What to do after Windows XP dies in April 2014?

[cron]

My XP still loads within 15 seconds from the hard disk without using any precious pre-caching space on the hard disk. It's easy to load an image of the OS fast and that's what W7 does. If there was no precaching it would take a minute or more to load... like OS-X.

One-year-old Windows 8 install here. Less than 11 seconds from getting past the BIOS screen to looking at a fully functional and fluid Chrome window. No desktop lag or delay when launching applications. Everything is perfectly responsive. 100% cold boot. No 'fast/hybrid boot' nonsense, hiberfil.sys deleted, no funny business. Obviously all my start-up programs etc need to load because it's a cold boot, but I'm fluidly multitasking from the word go with zero slowdown/lag while all that's happening in the background. Just sayin'

[metamorphosis]

On an SSD.

[metamorphosis]

It's fine if you never want to update. What is truly annoying are the people that:

1. insist you MUST update
2. insist you MUSTN'T update

and anyone who writes paragraphs about either.

Personally I find the people who write paragraphs about how someone shouldn't write paragraphs annoying nah just joking.
Stripped-back versions of XP kick ass over everything IMO.
Less dependencies, less overhead, less bullshit, less setup time and customisation time, less updating, and less security holes due to less components. And BTW, software optimisation helps on -any- computer. The differences may be somewhat less noticeable on a i5 compared to a dual-core pentium D, but I have benchmarked, and I can take a brand-new off-the-shelf laptop and speed it up by 10% in 'general usage' benchmark tests with fairly average optimisation routines (in sig).
Hardware doesn't run software, software runs hardware. Unfortunately a lot of people think we can afford to be lazy with our programming now, which results in bad code.
Luckily, Windows seems to be trending in the general direction of better performance, if more useless UI's, if 8 is anything to indicate.

[cron]

An entry level SSD, cheapest on the market, paired with an i5 for the record. I was going to mention that in the original post but it seemed a bit redundant as you can't run an SSD particularly effectively on XP anyway (no AHCI, native TRIM etc), and then I can't really grasp why anyone wouldn't use an SSD as their OS and programs drive these days. Best sub £60 upgrade you can make by a long, long way.

I agree generally with the optimisations you mention, but I haven't really felt the need to do it with Windows 8. I could probably junk a fair few things like the print spooler etc but doubt I'd feel any appropriable performance gain. The interface does take a while to get used to, but I find most things can be done with the same number or fewer clicks once you know where everything is. Device manager (for instance) is always 2-clicks away now. The 'metro' (or whatever they're calling it these days) interface is somewhat pointless as somewhere to do any work on a desktop, but it does turn out to be a pretty good replacement for the start menu, especially since the 8.1 update allowed you to customise it more freely. I really don't miss the bloated list of rubbish that I used to call a start menu.

Main downside for me is that search is more fiddly. It 'should' be better (hit the Windows button and start typing) but the results you get with that metro style search just aren't up to scratch at the moment. Launching an explorer window, heading to My PC and typing in the top left corner is a necessity. Very annoying.

I read an interesting 'ask me anything' interview with an anonymous ex Microsoft employee who said that one of the motivations behind Metro was to split the userbase. Keeping the 'causal' users away from the desktop allows them to make the desktop more 'power user' friendly. Although I suspect power user means 'not your grandma'. Still, once I'd got over feeling like my grandma for the first week and clicked with the new ways of doing some things, I have to say that 8.1 is my favourite Windows yet.

[DuX]

XP has no AHCI? Better use some Googling. But yes, it doesn't have *native* trim support. However you can circumvent that with 3rd party tools. I actually use SSD with AHCI in my i5 laptop with XP. I'm thinking of changing my boot HD for SSD on my main Phenom II 965 computer, too. As you can see I don't own 2003 computers, either. It is a misconception that you should use new computers with newer OSes and old computer with older OSes. Old and slimmer OSes work better with any computer, unless there is no support for more CPUs and some serious stuff like that. AHCI has been around for a long time in XP, as well as multicore CPU support, for instance, since W2K times, if I remember correctly.

Also, I have yet to see a more user friendly OS than XP. Especially regarding how many clicks does it take to do something. I use "quick launch" and have the main programs I use there. I can close FF, start Reaper and start making music in 2 sec. OK, maybe 3. Even the old "start menu" from W2K is far better and efficient than any of these new start menus. They should have left it alone. These are the most usable features in XP - "start menu", "quick launch" and Explorer. They shouldn't have changed these so much, because they just got it right in W2K already. Since then they should have worked on the kernel, drivers and stuff that really matters for the reliability, stability and efficiency of the OS.

[The Dissonance]

It's fine if you never want to update. What is truly annoying are the people that:

1. insist you MUST update
2. insist you MUSTN'T update

and anyone who writes paragraphs about either.

Personally I find the people who write paragraphs about how someone shouldn't write paragraphs annoying nah just joking.
Stripped-back versions of XP kick ass over everything IMO.
Less dependencies, less overhead, less bullshit, less setup time and customisation time, less updating, and less security holes due to less components. And BTW, software optimisation helps on -any- computer. The differences may be somewhat less noticeable on a i5 compared to a dual-core pentium D, but I have benchmarked, and I can take a brand-new off-the-shelf laptop and speed it up by 10% in 'general usage' benchmark tests with fairly average optimisation routines (in sig).
Hardware doesn't run software, software runs hardware. Unfortunately a lot of people think we can afford to be lazy with our programming now, which results in bad code.
Luckily, Windows seems to be trending in the general direction of better performance, if more useless UI's, if 8 is anything to indicate.

you call that a paragraph?

I tried a stripped down version of XP. actually I believe it was a DuX version - thing did not work any better for me. I didn't get more music done, I didn't have lower latency, I didn't have less dropouts (I had none to begin with).

I have been running a net-connected, multipurpose DAW for 14 years (by this I mean 4 different computers over that time period, but still functioning the same way, upgrading the whole time). I haven't had any problems and have been producing music and making money just fine.

Oh wait, when I was traveling for a bit, I used a laptop. I had to turn of the wireless. That was about as intense as I needed to get. YMMV, I guess.

[The_Hidden_Goose]

win7 has been great for stability for me, but I must admit that the extra clicks to do simple stuff can be pretty annoying.

I'm used to it now but there's a part of my brain that niggles at me when it occurs, telling me that I shouldn't be used to it. Like I've been brainwashed into putting up with it, but that little part of me that is still me is crying out behind the veil.

But still...I'm ain't gonna mess around with it now! Too much hassle.

(they got me! I'm prisoner # 234892378)

[DuX]

LOL The_Hidden_Goose.

Windows 7 is a pretty good OS under the hood, yeah. However, to start a simple program is more hassle than on XP indeed. They made it unnecessarily complicated while trying to make it more simple. If that makes any sense... That's why I said they should have concentrated on improving the core of the OS, not the GUI. GUI was just fine and people love it.

This whole MS corporate thing smells of falling apart to me. XP was the peak of their success. W7 was accepted "somewhat*. W8 was not accepted at all, unless people were forced to accept it. That tells you a lot about the company. First they were making OSes for the people, then they started making OSes for themselves, what they think is proper. Huge mistake. The customer is always right. Capitalist minded people should be the first ones to know that. If you want to sell stuff, make the stuff so everyone can use it *easily* and *love* using it. Apple got that right, kinda... gotta hand it to them, that one.

[UltraJv]

LOL The_Hidden_Goose.

Windows 7 is a pretty good OS under the hood, yeah. However, to start a simple program is more hassle than on XP indeed. They made it unnecessarily complicated while trying to make it more simple. If that makes any sense... That's why I said they should have concentrated on improving the core of the OS, not the GUI. GUI was just fine and people love it.

This whole MS corporate thing smells of falling apart to me. XP was the peak of their success. W7 was accepted "somewhat*. W8 was not accepted at all, unless people were forced to accept it. That tells you a lot about the company. First they were making OSes for the people, then they started making OSes for themselves, what they think is proper. Huge mistake. The customer is always right. Capitalist minded people should be the first ones to know that. If you want to sell stuff, make the stuff so everyone can use it *easily* and *love* using it. Apple got that right, kinda... gotta hand it to them, that one.

Ahem, Apple is a small market. Ms are doing very well without your business acumen. Are they falling apart? Email them with your marketing ideas. They are sure to listen. What OS did you make by the way? Windows 8 already outsold OSX :

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/09/ ... rket-share

[james0tucson]

LOL The_Hidden_Goose.

Windows 7 is a pretty good OS under the hood, yeah. However, to start a simple program is more hassle than on XP indeed. They made it unnecessarily complicated while trying to make it more simple. If that makes any sense...

It doesn't... On XP, you click the program name in an explorer window, or maybe you click an icon. On Windows 7, you click the program name in an explorer window, or maybe you click an icon. Precisely the same workflow.

My problem with upgrading is the fact that I run XP on some really marginal hardware, a lot of it, and legally licensed. To upgrade this state of affairs is a much more expensive proposition than I'm going to consider. Even if Windows 7 or 8 runs on this hardware, I'm not buying the licenses, let alone any hardware. On the other hand, if I get some fresh hardware, I'm not installing Windows XP on it.

More likely to go with Ubuntu Studio on an old piece of hardware than an upgraded version of Windows.

[seismic1]

My son upgraded his 6 year old Acer laptop from Win8 to 8.1 the other day only to find out that there are no Intel 3945a/b/g wireless drivers for 8.1. That was unexpected, although not unprecedented. Linux beckons.

[arkmabat]

Maybe some ex-Microsoft hacker buddies could do a business keeping XP afloat?

[arkmabat]

My son upgraded his 6 year old Acer laptop from Win8 to 8.1 the other day only to find out that there are no Intel 3945a/b/g wireless drivers for 8.1. That was unexpected, although not unprecedented. Linux beckons.

Bummer. Bummer.

[Frantz]

Linux beckons.

Linux is better than ever. I setup my main home PC as a dual boot of Linux Mint Cinnamon and Win7. Linux had all the right drivers, boots faster than Win7, runs like a dream, and is more stable. I find I am rarely going back to Win7.

Of course, I am keeping my music PC Win 7. And I am typing this now on the train on a Win 8.1 tablet. So I am dealing with all OSes at once.

[seismic1]

Third parties are now offering annual XP support contracts for enterprise institutions here in the UK.