66% of All Windows Users Still Use Windows XP 931
An anonymous reader writes "Almost one year after the introduction of Windows 7 it appears that the hype surrounding it has faded. The overall market share of Windows has turned into a slight decline again. Windows 7 is gaining share, but cannot keep pace with the loss of Windows XP and Vista. Especially Windows XP users seem to be happy with what they have and appear to be rather resistant to Microsoft's pitches that it is time to upgrade to Windows 7."
Rounding Error? (Score:2, Funny)
It's actually 66.6%
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Yup, because an other statistic in The Fine Article puts the usage at 60.03%. Surely 2 digits are more accurate than 0 digits, so you know which one is more accurate...
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It's actually 66.6%
Yup, because an other statistic in The Fine Article puts the usage at 60.03%. Surely 2 digits are more accurate than 0 digits, so you know which one is more accurate...
Or, you could always try getting the "666" joke the AC made.
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Vocabulary != grammar
So, no, you're not a grammar nazi. You're a vocabulary nazi but maybe just not a very good one.
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My Motto (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:My Motto (Score:5, Informative)
Lots of little things that add up.
Start-menu search, means I don't have to go hunting through the "All Programs" menu when it gets big, or remember in which little folder that little applet was, or hunt through the control panel. If I know what I want, I just type a few letters, and boom, there it is. Same with most recently used documents.
In Windows Explorer, there's a new "favorites" section on the left nav. I can add any folder I use regularly to that, and not only can I now instantly get to very buried folder hierarchies, I now have an always-available drop-target for dragging files to them.
Windows 7 also nags me less. I'm not constantly dismissing or being interrupted by "notifications" that I don't care about.
The new task bar, and in particular "jump lists" are amazing productivity enhancers (I was skeptical at first), and there are a ton of new hot-keys and short-cuts for doing just about everything you'd want to do, from moving windows around to launching apps to switching from laptop screen to projector.
The UI just seems snapper and smoother on the same hardware too. It "feels" more reponsive.
Even things like errors... when you try to copy a file but it's locked by an application, it now tells you which application is locking the file. When you're running tons of things, that can be a major time-saver right there. I'm a developer, and I used to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the heck was holding on to that file... now I don't spend ANY time doing that.
I could go on, but I think you get the idea. It's just more refined and polished.
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The easiest way is to left click the network icon in the lower right cornder and select "Open Network and sharing center" then click the "Local Area Connection" link and the dialog pops up. That's 3 clicks, which is actually shorter than XP. XP requires at least 4 (right click Network dialog click properties, right click interface, choose properties)
Everyone likes to think that 7 buries stuff deeper, but in reality, almost everything is 2 or 3 clicks away from the desktop.
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The easiest way is to left click the network icon in the lower right cornder and select "Open Network and sharing center" then click the "Local Area Connection" link and the dialog pops up. That's 3 clicks, which is actually shorter than XP. XP requires at least 4 (right click Network dialog click properties, right click interface, choose properties)
Everyone likes to think that 7 buries stuff deeper, but in reality, almost everything is 2 or 3 clicks away from the desktop.
WinXP: Double-click network adapter in systray, double-click TCP/IP, enter an IP address.
Vista: Double-click network adapter in systray...oh...wait, that's not a network adapter, that's the network sharing center or some such bullshit. Um...ok, network sharing center. Uh...where next. Change Adapter Settings. Then right-click on your adapter, properties, TCP/IP, enter an IP address.
It's like the saying "No single raindrop believes it is responsible for the flood". Vista and Windows 7 have tons of v
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You don't have to go to Change adapter settings, it's available right there on the Network and sharing center, and it's not a double click.. it's a single click.
Single click network icon, single click open network and sharing center, single click Local Area Connection. Single click properties, double click tcp/ip. enter ip settings.
The XP network icon only appears on the taskbar if you set it to do so, not by default. Even if you do, you are talking the same or more clicks.
And, by the way... all the scri
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The reason is that IIS is now modular, and any feature can be turned on or off. This allows you to create a small security footprint. Modularity is a good thing, and it's one of the reasons IIS7+ is so flexible and extensible.
It's amazing that people will complain and find fault with something that such a huge boon and win securitywise, extensibilitywise, and performancewise.
So basically "Waaaaahh.. i hate it cause it's different, and i don't care if the reasons for changing are valid or not".
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You know what, it's a tough job market out there, enjoy 1999's technology to it's fullest.
Yeah--when the economy picks up and companies start wanting to drive dumptrucks full of cash to Microsoft HQ again, let me know--I'll be there to recommend against it, be ignored, and spend years billing them to update the infrastructure and write apps to fix all the new problems introduced or priced into existence.
Re:My Motto (Score:5, Informative)
Everyone likes to think that 7 buries stuff deeper, but in reality, almost everything is 2 or 3 clicks away from the desktop.
Especially if you make yourself a GodMode folder.
Make a new folder
Name (or rename) it
GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
You can of course make shortcuts to this folder for use on Desktop, Start menu, etc..
Oh, it will also run from a thumb drive (a copy of the folder, not a shortcut) plugged into another Win7 machine
Most fun Windows control panel ever.
Re:No good reason to upgrade (Score:5, Informative)
I run Windows 7 on my my new Revo box 64-bit 2core, 4GB, Nvidia, 500GB Hard Drive. Runs so slow. I spent £300 on it because of lies like yours.
Alrighty. I run Windows 7 on my old Dell Inspiron 1520 with 64 bit dual core, 4GB (aftermarket), Nvidia and 120GB Hard Drive. Bought it in Feb 08 with XP on it. This was during the reign of Vista and this was the only laptop Dell still sold with XP on it.
Got hit by a virus (damn AVG Free did not protect me; even though I scanned the suspect file thoroughly before trying to use it. Switched to Avira, we'll see how that does ;D) and had to re-install. I had already tried Win7 during RC [blogspot.com] and decided it is marginally better than XP, just not better enough to switch unless you're rolling a new OS anyway.. and now I was. So I switched from 32 bit XP to 64 bit 7.
Now it seems to run every bit as fast as XP did, with Aero turned on. It eats more RAM (900MB used at startup instead of 350MB, overhead appears constant after days of uptime) and this is after applying most of Black Viper's [blackviper.com] recommended service tweaks to both OSen. I find win+tab is handy when you've got a ton of browser windows open (each with tabs; I generally run one window per distinct project) and want to quickly get to one which is visually distinct.
so tuppe, does my counter-example anecdote mean that you're the liar now? Or perhaps we should yeild the predictive power of all of our personal one-off experiences in favor of actual research?
ZDnet's benchmarks [zdnet.com] maintain that Windows 7 is faster than XP for standard use, although XP remains more capable for devices with limited memory and outdated graphics.
Maximum PC's benchmarks [maximumpc.com] claim that Win7 simply feels faster than XP on the hardware they tested.
Tom's Hardware's netbook benchmarks [tomshardware.com] show that Windows 7 does not beat XP on the netbook but that it is quite responsive, and would probably surpass XP with better driver support.
TechRadar's benchmark [techradar.com] includes many plusses and minuses for Windows 7 with a net plus, but clearly states that it provides "better performance than XP can deliver on today's hardware."
I'm not picking up on any benchmarks that have the same trouble you've had, so unfortunately I have no way to confirm you did not just misconfigure your machine.
old hardware, probably (Score:5, Interesting)
That's probably the same as saying 66% of all Windows users are on older hardware which was already "good enough." They probably won't get Windows 7 until they buy a new computer. I have Win 7 x64 Pro in a VMWare image and it works relatively well in there, but I had to tweak the settings for the container, and if I run it with less than 2GB of memory allocated, it starts to get pissy. Maybe its different when running it on the physical machine, but I'm somewhat skeptical, and if I were running on an older PC, I'd probably skip the software upgrade and wait for a hardware upgrade.
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:5, Interesting)
There are few reasons to upgrade hardware anymore unless you are a gamer or do ultra high end work. There hasn't been anything worthy since the introduction of the c2d. I have a 2008 unibody macbook and will most likely stick with this for the next several years.
I maintain the computers for most of my family. All are running XP and have no intention of upgrading hardware or the OS anytime soon. Most are running XP on core 2 duos or Pentium 4s.
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There's one very good reason to buy new hardware: When the old hardware fails.
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Hard drive, maybe. That can be easily replaced. I haven't seen a full system failure (motherboard, power supply, etc.) in years.
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:5, Informative)
Hard drive, maybe. That can be easily replaced. I haven't seen a full system failure (motherboard, power supply, etc.) in years.
Ever heard of laptops? Some hardware failure stats [electronista.com] for you.
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Hard drive, maybe. That can be easily replaced. I haven't seen a full system failure (motherboard, power supply, etc.) in years.
Ever heard of laptops? Some hardware failure stats for you http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/11/17/reliability.study.has.apple.4th.place/ [electronista.com].
It depends on the laptop. Quite a lot.
The Dell laptops we get at work are replaced every 3 years - if they last even that long. My previous laptop went through 3 hard disks in 3 years. A colleague has already replaced the motherboard on a 1 year old M4400 twice, and another has replaced the motherboard once. My work M4400 has bunches of dead pixels but I'm living with it - the odds of Dell service breaking something else while swapping the display are far too high. In our small work group, I'd say the 1 y
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Power supplies are not a full system failure, do tend to crap out, and are also easily replaced.
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Re:old hardware, probably (Score:5, Funny)
My girlfriend can attest to that (lots of static).
Thats not static you hear. Thats your girlfriend telling you stuff your brain filters out.
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:5, Insightful)
However, with the exception of large disasters (lightning, fire, flood etc), usually a single component fails and not the whole computer. Which means that it's cheaper to replace the failed component instead of the whole computer.
If my PSU failed, I'd rather buy a new PSU than a new PSU, motherboard, CPU and RAM (I could still use my case, videocard, hard drives etc).
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:5, Informative)
And of those 66% of people running XP, what proportion do you think know what a PSU, CPU, or motherboard are? What proportion do you think will just go "shit, my computer broke"?
Hint, the former is likely 1%
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:5, Insightful)
And how many of those 65% have geek friends that they call and say "Hi, my computer broke, can you fix it?"?
That's probably a lot, considering how many computers I fix for my friends, and yes, that includes asking them to buy a new motherboard "Go to the store and ask for 'motherboard for Socket A CPU, that's mATX'" or just asking for the money and buying it myself. When the "broken computer" problem occurs, people try to save money, and if the new part costs less than a new PC, they'll buy the part.
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest have kids they can ask the same question.
In any case, "broke" normally means:
The battery in the wireless mouse is flat
A plug fell out the back
Its teh viruses, stupid!(I for one welcome our new porn overlords)
Profit!
If you upgrade them to Win7 they will hit you with a clue bat: Working means "Running WIndows XP".
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It is hard to build a new PC for less than the price of a new complete (albeit crappy) PC preloaded with malware and trialware. Just the cost of a good motherboard and decent i5 or lower end i7 will be about the same as the price of a brand new PC from a big box store.
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:4, Informative)
It is? I managed to save quite a bit of money (a few hundred) building my own computer rather than buying a pre-built one with nearly the same specs.
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:4, Interesting)
It is? I managed to save quite a bit of money (a few hundred) building my own computer rather than buying a pre-built one with nearly the same specs.
Really. Especially if you cruise online suppliers looking for a good combo deal, they show up now and then. In my case, I got a nice Micro-ATX motherboard with a 64-bit Athlon 3000+ CPU for fifty bucks off Newegg last year. Even with case, RAM and DVD player it was under two hundred. I wasn't sure of the motherboard video (reviews said it didn't handle 1920x1080 well) so I added another $35 for an ATI slimline video card with HDMI out. This machine sits in living room connected to my TV, but it's otherwise a pretty decent PC. Looks slick too: people think it's just a DVD player.
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$20 is about what you would pay for some online build-your-own-box vendor to build you a box to your specs.
You would get a much better box out of the deal.
I wouldn't use a Revo for anything but an appliance.
I agree, but just remember that "better" is a relative term. Not everyone buys PCs using the same criteria ... in fact, I'd say that the blind focus on price that most consumers have has been detrimental to the industry as a whole.
Just out of curiosity, what is a "tylenol fanboy"?
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Would the brand new PC from a big box store include the good motherboard and the i5 or i7 CPU?
If yes, then I sense a business opportunity (buy a new PC, sell parts).
If no, then it means that you didn't need that good motherboard or the CPU anyway, so you could just buy a cheaper motherboard and CPU.
For example, my main PC uses a quite expensive dual socket motherboard (Tyan Thunder K8WE or the version from HP xw9300 workstation). When some capacitors on the motherboard failed, I knew that if I did not find
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It is hard to build a new PC for less than the price of a new complete (albeit crappy) PC preloaded with malware and trialware. Just the cost of a good motherboard and decent i5 or lower end i7 will be about the same as the price of a brand new PC from a big box store.
Making the staggeringly huge assumption that the big box pc has a "good motherboard" as you say. Sure, it technically "runs windows" but its an integrated memory unaccelerated graphics card, with like 256 MB of memory, a 80 gig 5400 rpm hard disk, all the fans are little 1 inch diameter things running at 40k rpm and sound like a small learjet starting up, one available USB port... I much prefer my own. And running linux, I tend to buy from the list of things that works on linux, not "whatever the big box
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:4, Insightful)
Or you could beat the big box stores for any hardware by not buying the windows license at all. Especially if you don't use it.
The story is "66% of All Windows Users Still Use Windows XP". This discussion is about average Joe computer breaking, and they need to fix or buy a new computer. The majority of average Joes wants Windows. You're clearly not the target audience.
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A lot of people are willing to repair their systems to a point, but I've ended up with a lot of working systems I built out of non-working systems people gave to me.
Just yesterday, I donated two desktops to my local library. They were built from spare parts I acquired from people who were waiting for their computer to fail so they'd have an excuse to buy a new one. Once it went, they just gave the old system to me. One system just needed a new hard drive and the other just needed a new PSU. I even told
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And then you have to decide:
1. Spend no money and do without sound on the laptop.
2. Spend $x for an external sound card. You will need to carry it with your laptop if you want sound.
3. Spend $y (y >> x) for a new laptop.
And that depends entirely on what you value more. Personally, I'd rather carry the external sound card if I want sound (which is not always) and save $(y-x). After all, instead of buying a new (and expensive) laptop battery (current one lasts ~30minutes) I either look for an outlet or
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, a lot of people sit on WAY older hardware than Core 2 Duo.
In the room I'm in now (and counting only x86 compatibles) I have one Opteron 175, one P4 3.06HT and one PIII 1.13S. They work, so why should I trash them?
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:5, Informative)
I expected the "saving energy" argument, and wasn't disappointed. The problem is that you have to keep the machine for quite a few years in order for the energy savings to outweigh the price of new hardware. But by forcing upgrades this way, you don't keep the machines for that many years, so you don't realise the savings in the long run.
And for the environment, it's loss too, because of the energy costs of making all the components for the new machine, as well as depletion of resources.
And apart from the PIII-S, these machines don't run 24/7 either, but perhaps an hour a week on average.
And the PIII-S has a 28.7W TPD, which is better than anything made today except for laptop CPUs, especially when you take the less power hungry motherboard and RAM into consideration. In fact, the low power usage is one of the reasons why it runs 24/7 as a server, while the P4 is a cold standby.
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Re:old hardware, probably (Score:4, Informative)
>>>There are few reasons to upgrade hardware
Precisely. I'm typing this on an old 2002 PC compatible. I'm sure the hard drive motors will eventually fail but for now it works just fine.
I wish I could say the same for my 2002 G4 Mac. Due to Apple's process of refusing to support anything older than 10.5, I was left in the cold. I eventually sold it on ebay for ~$30 because it wouldn't run anything newer than IE5 or Safari 2, both of which failed to render the web properly.
Oh look... here comes the -1 mod patrol.
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Purely for factual accuracy: a 2002 G4 running OS X 10.4 (Tiger) can use the latest version of Safari, version 5.02. Many G4s of that year can run Leopard. (The processor cut-off is 867MHz.)
Getting back onto old hardware, my Dad still uses a network of Beige Macs, running OS 9. For him, in his 70s, he's familiar with it, and it does what he wants. He's not into FaceBook and that.
I'd be interested to see some stats on whether newer hardware lasts longer than older technologies. i.e. will a 2006 PC last as lo
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:5, Interesting)
Which demonstrates the real issue quite nicely: it's not about OS's or apps anymore. Desktops are seen as overly thick web clients with a word processor.
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+1... I'm still running a Thinkpad X41T as my main machine, and for day to day work it's perfectly fine. I also have a 15.4" WSXGA+ machine with a Core2Duo for heavy(ish... Cubase, Handbrake, Photoshop, occasional WiFi module compilation for Android... nothing very taxing really) lifting, but when I don't need the screen real-estate, I usually just RDP in from the couch...
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There is also little point in upgrading the operating system either. From my point of view, XP does everything I need, which is "be an operating system". It runs nice on my Core 2 Duo with 2GB of RAM (tho I do have a monster Radeon 2900XT supplying the graphics).
I use Firefox for web, Miranda for IM, Winamp for music, MPC for movies, Nero for disc burning, Paint Shop Pro for picture stuff, Audacity for audio stuff. I have a bunch of other little programs I use and sometimes I play video games. I have a
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I bought a PC for my parents long time ago. It's a P4 running Windows 98. It has been doing the job for them.
Windows 98!? It's been out of support now for 4 years. I hope they don't do their online banking on it.
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A p4 running Windows 98?
The P4 was introduced at the end of 2000, and Windows 98 was already a dinosaur. Windows 2000 and ME were what was shipped with computers at the time. XP came out a few months later. So, unless you bought the first P4's off the rack, it should have come with XP.
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Assuming you can find a driver for all your hardware for xp, which is becoming more and more unlikely.
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:5, Insightful)
Not necessarily. I still run XP, because it still works.
I do actually like Windows 7, but until I want to use my computer for something that I can't do on XP, I see no point in making a not-inconsiderable outlay of cash to upgrade just for bells and whistles. And as for the hardware, as you mention - XP runs a hell of a lot faster on older hardware. My computer doesn't count as obsolete by any stretch of the imagination, but I would most likely need to upgrade hardware to get anywhere near the same level of performance if I went to Win7.
So why bother?
But I do substantially agree with you - Looking at the bigger picture, I think Microsoft has a rather serious problem, not of their own making for a change. Even the last gen of PCs as "fast enough" for everything most people want to do. I very much don't mean this as a "640k should be enough for anyone", but do you really need quad core, over 4GB of RAM, and a video card that could render an older Pixar movie in realtime, just to check your email, surf the web, and play the occasional "casual" game? And if not... Why upgrade?
Re:If not Program Files, then where? (Score:5, Informative)
There is one "special folder" that is meant for user-independent storage of application data. You can get its name with feeding the value CSIDL_COMMON_APPDATA into the proper API call.
See http://www.mvps.org/access/api/api0054.htm [mvps.org] for an introduction.
The actual path varies with Windows version and language. On my German Win XP Pro, for instance, it is
C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\All Users\Anwendungsdaten
Also note that every user can create files and directories in there, but per default they are only writable to the user who created them. So it may be necessary to change permissions during installation.
It's a hidden folder (Score:3, Interesting)
CSIDL_COMMON_APPDATA
And on my English copy of Windows XP Home Edition, this resolves to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data. So why does Windows mark this folder hidden so that the end user can't easily back up the files inside to removable media or send them to other people over the Internet?
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:5, Interesting)
Couldn't disagree with you more.
Search works fine. Works great. Of course, you have to know how to use it...
I'm an advance user, and a software devleoper. I live in Windows every day. Windows 7 is so vastly superior to XP that I don't even know where to start. Everything I do is faster and easer in Windows 7. There are more "power-user" short-cuts and keystrokes and features in Windows 7 than XP ever even dreamed of.
It's actually painful for me to go back to XP. I can't find anything. It's annoying as hell.
For advanced users, Windows 7 just plain WORKS BETTER than XP, on pretty much every level. I'm not sure how you can possibly say otherwise.
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:4, Interesting)
Are you telling me you manually number everything in your start menu you could ever possibly want to launch?
No just the common ones. And it's easy to add to or extend. Just drag a shortcut you want to "2 Tools" or whatever and rename it accordingly (if necessary). It's basically organizing the stuff I commonly use in the start menu in a hierarchical manner.
The other benefit is if you forget the shortcut sequence you can still find it by using the start menu, and traversing the relevant categories.
IMO the Win9x UI designers were actually quite clever ( with the Win9x/NT/2K/XP/Vista/7 UI you can even add shortcuts to the SendTo menu so that you can open any file with whatever program you choose - e.g. hexeditor. Just place/make your app shortcut in the SendTo folder. Quick and easy ).
Whereas the recent UI (and other) changes haven't really improved things much, kinda disappointing - they spent billions and that's what we get?
If you need to switch between two or four Windows, and alt-tabbing is "too slow", hit win-tab and click on the window you want. Or use the winkey+number shortcuts to switch to that program on your taskbar - they're shipping your linkkey program with Windows, so be happy.
win-tab doesn't work well when I have lots of windows open. I already mentioned winkey+number in my previous post, so I'm well aware of what it does and how it works (along with ctrl+winkey+number). And it's not the same thing as what my linkkey program does, which allows you to _quickly_ associate alt+number with a particular window. Or bind the "last 9 most recently used windows" with alt/win 1-9.
So if I have 30 windows open I can choose to quickly work with a subset of them. Then switch to work with another subset.
Why would I have so many windows open? I don't see the point of opening and closing stuff if I'll be using it again soon, esp since I don't have an SSD yet. That'll actually work out slower since I'd have to do winkey, type first few letters of shortcut, launch/open the program/document etc, rather than just click on the relevant taskbutton or "alt+number" (if I have the window bound).
The number of windows starts to add up: a few explorer windows open for common locations: e.g. "my documents", code tree private, code tree "published", network share #1, network share #2. Emails, Editor windows. browser windows for work related stuff (references, man pages etc). browser windows for misc stuff (e.g. slashdot). ssh connections to various machines. IM windows - colleagues, friends etc.
In theory I could use "screen" (the CLI program) like a friend who uses OSX. But I think it's funny to use a GUI and then actually resort to using screen for "window"/task management.
I don't get your #3 complaint - you already used the mouse to right-click on the program. Why don't you just move it 20 pixels up and click it again?
Uh, it's faster? Basically when I'm finally done with a working set of windows (out of the dozens), I can close them rapidly, by just right clicking on the relevant ones and pressing C.
What would be even faster is if I could quickly bind winkey+ to a particular "tab" in a window. Then I wouldn't need to resort to opening stuff in a new window just to make them fast to switch amongst (via alt tab etc). In which case I would have a working set of tabs, and closing the working set would be just a matter of closing the window containing those tabs, or a branch of tabs ( I use Treestyle Tabs in firefox).
All that time saved allows me to waste it on Slashdot or wherever ;).
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:4, Informative)
To search only for contents and not names, you use the filter "Contents:" so you would say contents:xyz and it will not show filenames with XYZ in them.
Why would think this wasn't possible?
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Well it's not documented here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/technicalresources/advquery.mspx [microsoft.com]
or http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Advanced-tips-for-searching-in-Windows#keywords [microsoft.com]
Anyway, even then it doesn't always work because it uses an index which is often out of date and I don't see a way to force it to not use the index. Rebuilding the index seems to require it to scan the whole hard drive, not just current bit I'm interested in.
I'm not the only one having pr
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I've only known of a very few people who upgraded to Win7 because they "wanted" it. They wanted it because it was the new Microsoft toy, and they wanted the latest greatest. The majority of people I know with Win7 use it because it came on their new PC, that they usually bought because the old one died. Some of them have had me downgrade them to WinXP.
You are right, Win7 likes to have 2Gb RAM or more, but it'll run with 1Gb if you aren't doing much in it. I've used it, both
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:5, Insightful)
The flip side of that is, nobody wanted new hardware because it was coming with Vista on it. PC makers must have hated Vista a lot more than us, because I know many people who waited to upgrade old hardware because they didn't want Vista. Unlike Vista, I generally hear good things about Windows 7.
I'm still building new computers with XP or Linux on them (or dual boot). With hardware that Vista ran doggy on, XP runs like a bat out of hell. A 55.00 dollar single-core processor and a couple of gigs of RAM and XP will do what large numbers of people want it to do.
And I hate to say this, but look at the prices of Vista and Windows 7. The computer savy people I know have a copy of Windows XP Pro Corporate that they can install on anything without worrying about WGA or activation. They don't have that option with Windows 7, so XP and Linux still look good. It is very easy to build a very nice, very fast PC in the 300.00 range...until you start adding in the cost of Windows 7.
Realistically, that could make XP stay around a little longer and make Linux start to eat into their market a little more.
And it will be a fine day for Linux when there are no longer any corporate editions of Windows anything available!
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When the hard drive dies, what's stopping you from just re-installing XP using the license you already have? Seriously?
Yawn (Score:5, Insightful)
This same story is trotted out months after every version of Windows ships. Hardly anyone ever upgrades a PC to the next major version of Windows. Instead, the upgrade happens automatically when people ditch their PC's and buy a new one.
Re:Yawn (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting rid of DOS (Windows 3.1) and DOS-lite (Windows 9x) were much more compelling reasons to upgrade.
As Windows gets less crappy, the distance between a proper OS and what's in common use lessens.
Eventually, you are left with the annoyances that don't really go away and yet aren't severe enough to cause people to flee en masse to alternatives.
XL does what is needed (Score:5, Informative)
Price (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Price (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing is, it's a bad idea to just keep running an old system, even if it still works just fine for you. I see this all the time. People calling looking for help because they can't get on their bank's web site anymore. (java out of date, OS issue, NOT browser) Or they bough software that says it can't install. (not enough memory or OS too old) Or they have a special piece of hardware that broke, bought a replacement, and the newer software it came with won't run on their OS.
I tell people, "You really need to get a new machine. Yes, I know, it still works just fine for you, but eventually you're going to be forced to upgrade, and the longer you wait, the bigger of a problem it's going to be". I'll tell you a few stories of businesses that didn't listen to me, and paid the price:
Story 1:
Local designer. Designs posters, not sure what for, maybe movies, he's apparently pretty good, customers all over the usa. Anyway, he has a fancy machine that looks like a giant printer. It cuts posterboard to exacting size, for use in his big printer. Cuts perfectly straight long lines on the really heavy stock, both side and end. Brought in the computer and cutter, the computer had an OS meltdown due to dying hdd. It was 10 years old. He was lucky I even had experience with an OS that old. But although I could fix the OS, the software that ran the cutter had draconian DRM on it that made it require reinstallation when moved to another hard drive. I was unable to crack the protection, and he was unable to find the original discs. So he had to buy new software. (several thousand dollars) Come to find out, the new software wouldn't run on the old computer, NOR would it run the old cutter. He went from cussing over having just put in a new set of $250 blades, to REALLY cussing for having to buy a new cutter. (10 grand) And a new computer of course, which ended up being the cheapest angle.
Story 2:
Audio recording man. Does high end audio mixing and CD mastering. Had problems with a reinstall of his pro audio software. Come to find out he'd been with them since the start version 1.0, 1995'ish. He tried to reinstall the software, and it was an update and failed to find the older software so it wouldn't install. (and it wasn't the type to ask you to insert the older disc or type in the older license code, it required the previous version to be installed)
It took several days of scrounging around to find ancient machines and MEDIUM DENSITY FLOPPY DRIVES so we could start the installation chain from his version 1.0 floppies on Mac OS 7, and work forward, to vers 2, 2.,5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, and finally to his version 7. This wasn't so much a case of living in the past, but his software sure was.
Story 3:
Local newspaper. 7 machines about 8 years old, including server. Running old versions of adobe, quark, and pagemaker products. Kept telling them this is a bad idea holding off on upgrades so long. Editor was a penny pincher and refused to listen. Put more memory in. Upgrade/replace that hard drive. Who cares if the server has no video, it still works.
One of their desktops dies. Unrepairable, parts not available. So they bought a new machine. Whoops, it comes with a new os, won't run the old pro software. So they buy one set of licenses for it. Whoops, it can import from the old software but not export back to it and they have to be able to share. So they buy more licenses. Whoops, those won't install on the older systems, OS is too old. Looking further, whoops, their hardware is too old to install the reuqired OS.
So, all at once, they had to buy a new server, 8 new desktops, tens of thousands of dollars in software, and spend the next several months in the hell that is doing an import-open on everything they double click, requiring proofing and corrections/adjustments. I'm amazed the editor didn't have a heart attack.
Story 4:
This is one I see retold several times a y
Re:Price (Score:5, Informative)
Moral of the stories: Stay Reasonably Current
Sure, sure, that's the *practical* moral, but how about some *dogmatic* morals:
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not really sure why you were modded up. The cases you cited are fringe cases. Do you work for a major PC distributor?
Re:Price (Score:5, Insightful)
Story 1: Dead HDD due to old hardware. Solution: Backup your data using drive cloning, swap the disk, done.
Story 2: Need a new version? Solution: Contact the company for a new version's license code, perhaps by presenting the fact you've had all the upgrade codes.
Story 3: New OS breaks backwards compatibility. Solution? Reinstall the old OS.
Story 4: And this generalization also generalizes the problem with the tech industry.
The tech industry moves too fast for individual consumers, and in recent years more and more time is spent on adding bells and whistles instead of any real functionality.
Games, for example, are constantly adding better and better graphics and hogging more space, but I often find that they lose the core gameplay concepts which makes games, well, fun.
Software, for example, are trying to become more flashy and bloated, such as Office and iTunes, piling on feature after feature which are sometimes redundant.
People should upgrade because they want the new functionality.
Today, the tech industry forces them to upgrade because not upgrading will cause them compatibility pains in the future.
The reason? Profits from selling a new software version with "great new enhanced features" yearly.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Price (Score:4, Insightful)
And anybody who knows ANYTHING about money knows that these people did exactly the right thing, except for not having money set aside to cover situations like this.
Let's assume all those computers were 12 years old. Let's assume you'd advocate a 4-year upgrade cycle. They skipped 2 upgrade cycles, and got caught having to do the 3rd one all at once.
Let's assume an upgrade costs $1k - after all, you wanted them to keep their software current as well and that costs money too. For each of those PCs they saved $1k 8 years ago, and $1k 4 years ago.
Let's assume that the business makes a 5% return on capital (if they just put their money in a mutual fund they could make that much - so this is a VERY conservative figure). Plugging that into a TVM calculator tells me that they saved $2692 per PC in TODAY's money deferring those upgrades. Unless they spent more than $2692 per PC as a result of the delay, they saved money.
If your upgrades are more expensive, or if you upgrade more often than 4 years, then the savings is even higher. If the business could have taken advantage of an opportunity by sinking some of that money into capital then they'd make out even better, compared to just having shiny PCs.
Now, the only issue that might apply is that they ended up having a catastrophic failure and suffered downtime, which has a cost of its own. The solution to that isn't to keep upgrading computers under the hope that this will prevent breakdowns (it won't - it just reduces their frequency) - it is to have continuity plans (redundant hardware, backups, etc).
The bottom line is that a PC is capital for a business. It has a return on investment, like any other capital investment. Money spent on that PC is not available to spend on other things. You should spend money on the PC if it has a good ROI, and it is the best investment option available.
If I ran a business I wouldn't be upgrading my PCs all the time either. I'd upgrade them as often as serves a business purpose. If a shiny new PC will make me more productive I'd buy it that afternoon. If it won't, then the money goes into the bank for when I need to replace it. I'd anticipate failures and plan for them.
I still use XP (Score:5, Interesting)
I still use xp.
Everything I've seen suggests that Win7 is a better OS - stability, security, etc.
However we have 6 computers in the house. Two are 3.0+ GHz dual+ CPUs with 4 gigs of RAM; those are the only two that I suspect would run it well. The other 4 range from 2.7 GHz 4 gig RAM (my older gaming rig, that probably could run it) down to a 1 GHz Athlon with 1 gig of RAM.
XP runs "well enough" for everything we want/need to do. I'm uninterested in climbing another learning curve so I can admin 2 different OS's in my house. I'm uninterested in buying new hardware just to all run Win7. I'm uninterested in buying 6 licenses of Win7.
So....no Win7 here, although I readily agree it would probably be a better system on the hardware that could run it. Sorry Microsoft.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I understand your point here, but "buying new hardware to run Win 7" is only half the battle; the other half is "buying win 7 so my new hardware [drivers] will work". I've had a number of new peripherals; which really are commodities these days; that don't provide XP drivers or anything that will run on XP. It's a sad state of affairs, truly.
For what it's worth, I haven't found Win 7 to be any better than XP in terms of stability. It's no worse in that regard, although the user experience is some better
Re:I still use XP (Score:5, Informative)
The Athlon is the only thing on that list that would even struggle, and even it would technically run Win7. (It meets the minimum specs, which are always a little overstated.) Seriously, Win7 runs just fine on netbooks with 1.6GHz single-core Atoms and 1GB of RAM. A 1GHz Athlon isn't going to be much slower than that. 2.7GHz and 4GB of RAM is vastly overkill to just run the OS and everyday apps, no "probably" about it; my work laptop/tablet is 1.2 GHz (Core2Duo ULV) with 4GB and runs Win7, Visual Studio, Outlook, several instances of Word, and a bunch of internal tools all at once just fine.
There's no "THE" reason (Score:5, Insightful)
There are many reasons why people stick with XP.
One is that they have a perfectly good machine that's overkill for what they use it for, but that doesn't meet the requirements for Windows 7.
Another is that they have so many programs installed that it's a major task to upgrade. Especially these days when many programs are bought online and uses DRM -- you may not even be allowed to reinstall under a new OS without re-purchasing.
There's probably a few disillusioned Vista users who (IMO rightly) don't believe the street hype and won't rush into installing what could have been released as Vista SP2.
Then there are those who don't feel like paying big bucks for the upgrade when it's not needed to run the programs they use.
Then there's a small amount of users who have figured out that XP is faster for their use, if nothing else because it uses less memory.
And let's not forget the large amount of users who wouldn't dare upgrade an OS at all, but use whatever the manufacturer put on their machine. They'll get a new OS when they buy a new machine, and in this economy, that might not be now.
In any case, this is Slashdot and a car analogy is in order. Just because a new model has come out doesn't mean that everybody with older cars will switch. Expecting that is silly.
I'm not changing in Protest (Score:4, Interesting)
When MS announced that dx10(and up) would not be upgraded in XP and would only be available in win7 (vista doesn't count), I felt cheated. Something that is basically a driver standard should be included in any xp maintenance release. What MS did was strictly a marketing ploy in my mind and an attempt to get money out of my pocket. Considering that this was when xp was very much the main operating system at the time and the announcement came out before there was any new OS, it just seemed to be a pretty shabby trick especially on gamers. So I'm resisting getting win7 until I absolutely have no choice because something I need to do requires win7. Until then I have a reasonable OS on this comp, linux on my other one and see no need to spend hundreds of dollars for basically what I see as $50 worth of upgrades that apply to me. The rest is just worthless junk that in some cases is more of an impediment than anything else.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes and no.
There's no doubt that backporting DX10 to XP would have required a substantial effort on Microsoft's part due to the significant changes to Vista's architecture and there's not really any incentive for them to invest the time and money in doing so. This is different, of course, to all the "DX10 Only" games that came out that weren't really DX10 only and just had stupid checks that were all bypassed by warez groups; whether that was a stupid Microsoft idea or a stupid games publisher idea, that *w
Re:I'm not changing in Protest (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact of the matter is that the DX10 hacks for XP fail miserably as soon as multiple processes/threads attempt to use a single DX context at the same time. To enable a DX context to be highly threaded, the display driver specification itself needed to be changed.
So while some early DX10 games work fine on the DX10+XP hack, many newer ones do not because they use multiple threads and expect to not deadlock in the display driver when presented with DX10. Microsoft alone can't solve the problem because it also requires that nVidia/ATi go through extra work (more than they need to do on Vista/7 because its driver hooks implicitly supports threading) within their XP drivers, and its work that actually destroys the benefits of multi-threaded rendering.
The upshot is that even if nVidia/ATI were to play along on this, most DX10 games would still be listed as only supporting Vista/7 for DX10 anyways because XP just wouldn't have the same performance with the same hardware. The only realistic way to make XP properly support DX10 is to change the driver model of XP, which is an insane thing to do for a 10 year old OS that is in extended support phase. Its not a conspiracy. Its just the way it is.
Rightly so (Score:3, Interesting)
There's absolutely no reason for me to upgrade that I see. Windows XP does what I need, and Windows 7 isn't some sort of groundbreaking technology. It hardly adds anything new to the table! Now, if you're just starting out and happen to get Windows 7 on a computer that you buy, that's fine. I'm not saying I hate Windows 7, I'm just saying that there's really no groundbreaking reasons for people to upgrade (and I've seen many people claim that there are). If I do have to upgrade because of compatibility reasons eventually (like for directx), I certainly won't reward Microsoft with my money and obtain Windows 7 through other means.
Some could stay with XP even on a new machine (Score:4, Interesting)
Hope some people start a project to reduce the technical skills needed to pull this off so that non-technical people can follow this route. The rate at which the hardware is improving, the next generation of iPad or its clones would be able to run a full image of an older XP installation on emulation!
No raise for you! (Score:5, Insightful)
Could this be based on the economy too?
I Usually buy a new pc after a good bonus or raise. I think I was running XP last time that happened.
PCs last longer (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsofts Real customers (Score:3, Interesting)
Not that I would expect any less from this crowd (myself and virtually every one I know included), it seems that every family, sometimes it rolls over to aunts/uncles, grandparents, cousins, too, has an computer person in their family who has almost complete power over what computer they will be using because thy do not know anything about it. Perhaps instead of marketing to the individual with the 'i created windows' shit, they should have aimed towards the family IT guys with something that makes their lives easier. Myself and my cousin told our families that we would not support them if they used windows, so now all of our family members use macs and the only issues I have are helping them figure out how to use MS office. Like previous commenters have said that they did not want to support multiple operating systems, I certain was not going to learn the quirks of 7 just for my family.
XP is easier to repartition for Linux dual boot (Score:4, Insightful)
I run Linux as my basic operating system but like to keep Windows around for purposes such as tax software that require it. If a machine came with XP pre-installed, I could squash the Windows partition down to about a quarter or less of the hard drive. Starting with Vista, you had to use M$'s partition resizing tool and it would not go to below half the hard drive. I managed to get XP for all my systems.
I don't know what I'll do some time in the future when I might need a new machine. Perhaps FOSS partition resizing will have caught up by then.
Civ V (Score:5, Funny)
Anybody want it? (Score:3, Informative)
I actually have a copy of Windows 7 sitting here, intended to upgrade this machine, but have been dragging my feet doing it. There was only ONE single reason for the upgrade (GPT compatibility), that reason stopped being critical, and the "upgrade" will be a time-consuming sift-through-bits-and-pieces process that I despise. Windows XP works well enough.
For that matter, I only upgraded to Windows XP a couple years ago, again for ONE reason: Supreme Commander. A friend was desperate that we try it, and it would not run in Windows 2000 because of some weird dependency. 99.9% of all other Win32 software ran just as well in 2000 as XP. Windows 2000 worked well enough, too.
New PC with W7 (Score:3, Informative)
So I built myself a new PC and thought that it's time to move on and bought the W7.
Largely disappointed.
Aero is nice and all, but the themes are generally unusable due to semi-transparent title bar. And it is noticeably slower compared to the basic theme and sometimes produces annoying flashing effects when restoring minimized window. Neither colors/fonts can be customized. Huh? Basic theme colors are hard coded - though even XP's Luna came with several color schemes (blue, silver, olive - now only the light blue). UI overall is a let down: Aero is fancy but unusable, Basic theme is too bright, Classic theme conflicts with bunch of applications since they assume "W7 == Aero/Basic." Heck, even Mac OS X has choice of blue vs. graphite themes and the default colors and effects aren't that eye irritating.
They have also f***ed up Control Panel. In XP/before I didn't need the search function there - now I have to use it all the time because CP was apparently designed by some clowns and finding there something is like looking for a tree in forest. The CP's applets also have the nasty habit to open to the whole screen: lots of white space for 2-3 options in the middle look ridiculous.
Explorer (file manager) finally caught up with Mac OS X's Finder - but lost many customizations and flexibility in the process. Folder properties are as buggy as ever and Windows oftentimes decides to forget my folder options and show that it knows better how the folder should be displayed. In XP I used both Explorer and alternative file manager - but in W7 there is little to no choice but to use an alternative file manager exclusively.
Desktop gadgets are great idea executed horribly. Standard gadgets are all show off (orange(!!! ) date gadget?? really???), uncustomizable and barely usable - unless you want to drill a hole in your eyes. Finding a decent unobtrusive gadget for a task is like digging see of sh*t with a tee spoon - hopeless. Gallery on Live is flooded with junk, lacking screenshots or even simple description what gadget actually does.
Keyboard shortcuts for the task bar probably the sole place which I would say has improved. But only because Windows lagged so much behind the Macs and Linux in the department. And Windows in the respect is still behind both Mac OS and Linux.
Looking back at the month I'm on the W7, I frankly can't get what the reviewers were so hyped about. Was Vista really that bad? Or could it be that the free laptop give away [computerworld.com] really helped??
P.S. And tray icons now rearranged in a confusing way...
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good Enough (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_7 [wikipedia.org]
if you're upgrading from XP, you also get these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista [wikipedia.org]
Vista/7 have LOTS of new stuff under the hood. It's not just the eye candy.
Re:Good Enough (Score:4, Informative)
The vast majority of those features can be summed up in one sentence from the user POV: "They moved stuff around".
To be fair, from a technical standpoint, yeah, they overhauled it pretty good. On the other hand, the typical user isn't going to care - all they know is that it has eye-candy, some nice widgets, and, well... they moved stuff around.
With Windows 95, 98, and 2000, and even XP, users saw substantial changes (and saw them to be useful). With Vista and 7, users aren't going to see a whole lot that has changed 'under-the-hood' in a way that's apparent and useful to them.
In fact, they're going to see some things that are wrong in their eyes - mostly having to do with application compatibility - users still want to use their old stuff. For instance, try and play Quake III on Windows 7... not going to happen very well (depending on hardware). Being told "Use XP Mode" isn't going to help - they'll likely say 'screw it' and just use the real thing... Windows XP.
Now IMHO, props to Microsoft for at least partially cutting the cord and all WRT legacy apps, but the user isn't going to see it that way.
Re:Good Enough (Score:4, Interesting)
MS has long been way behind when it comes to eyecandy... I ran enlightenment on my p100 in the late 90s and it looked prettier than windows ever has, but i soon found out that i actually preferred a simple, lightweight unintrusive window manager. All the fancy graphics just serve to increase confusion and reduce performance.
Re:It's not like (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right that computer replacement is slow, but XP got about 38% of the installed base in only three years. Vista was released on Jan 2006, more than 4 1/2 years ago, and still Vista + 7 combined don't best XP's installed base.
This might be an indication of a changing user base, and it may be it's because a lot of businesses and households aren't doing as well these days.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And besides which, now that the driver devs have had the time to mature their drivers, XP is quite stable, compared to what it used to be. Still has problems with being sluggish and really
Re:It makes sense, though... (Score:4, Interesting)
"It's a shame that more people don't just build their own computers and save money, rather than buying a pre-built with pre-installed garbage (software and such, that is). As for Windows 7, there's simply no groundbreaking reason(s) for people to upgrade."
I'm not sure I'd agree with that. My experience has been that between the streamlining and the extra speed (on a dual core 64-bit Athlon with 6 GB of RAM, Win7 is faster than XP is), and the extra security features, Windows 7 is heads-and-shoulders above XP. It IS better.
However, at the same time, Windows XP is a good system that does what it needs to, and generally does it well. And, I can understand why somebody would keep using it rather than upgrade when they don't need to.
Aside from which, building your own system does require a decent amount of knowledge, and time. For a lot of people, buying a pre-built system is the better way to go. Uninstalling the garbage is easier than building the system from scratch.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"It seems to me that what will happen is that the main driver of increasing the market share will be new computers with Windows 7 pre-installs"
It's a shame that more people don't just build their own computers and save money, rather than buying a pre-built with pre-installed garbage (software and such, that is). As for Windows 7, there's simply no groundbreaking reason(s) for people to upgrade.
I agree. 7 does some nice things, but if you have a system that is doing what you want and doing it well, there really isn't any compelling reason to upgrade. There just isn't.
Still, you'll never get people to build their own: that's just not a part of their skillset. However, I look back at the early days of personal computing (mid-to-late seventies and onward) where there were small computer shops all over. You could walk in, have somebody slap a system together for you, shoot the breeze with them, ask
Re:How is this news. (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously. I already figured that a lot of people still used XP and whats with the "Almost one year after" part. Was it a slow news day?
There are plenty of people still using Windows 98. The Slashdot crowd represents large numbers of people that use their systems for more than word processing and basic Internet functionality ("yeah, I run OSX in a VM under Linux".) All of us here enjoy learning new things, trying out new features and capabilities, and that's because, at the core, we're geeks. Heck, to us, the novelty of some new aspect of our favorite OS is fun.That's not true in the real world, where the bulk of users have systems that are already way faster than they will ever, ever need and to whom familiarity is more important than some arbitrary set of features. They finally figured out how to make their computer do those things that they want it to do, and simply do not care about anything else. Matter of fact, they consider being forced to upgrade as an entirely unreasonable proposition, and will fight it.
Okay, I'll make a car analogy. Those of us who learned to drive, learned it once. We don't have to re-learn it every time a new generation of automobiles comes out, and in fact we'd be torqued into pretzels if we were forced to do so. Yet, for a lot of people who look at computers as just another appliance like their car or their refrigerator, they only want to learn how to use it once. Asking ordinary people to repeat what was, to them, a difficult experience just because they bought a new appliance (e.g., a new personal computer) is going to cause trouble. In the case of Microsoft Windows, I cannot say that they're necessarily wrong in feeling that way, considering how much of Microsoft's business model revolves around changing things just to sell more copies.
I have friends that had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into Windows 2000 because "the icons were all different", and I can't face the thought of trying to get them to go to Window XP, much less Windows 7. Just not worth the effort, for them or me. It's easier to just keep scrounging old parts from my junkbox (which I haven't cleaned out in ten years for just this reason) than to try and convince them to "upgrade". Eventually that won't be possible and they're going to have to go out and buy a new system with whatever OS is the latest and greatest. Now, frankly I don't want to be around when that happens. It's going to be thermonuclear, and I don't want to find myself an incised shadow on the wall.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)