowdown.

For you perhaps, but 50% of windows users disagree with you. I'm afraid you're out numbered my friend ;)

XP has less than 35% market share in North America, Europe and Oceania combined. Windows 7/Vista has more than 50%. So, YOU are the one who is outnumbered, unless, of course, you happen to be one of the pirated Chinese XP users.

[Rudy]

5. XP 64-bit is the most instable OS I have ever tried. It has ZERO driver support and keeps crashing ALL the time.

Are you sure you weren't running WinME? :whistle:

[Rigby]

I figured by 2011 the rabid XP luddites would have died down a little. Judging from the thread I guess not. Maybe in 2014 when Microsoft finally pulls the life support plug on the poor old dinosaur.

[Flawed]

3. You can say all you like about how you are a super man and never get infected with malware, but the reality is for the vast majority of users, XP's pathetic security was the sole reason for security problems. Windows 7's security is infinitely better than XP's.

Better? Yes, but it still gets infected en masse just like every other windows OS.

4. XP DOES NOT have good memory management. Yes it shows more free RAM available. But free RAM is wasted RAM. What's the point of that if it can't use that RAM to improve performance? Windows 7 runs programs much faster than XP because it can USE those extra RAM.

So why don't you get the extra ram back when superfetch is disabled? I'll tell you why, it's because the base OS is consuming it. If you have superfetch enabled, it can exceed 1gb without any programs even running. And I never noticed any speed improvement of program loading over XP. Superfetch is mostly to compensate for the slow down and general bloat of 7 over XP. So it gobbles up all your memory as it tries to cache lots of stuff in order that you notice how slow it really is.

5. XP 64-bit is the most instable OS I have ever tried. It has ZERO driver support and keeps crashing ALL the time.

Hmm, what does that remind me of, oh ye, vista when it was first released, you know the code base upon which 7 is built.

6. On Windows 7 I don't even need to install drivers manually any more. It automatically finds those drivers for me, or offers them via Windows Update. Finding drivers for XP, and successfully installing them is a nightmare.

Yep, they copied that from Linux. It's a poor man's Linux repository limited to only out of date drivers. In Linux we've had that since day one.

7. I had to reinstall XP every 4/5 months because of slow startup time and overall poor performance. On the other hand I have been running Windows 7 on my main desktop system for 20 months with absolutely no issues whatsoever. It's still incredibly fast and shows no sign of slowdown.

The same happens in Windows 7/Vista. The registry etc get increasingly fragmented over time.

XP has less than 35% market share in North America, Europe and Oceania combined. Windows 7/Vista has more than 50%. So, YOU are the one who is outnumbered, unless, of course, you happen to be one of the pirated Chinese XP users.

Post the source of these stats please.

I figured by 2011 the rabid XP luddites would have died down a little. Judging from the thread I guess not. Maybe in 2014 when Microsoft finally pulls the life support plug on the poor old dinosaur.

And two months before the end date they'll extent it once again because the majority of windows users still use XP and it would be bad business for Microsoft. Hehe.