Just install Linux ,there are some amazing ones out there
If Microsoft was smart they would release a super-fixed, super-SECURE, super ...whatever... version of the exact same XP they sold a decade ago. Sell it to oldsters like me. Tons and tons of them.
Sell the latest gadgety kid’s thing to the kids.
Microsoft CAN have two products at once, I believe.
The replies in this thread prove the notion I read about years ago that when its finally clear that the traditional old ‘grampa box’ PC form factor and desktop OS is finally on death’s door, it will be a time of bafflement and lethargy as to what is to replace it in the traditional business environment.
Enthusiasm for PC tech is next to nothing these days. Nobody cares about AMD vs Intel CPU battles. There’s zero ingenuity in big old business PC development. Most people not in IT/MIS in the corporate world connect to the workplace information stream with smartphones and pads. Traditional email has been surpassed by IMs, SMS, Skype, and app-sharing video conferencing suites. The big cubic rectangular sheet metal case PC is becoming the least popular way to interface with your workplace anymore, byte by byte. Don’t even get me started on what a bloated garbage pile MS Outlook is.
Corporations don’t even bother investing in infrastructure anymore from the back office to the employee desktop. I barely even see laptops anymore in the office environment. Much non-critical business data is handled by the cloud on personally-owned devices. Home users have faster Internet connectivity and larger downstream bandwidth through their cable company than many workplaces offer at the business premises. Microsoft’s desktop OS is still stagnant in the world of complex UNC paths, server farms, and relics of the last generation when by all rights this ancient crap should have long ago been made transparent to the end user like pads and phones have accomplished. MSFT has nothing to compete with in this arena. Windows8 and Microsoft Phone sales prove that miserably. Surface is a sad joke. No surprise, as MSFT didn’t even see the direction the web was going. None of this will change until the whole rotten structure comes crashing down, and both the foundation and ceiling of the Windows PC is finally giving way.
These last several years of economic downturn, job loss, and curtailed corporate spending to keep the lights on proved two things: If you lose your job they won’t bother replacing you now that they’ve figured out how to get along without you, and secondly, anyone still using a PC can get by with an outdated six year old PC running Windows XP/2000.
I’m still enslaved by the PC grampa box at my workplace. I do MSSQL development and VB.NET business ops and still have to do all the rotten backend work of DLLs, OCXs, XML, SQL, .ASP, and SOAP. I need to have my PC running 24 hours a day with dozens of active apps running at once and leave my system up with development windows open for the dev I’m doing. Yet, every Wednesday evening Microsoft automatically reboots my machine to apply the weekly Windows Update ‘fixes’ to its train wreck of an operating system because our corporate group policies demand it for the security compliance standards we must adhere to. My Apple hardware maybe updates twice a year. Microsoft completely sucks donkey balls by comparison. You’re better off not even using MSFTs own development tools like VSS to develop for the tech they invented. We don’t even need MS Windows for development except for unit testing. How sad.
The problem MSFT set in motion years ago was that they sat on their laurels, let themselves become outdated and boring, and every talented developer went elsewhere. Last person I knew that visited Microsoft said that Redmond is filled with nothing but pregnant female H1B visa holders who just maintain the old garbage. It’s like a complete reversal from when I contracted there.
If I had a time machine, I wouldn’t use it to kill Hitler. I’d use it to kill Microsoft and ensure that Apple took over the business computing world back in about 1985.
Okay, /rant off
this is a great opportunity for a young entrepreneur. Develop an operating system that we, who hate the new windows, really liked 98, but can live with XP, can seamlessly and with little or no training, switch to.
HP is a big supporter of amnesty—Be damned if I buy anything from them ever again.
I learned my lesson with a HP printer when I needed technical support and got a succession of turkey-gobbling Indians. None were understandable in the least.
That said, why would I replace something that works perfectly, same as my car, my wife, etc. It is gen-x/y/z that MUST have the bleeding edge at all times. I keep what works and what I need.