It's built in obsolescence on steroids. If you can't make it obselete by wearing out, make it obsolete by changing the rest of the world so it no longer fits in.

I have to admit that Win7 is pretty damn stable, but my Amiga 500 is more stable. All I've heard about Win8 is that it's got a hole the size of barn door to drive bugs through. And all I use is Firefox. I also use Thunderbird, Sunbird, FileZilla, OpenOffice, and IZArc.

I'm running the latest version of Kubuntu right now.

mcupdate is the worst (media store updater, not McAffee). Sometimes the machine completely locks up and needs a full hard reboot. It's done that all along. Windows Update is a deathtrap if you let it run automatically (which curiously isn't true on Win7). The only problem I have with Win7 is that it reboots itself after running an update. That would be okay if I didn't have 35 windows open in eight different user environments.

change them until the computer they're running on dies. Then, I go and buy another computer and adapt to the version of the operating system that is installed on it. When that happens, I grumble about it for a week or so, and then don't care any longer. I don't use operating systems, really. I use software that runs on them.

Right now, I'm using mainly Microsoft Office 2000, running on an eight year old XP machine. Works great. It has worked great since I bought it. I did add a couple of gigabytes of RAM in there at some point, but that's it. Same OS, and the same version of Office I used with an earlier computer.

So, eventually, I'll go to my PC and find out some morning that it has died. I'll go to whichever store has a good deal on a new desktop PC, and I'll buy that. It will probably be a Dell or an HP. We'll see.

I'll come home and see if Office 2000 will install and run on it. If it will, I'm done. I'll download the latest version of Chrome and that will be all I need. My important documents and data files are backed up on several thumb drives and on Yahoo Mail, where I've emailed them to myself.

If Office 2000 won't install and run, I have an Office 10 complete package. I prefer Office 2000, but I don't really care. I only use Word anyhow.

Windows 8? As long as I can find Word and Chrome on it, I'm good. I'll figure the rest out soon enough.

I just don't care any more. I use software, not operating systems.

If it was just a de facto OS tax I would probably pay it.

But I will not upgrade in order to lose functionality.

Of course, a computer has to die pretty hard on me before I upgrade since I can repair a lot of things that go wrong.

My laptop has XP, our new all in one desktop has 7. We'lll probably miss 8 altogether if our machinery holds up. If the laptop dies I might replace it with an Android powered tablet. But so far, knock on wood, it's alive and well.

hardware considered obsolete, no anti-virus, no HDD maintenance, 99.999% software compatibility, and 100% free.

GNU/Linux will set you free!

Yes it will! It will set you free from spending a lot of money on a lousy operating system. You will be able to save tons of money and get ALL of your software for FREE. Free as in speech, not free as in beer, that is.

Many flavors of Linux fall under the GNU General Public License. Find out more about that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License

As far as no anti-virus, I find that fool-hearty, because there are, in fact, viruses for each and every operating system under the sun.

I have used different flavors of Linux on old and new hardware, and it works great. Yes, it does take some learning, but once you get it down, it's not too hard to go to a different flavor.

destruction and compromise of data that windoze literally begs for.

So, yes there is some small risk (reduced even further through some very sensible precautions with ports, firewalls, and sensible use), but really why would the few people that could actually do it, bother to? Hacking a Linux/UNIX system through a virus is far beyond the capability of the script kiddies that wreak havoc in Gatesville, and serious malicious hackers that could, are too busy breaking into banks, insurance companies, governments, and the like to bother with lowly users. They don't want my bank account, they want 400,000 bank accounts.

And frankly, anti-virus apps are no match for anything beyond bottom feeding assholes anyway. If the serious bad guys want your system, they are going to get it and there's really nothing you can do about it.

So I think foolhardy is really much too strong a word.

and login as root, and don't use a firewall.
These are things that fool-hearty newbies often do.

Yup. Thats when I switched to ubuntu

My company system is windows 7 but the more I use both, the more I like ubuntu. My win7 mouse driver went bad last week and I had to dick with reloading a good image and IE9 doesnt seem to work right on many sites.

is starting to become sloppy. I hope to die before XP Pro is taken out. I have tons of software that I couldn't afford to replace. I love XP. I tried to update to other Microsoft OS's years ago, but didn't like them. I use my machine for functional purposes. I am not much for games where X has to capture Y or Z by running through a swamp filled with weird creatures.

Skip Windows 7/8. Try Linux Mint w/ Cinnamon

and replaced it with another. Do you mind pointing out how that is done, or whether a person should hire a computer professional to do the work?

sweat it. I used to frequently work with medical doctors, and there is a common fallacy among them that, since they're doctors, that makes them experts in everything and nobody else is as smart as they are. We even gave it a name; Imadoctoritus.

system used to be MS DOS. OI for me was short for operator interface. I could have used "user interface". I don't know how to switch user interfaces without causing issues, and I am not sure whether a non-windows user interface would work with the operating system that drives a computer, or whether the operating system must also be changed along with the user interface.

So no, windoze is no longer a separate interface on top of the OS, hasn't been since 95 and is a constant source for many of the ridiculous problems they have always had, but which people have just come to believe is all part of using a computer. I have rarely used any of the Mac OSes, but I believe that they too have done this.

You are right that the interface is specific to the OS and Linux is the only OS I know, that is still in common use, that does offer options in this area. If none of them suit your needs, you can develop your own and many dedicated systems have done so (or at least did. I don't work in that field any longer, life's too short to work that hard for so little reward). One of the best I ever worked with was one developed by HP Scientific, but again, that was a long time ago when HP was a real computer and instrument company run by engineers and scientists. It wasn't as flexible as most consumer interfaces, but the ease and simplicity were impressive. I brought a whole new database system into their department and they integrated it, and the report engine right into their interface in one afternoon.

Were you thinking of anything in particular? There are an enormous number of resources in the community and Linux has been around for so long it would be very surprising if there wasn't already a group that has done what you're looking for.

As a warning, your programs in windows will not work in Linux. But Linux comes with graphic programs and free office programs of high caliber. If you reformat your drive, then your data will be lost. You may want to install a new drive for the Linux Mint OS (or make a partition) and dual boot (so you can access both Windows and Linux)

1) Download Linux Mint w/ Cinnamon (http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=117)
2) Burn it to a DVD
3) Put DVD in drive and reboot computer. If computer Bios boots first from DVD (most will by default), then the installation will start manually
4) Follow instructions and wait

I edit documents and manage technical pictures, so I got the Microsoft Office applications that allow me to do my work. I haven't yet started working with the system, but given what I have heard about Windows 8, I have reservations.

You are right. When I was researching a new system, there was nothing available but systems that ran Windows 8. Microsoft is doing it's usual tactic of forcing user interfaces down buyers throats and forcing us to identify problems with that interface before Microsoft fixes them. XP PRO was good at the end, but it also started out filled with bugs, it became great over time. I don't suspect that Windows 8 will become great, Microsoft is fighting to compete with interfaces that power small form devices, my expectation is that we will see a Windows 9 in short order, well before bugs in Windows 8 get worked out. While Microsoft is fighting to stay relevant, I suspect that the rapid evolutions of the Windows system is also proving to be enormously profitable for the company, PC and other computer form makers have no option but to adopt and consumers no option but to buy.

Personally, I have liked Windows 7 a lot because it addressed many of XP's shortcomings. I spent a week with Windows 8 (for a job) but found no compelling reasons to relearn how to use a computer.

Use Firefox on our Windoze gaming box (which isn't getting much use now as the gamer is into Dark Souls lately).

Win 8 seems geared for tablets and phones. Will stick with 7 as long as I can.

........In spite of claims made by Microsoft that their upgraded versions provide increased "security protection", I am convinced that the main thing they do is make it possible and easier for them to cram more advertising down our throats. That, in turn translates into more revenue for them.

I am running an early version of XP Pro, and I have permanently turned off the automatic update function. I also do not use their Internet Explorer browser.

It's all about greed. It's all about advertising. And it's all about money.

An example of my thesis is that I have recently gone to the web site of my browser to make sure that I have the most up to date version of it downloaded directly from them. That having been said, I am still continually bombarded with annoying banners from Yahoo telling me that there is a new update to my browser available through them, and extending a link for me to use to update it. Except I know it is really just a ploy that, once downloaded, will do nothing except permit Yahoo to disturb and distract my valuable time on-line by cramming more of their distracting advertising down my throat.

Slimy, greedy, dishonest, politically right wing, money grubbing pond scum. I am ashamed to say that they are from the S.F. Bay area.

In another area, the thing that truly baffles me is how the advertising on this board can know what products, on what web sites I have recently visited, and then post advertising for those products at the top of my DU page. How is it that DU can possibly know what products on the Internet I have recently been browsing? Does anyone know if there is a cookie somewhere that I can permanently disable in order to stop this from happening? I mean, talk about big brother! I find it extremely disturbing, as well as being an affront to my right to privacy.

They all share your login info and match up your IP address, login time, OS/system signature.

....do you happen to know of a way that I can prevent this from happening?

One of the maintenance programs that I subscribe to for free on the Internet is CC Cleaner. I run it every day, just before I turn off my computer, and one of the things it is supposed to remove are the tracking cookies that inform on me to outside entities who are 'spying'. It also eliminates all of my temporary files that I do not need, thereby helping my system to run faster. But from what you have said, it sounds like what I am experiencing goes deeper than that.

there's a lot of free ones available,
although you can't really know who is hosting them (i.e. CIA, NSA).

http://proxy.org/

There's commercial ones you can pay for also.

You could hack an open source version of Chrome and mask most of that info, too.

I don't worry about it much,
I think it's largely an inevitable consequence of the Information Age. As information becomes cheaper and cheaper, it becomes more and more expensive to constrain information.

Basically, there are brokerages now that buy login info from many many sources,
match up and resell it back to advertisers who hook back into your real-time info.

have an anonymizing option which masks out most info.

I never use it, I forgot about it.

They can't directly mask IP address (and probably not routing info) because that's kind of like the return address on mail, no return address, no response forwarded. Google/Firefox might route through their own IPs, though, I've never bothered to figure it all out. But even if they do, you're still dealing with Google, etc, etc, who makes their living on advertising.

by using Firefox with these addons:

BetterPrivacy
Disconnect
Ghostery
ShareMeNot

and using Startpage (SSL) for my search engine.

IIRC, I had a couple of small problems at first getting things configured, not much though. There's still an issue where some OPs on DU have images that don't show up (I think the problem here is Ghostery not liking some social media tag that appears in the image code), pretty rare though and for those threads I just open them in my less-secured Internet Explorer to see the image.

Hope that helps. There are people here much more expert on this than I am, but it's pretty much working for me.

I can't recommend it highly enough to Firefox users.

I'd add "AdBlock Plus" and "Adblock Plus Pop-up Addon" to the list. The latter requires the former in order to work.
With these two, if you ever do get any pop-ups, anywhere, you can simply right-click them and add them to a blacklist and never be bothered by them again. Heaven.

Works for me and its free. I use XP, Chrome, and everything else open source

It looks to me like what you have proposed will work well for eliminating "pop-ups" and the like. The thing I am working on is eliminating "on site" advertising that is born of previous destinations in my Internet searches. I am willing to endure the advertising (especially if it engenders the survival of a site that other wise has no other source of revenue), but the thing that is freaking me out is having my personal internet search activity being made available to essentially any advertiser who is willing to pay tor that information.

The only way to stop information collection is to route through an intermediate system, i.e. a proxy, which is the address recorded on the remote site instead of your own.

like Startpage (SSL).

but recently upgraded to 7. It took a little getting used to, but it's ok.

compete in an objective environment with a real OS.

It is still used in a lot of industrial settings because it is so stable. I don't know what is going to happen to the equipment that runs XP considering it still works fine. Windows 7 is ok but you need a much more powerful machine to run it. Vista was a mess and I assume that Windows 8 is also going to be a mess.

I passed on windows vista, and will likely pass on Win8 as well. I should get another copy of Win7, so I can upgrade my XP machine sometime.

Microsoft is a HUGE part of the greed-driven economy.

its a free download

since I opened it by accident about a year ago. I removed the shortcut since then so it's cool.

I still use XP for all my business machines. I have Windows 7 in the laptops...and it's ok, but I am not happy with the networking on this system compared to good old XP. I was one of the first to install the system in 2001 and have been very satisfied with it. I will have to get new machines in the near future and I dread having to "upgrade"...I'll keep the old machines cranking as long as I can.

.. was inadvertantly built around selling buggy/crashy OSes that they could offer "upgrades" for every couple of years. People were happy to pay the $100 for the "upgrade" in hopes that they could finally have a stable computer.

A funny thing then happened, they released an OS that was not buggy/crashy. Now, people have no compelling reason to upgrade and this is costing them money.

The only quibble I have with the OP is being wedded to IE. It is inferior in every way to Firefox, Chrome or Opera. I use it ONLY for the handful of sites that require it and those are dwindling as we speak. Forget IE, it is not remotely necessary.

I like it and have no desire to upgrade.

because they always screw the skipped one up. Windows 2000 and Vista was crap and Windows 8 is buggy. I'm not planning on upgrading until Windows 9 or whatever they call the next OS.

which is Firefox or Chrome, on my work and home and kid's desktops.

On XP, back in the 2002 or so was the last time I used it - it crashed so much it was ridiculous to use. And installing programs, why should you have to always restart your computer? And keeping up with the constant malware and so forth...mine finally "Xpired Permanently", and I replaced it with Ubuntu, as my recovery discs didn't work and Microsoft had no suggestions other than buying the program again.

Since then, its been Ubuntu all the way, and quite happy!

Check http://www.distrowatch.com
This site has listings of the most popular distributions of Linux that I can find. They give some details as to what each distribution is geared for, and what software is included with each version of each distribution.

Personally, I favor Puppy Linux for older machines, and Debian or Open SUSE for newer machines. But that's me, everyone is different.

or 8 in the near future due to TCP/ip v.6. the internet is running out of addresses and v.6 helps fix that. if you end up with win8 there is a free app that reinstalls the start button that will help you bypass all of the tile interface stuff.

It's fairly simple to turn it on.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2478747
http://ipv6int.net/systems/windows_xp-ipv6.html

Also, they are pushing Windows 8 now. That appears to be another MS loser. I am building a new Win7 macine this week.

work better! As for MS, I run XP Pro under Ubuntu as an application under a virtual OS. This stuff works quite well. For other things I used something called Wine. These is a whole huge world that does not use MS.

I've got a bunch of my Steam games running in WINE now.

seems WINE just keeps getting better and better. I've been amazed at how well WINE works anymore compared to the early days.

WINE's not perfect, but it works amazingly well.

...when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.

I'm constantly working on my friend's Vista and Win 7 machines, Win 7 isn't so bad, but Vista is an exercise in masochism and it runs like s#!t on very good hardware.

XP doesn't have good 64-bit support; modern software increasingly requires a 64-bit operating system just to be able to use RAM beyond the 32-bit limit (in practise, any program that calls for 2.5GB of RAM will fail on a 32-bit OS because of memory limits; many modern software applications use this much). Windows XP is ten years old. It is no longer supported except for critical security issues. It is not "a war on XP", it's "Microsoft is no longer supporting XP because it's ten years old and they've gone through two successive desktop OSes in the interim". Vendors of new hardware do not ship XP drivers any longer. The only reason to run XP is because you have old hardware; if that's the case I'd probably recommend 32-bit Ubuntu Linux with LXDE (Lubuntu, it's called), which is more or less similar in desktop look and feel to XP but currently supported with driver updates.

I've been running computer user groups for nearly 25 years, and in every group, there's been a cadre of people who insist on sticking with the old OS, word processor, programming language. The botom line is that it becomes harder to keep older software working with newer hardware, and it's not cost-effective for companies to rewrite or patch the programs for a declining user base.

for storms and power outages.

...if its a non-cordless land-line phone.

nt

Even if that means switching to Mozilla permanently.

There's so much I can't do in XP without a huge hassle.

Windows 7 is going to be the next XP, however. It'll be around until 2020.

I also loved XP, but there are too many tech improvements I wanted to have with the newer Windows versions and so I switched to Vista a few years ago. It has now grown on me, to the point of me buying new copies to install on new computers in the future that I'm planning on getting.

Win7 is Vista, fixed. It's nearly identical in every important way.

Win8 has taken me some getting used to, but I'm actually surprised by how impressed I am with it. The desktop is still there, but some of the new full screen apps are actually worth using.

In XP if you have a valid product key, you can install it and use it pretty much forever. Win7 is very different; if you are in an enterprise network situation the licensing--"activation"--is provided by a server. The computer can be off that network for six months, but after that it has to be attached to that network so it can see that server, or the OS "de-activates". On an stand-alone installation, it has to see the Internet, or you have to call for a key. At some point your Win7 license will expire.

Win7 will also de-activate if it detects a significant change in hardware. 'Member how you used to swap that drive into a new box, load some drivers, and keep going? Can't do that anymore.

Use Firefox .... really. I mean it. Works perfectly fine with XP and any firewall/anti-virus program you might be running.

Download free straight from Mozilla:

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/

The shop I work in used to be almost entirely a MS Windows based environment. Many stand-alone Win Servers, all Windows workstations. A few years ago, the company purchased software with a number of Linux back-end servers. I was asked to assist with supporting those Linux boxes. I am a Microsoft Certified Administrator, and to that point had focused all of my training on the MS side of things.

I began the task by taking on-line CBLs and reading a number of technical books on the Linux OS. Since I am a great supporter of total immersion, I decided to dual-install Windows Server and RedHat Linux on my home PC. The two operating systems are very different. They do the same things, but in different ways, different commands, etc. Took me awhile to really get used to the Linux OS. I finally installed Fedora in a virtual environment and began using the Linux GUI. In the beginning, I found myself using Windows more often than Linux and had to continue to force myself to work in the Linux environment. Fedora is a bit buggy and doesn't really allow a user to do all of the things that I've become used to doing in the Windows environment.

I finally installed Ubuntu on my virtual server. Voila is all I can say. I've since formatted the system disks on my desktop PC and installed Ubuntu Server 64 bit, and formatted the drive on my laptop and installed Ubuntu workstation 64 bit. I've been totally Linux in my home for over 2 years now. Unless something very dramatic happens, I don't believe I'll ever go back to Windows.

I should add that I had a few issues with both my XP Pro and Vista Ultimate machines. On separate occasions, I contacted MS for assistance. I was moving both OSs to different machines - new machines. The XP issue was that I didn't have the original packaging or installation CD. Even though they were able to confirm that I had registered this copy of the OS, they were unwilling to give me a license key. They absolutely refused and insisted that I would need to purchase an upgrade to Windows 7 in order to receive a license key.

The Vista issue was completely different. I was told by the person with MS, that the OS was licensed for only one computer. That I couldn't install the OS onto a different PC. I let the individual know that I purchased a licensed copy of the OS, not an OEM. Didn't purchase the OS pre-installed on a computer. I told him that I had the packaging and even the invoice from the purchase. He insisted that he couldn't help me. I hung up, dialled a different number and was given the key. Of course, Vista has been virtualized on my Ubuntu server. I can't remember the last time I booted that virtual machine.

Ubuntu is free and it does every thing that I want it to do. I've replaced all of the software that I used to work with on my Windows machines with open source versions. Some of the installations and configurations can be a bit technical, but the trade-off is that I don't have to pay 400 bucks for an office suite. I don't pay for updates, I just download and apply the updates.

Or any previous MS OS. I've used Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP Pro (32 bit) and W7, and W7 is by far the best of the bunch. In fact I go so far to say that W7 is the best OS MS has ever sold. I have not had a single BSOD since installing Win 7. Win 7 is faster than XP, and I'm currently using 32GB of DDR3 with 12GB of that in a Ramdisk. No way you could do that with XP Pro.

When building a new computer (I build all my own) W7 at it's slowest installs much faster than XP ever did. I can install W7 from a flash drive to a SSD in about 10-15 minutes as opposed to the 30 minutes or more it took for XP.

Now, IE isn't very good. I never use it, except for downloading something from MS website. Otherwise it's Firefox all the way for me.

Chrome is faster, but as long as Google refuses to offer a Bookmarks sidebar like FF or IE. I won't use Chrome.

i've finally cut over to firefox because of this very issue.

i now only use explorer for accessing work emails from home. for whatever reason, my work webmail interface works better on ie.

Chrome gets updated every month. Firefox releases new versions almost every week. There are reasons why they had to do it. Security, better user interface etc. And of course opportunity to make money. I don't see a reason for singling out Microsoft.

a lot of the functionality of IE9 is available in Chrome and Firefox which do run on XP, which suggests that Microsoft is gratuitously choosing to degrade their browser options for existing XP machines.

in the browser development that they can only focus on few platforms to catch up with the competition. Plus they have far more problems with them entering late to tablet that they have to catch up to apple and android.