Windows XP

[chief38]

A little over a year ago I got FED UP with my PC and my son convinced me to get an iMac. Best move I ever did and I will NOT be going back to Windows. The only windows I open now are the ones on the house........

 

[cmort666]

So . . . the next time you feel like grousing about an out of date operating system . . .

It wasn't THAT long ago that I threw out a VL bus machine I had sitting in a corner. It was at one time, my machine for playing "Red Baron". I can't remember if it had Windows 95 or Windows for Workgroups on it. I still have the hard drive somewhere here...

 

[blujax01]

I'm too old to learn a new OS like Apple. I'm still adjusting to twist off caps on Muscatel. Does porn load faster on an Apple laptop? IKYK

Hang in there, baby. Novell DR-DOS will make a comeback any day now!

 

[TucsonMTB]

It wasn't THAT long ago that I threw out a VL bus machine . . . I can't remember if it had Windows 95 or Windows for Workgroups on it. I still have the hard drive somewhere here...

Good for you! For the moment, we are keeping a really old ThinkPad running Windows95 that has a docking station with two full length ISA card slots and case speakers that look like mouse ears.

The Turtle Beach sound card in one of those slots is the only device we own that allows the capture of "CD quality" sound from my wife's mini-disc recorder . . . another technology that, while still quite wonderful, is now out of favor.

Maybe it is just as well that humans do not last forever.

 

[ChattanoogaPhil]

I've still got a Sony Minidisc unit. At the time it made sense for copying music rather than burning CDs. Now I don't use any type of discs... it's all in the cloud... streaming anywhere I like. Spinning discs....CDs, DVDs, Bluray, computer drives, its all coming to an end.

 

[TucsonMTB]

....CDs, DVDs, Bluray, computer drives, its all coming to an end.

I suppose so. However, my wife's accumulation of Classical Music CD's, several thousand in total, isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Why, yes! I am an old dinosaur and a curmudgeon to boot . . . what gave me away? Was it my affection for revolvers?

 

[ChattanoogaPhil]

I suppose so. However, my wife's accumulation of Classical Music CD's, several thousand in total, isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Why, yes! I am an old dinosaur and a curmudgeon to boot . . . what gave me away? o

Was glad to get rid of it all.

I listen to my music MUCH more now that I don't have to search and dig through a zillion CDs to find what I want to listen to. Racks of CDs... CD cases everywhere... Multi-CD changers... loading and unloading CDs... eh... more 20th century stuff I can happily live without.

I copied all my music CDs in Apple Losses format to my Mac. This way I can listen to it on any of my music systems via home network and AppleTV absent crunched format like MP3. I also subscribe to iTunesMatch $25/yr which streams my music from their cloud to any of my mobile devoces or home systems if thats what I choose. A lot of music (most) I can't tell the difference between 256k and lossless/CD anyway.

A friend of mine is 67 and set in his ways too. However, when I showed him how easy it was to untether himself from music CDs (Movie DVDs and Bluray too) his eyes lit up seeing how convenient it made everything.

 

[CoMF]

I'm a little late to the discussion, but...

At my job, we have laptops running XP and, get ready, Win2k so that we can program older PLCs. Newer is not necessarily better, and throwing companies with legacy equipment under the bus to promote shiny new operating systems to the public does not make for a very good business model. (Also, care to guess how much an Allen-Bradley software license costs per PC?)

While it is arguably showing its age, Win XP is still servicable for basic computing and light gaming. You can also mitigate the security flaws by using a browser other than IE (e.g. Firefox, Opera, Chrome, etc.), installing a good AV/Firewall suite such as Avast or AVG, using a well-engineered hosts file to head off dodgy websites at the pass, and having a modicum of common sense (not downloading from "w4r3z" sites, avoiding clicking on suspicious links, doing research before installing "free" games or utilities, and so on).

Incidentally, I build my own systems and got a lot of mileage out of 98SE and XP before the inevitable hardware limitations forced me to go with Win7 64-bit. Sorry Linux fans, but I don't have the time or patience to perform voodoo with WINE in order to play my computer games. I have enough of a challenge tweaking DOSBox for some of my older stuff.

 

[Lee in Quartzsite]

Got a message from Microsoft this morning that there were Windows Updates ready for my Windows XP computers. Clicked on the Windows Update tab and found 5 Updates ready to install. Got the same message on my XP Laptop. Downloaded them all with no problem. So much for no more XP updates.

 

[cmort666]

Sorry Linux fans, but I don't have the time or patience to perform voodoo with WINE in order to play my computer games. I have enough of a challenge tweaking DOSBox for some of my older stuff.

DOSBox runs under Linux. I plan to install it on my Ubuntu laptop in the near future so that I can play "Age of Rifles".

 

[GKC]

I am completely non-savvy when it comes to tech...my wife is more savvy, but still not an expert. We both had Windows XP on our laptops (mine is a Dell XPS, and I don't recall what her's is) and we paid a local computer repair guy to clean them out and install Windows 7. They work great.

My oldest son loves his Apple computer...but they are just so expensive. I did have an iPhone for a short time, and didn't like it at all. If the computers are anything like the phones, I'll stick with my Dell.

 

[CoMF]

DOSBox runs under Linux. I plan to install it on my Ubuntu laptop in the near future so that I can play "Age of Rifles".

See, it's not the VOGONS (Very Old Games On New Systems, for those who might think I'm making a Hitchhiker's reference) that concern me; it's the sheer headache of getting my newer games to work flawlessly without the hassles associated with a Linux (or, for that matter, Macintosh) operating system. I primarily use my PC for gaming, not "serious stuff" as I like to put it.

 

[cmort666]

See, it's not the VOGONS (Very Old Games On New Systems, for those who might think I'm making a Hitchhiker's reference) that concern me; it's the sheer headache of getting my newer games to work flawlessly without the hassles associated with a Linux (or, for that matter, Macintosh) operating system. I primarily use my PC for gaming, not "serious stuff" as I like to put it.

Other than "Age of Rifles", I have no interest in gaming.

I used to be heavily into "Red Baron 3d", but all of my gear is gameport based, and I'm simply not willing to spend the price of a decent M1911 to replace it.