What made XP so good??

allgoodnamesareused

Every now and then, and start up my XP VM. Then I think to myself, what made this so good? Even I like it, but what made other people like it so much that it reached 83.78% market share at one point?

Thanks

calvinb

It was the only version of Windows for over 5 years. Also funny that most of the XP contingency hated XP when it came out, now they flock to it.

I'm curious if XP was rushed. It seemed like it came out too fast compared to the contemporary 2000/ME releases and was mainly just putting ME's features onto 2000. The server stack wasn't out yet, and Office XP didn't seem to make any major changes. Was it to compete against OS X for a proper "home user" OS based on a stable OS?

allgoodnamesareused

Yeah, I kind of thought someone would say that.

About your XP being rushed thing, I have a theory:

XP was created as a plan B for Windows ME. They developed Whistler a little and when ME was released and it was terrible, they decided to keep developing Whistler. It's possible XP might not have been made if ME was good. About it being rushed, it was because they wanted to get it out quick so ME was not the one everyone would be talking about making it look bad for too long.

I also think that XP and OS X may be a lot like each other. Like you said they were competing home operating systems. I've never really bothered with Mac much, but I think I'm correct in saying both Windows and Mac had the same look (I don't mean they copied each other, but I mean OS 7, 8 and 9 looked quite similar and as you know, all Windows operating systems 95-ME looked similar if not the exact same) for a while and suddenly, OS X and XP had a completely different look but the same layout (is that the right word?).

Is there any other reason besides being the newest Windows that XP was so good?

calvinb

It wasn't. Were you there when the constant malware attacks happened? Blaster, Sasser, MyDoom were all very real threats. XP wasn't very secure. In addition, it wasn't that much of an improvement over 2000. With the patches making XP's system requirements much higher, you'd be better off running 7 if you can, and an older Windows (for being nostalgic) if you can't.

And they did have an NT-based consumer Windows in development - Neptune.

allgoodnamesareused

ampharos wrote:

It wasn't. Were you there when the constant malware attacks happened? Blaster, Sasser, MyDoom were all very real threats. XP wasn't very secure. In addition, it wasn't that much of an improvement over 2000. With the patches making XP's system requirements much higher, you'd be better off running 7 if you can, and an older Windows (for being nostalgic) if you can't.

And they did have an NT-based consumer Windows in development - Neptune.

Actually, I was not affected by much things. Well, I might have, it was a long time ago so I cannot remember if I was or not. At the timel, I usually just browsed the internet and sometimes flash games (Newgrounds FTW).

TCPMeta

XP was MS's cover up to ME. They didn't want Win2k to be a home user OS. Although I prefered Win2k over XP any day of the week but MS put more into pushing XP by pressuring developers to code hardware drivers and such to XP.

Soappy

In my opinion, Windows XP was good because people ran it on systems with +2 GB of ram from 2007-2009.

Vista (at that time) was resource heavy and people tried running XP on OEM machine. In reality, Windows XP is just bloated as Vista during its release (2001) and it even had its share of problems. It's kinda like Windows ME reloaded.

tl;dr Windows XP was good because people ran it on dual cores with +2 GB of ram.

theotherosproject

If I'm not wrong, Vista broke compatibility with many older programs (mostly due to UAC, maybe?), so XP was the way to go if you wanted to run outdated software.

BlueSun

XP was good because Vista was bad.

Before Vista came out, a lot of people hated XP. Consumers had problems because of driver incompatibility with their hardware that was meant for 98. Techs hated it because of the fisher price interface and the general bloated feeling of the OS compared to 2000.

Then some time passed, SP1 came out, then SP2. Hardware got faster, as Soappy said and XP was ok, not the greatest thing, but not the worst either.

Then Vista came out and suddenly XP started looking a lot better. It felt snappier on the same hardware compared to Vista. It was more compatible with existing software, especially considering it had been out for 5 years before Vista came along. Businesses had just completed their moves to XP or were in the process of doing so. It became the lesser of two evils.

ibmpc5150

(Vista install in 2 minutes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVbf9tOGwno

(VISTA SUCKS )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOh6Nh8w6f8


They're very interesting videoes for me.

calvinb

Vista essentially forced the industry to stop being stagnant. With XP, they could get away with some shitty hardware, especially because XP made it harder to use new hardware. Those machines with SATA disks and no floppy drives were... fun. Vista exposed the mediocrity at the time.

Honestly, Vista without patches back on a dual-core with 1 GB of RAM was fine. The patches improved performance as well. By the time 7 came up, it was minor improvement - hardware was finally reasonable again.

Anonymous

Relative to the hardware common at their times, both XP and Vista were resource hogs. A lot of the "love" that people have for XP is that it was common for so long (and it became what they thought of as "windows", unlike those of us who went from 3.1 to 95 to 98 to XP), and because their entire experience with XP is running it on hardware that is tailored for later operating systems -and because they've probably never ran SP1 or earlier.

XP is a screamer once you throw a couple gigs and cores at it; but that's not the hardware it originally ran on.

I've read that 8.1 (with patches) actually requires less resources than 7 does; but I haven't verified that. If true, that would make it very competitive against XP for the low resource set.

BOD

XP just arrived at the right time. When everyone and their dog was getting computers and the internet.

SomeGuy

:!: There are unused icons on your desktop
The desktop cleanup wizard can help you clean up your desktop. Click this balloon to start the wizard and say goodbye to the very, very, critically important icons you just happen to access once every few months. Duuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhh

dosbox

SomeGuy wrote:

:!: There are unused icons on your desktop
The desktop cleanup wizard can help you clean up your desktop. Click this balloon to start the wizard and say goodbye to the very, very, critically important icons you just happen to access once every few months. Duuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I always found that annoying. I forgot if you could turn it off or not, but I think you can.

BlueSun

dosbox wrote:

SomeGuy wrote:

:!: There are unused icons on your desktop
The desktop cleanup wizard can help you clean up your desktop. Click this balloon to start the wizard and say goodbye to the very, very, critically important icons you just happen to access once every few months. Duuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I always found that annoying. I forgot if you could turn it off or not, but I think you can.

Yes, you could turn it off. One of the many tasks you have to do after installing XP to make it tolerable.

SoftPCMuseum

allgoodnamesareused wrote:

Yeah, I kind of thought someone would say that.

About your XP being rushed thing, I have a theory:

XP was created as a plan B for Windows ME. They developed Whistler a little and when ME was released and it was terrible, they decided to keep developing Whistler. It's possible XP might not have been made if ME was good. About it being rushed, it was because they wanted to get it out quick so ME was not the one everyone would be talking about making it look bad for too long.

First, Microsoft was always planning on developing Windows Whistler as the successor to Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium Edition, always. Where did you seriously get the idea that Windows XP was only released due to criticism of Windows Me? If Windows Whistler was already being developed by the time that Windows Me was released, then it would have been released as the successor to Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium Edition regardless of how much criticism either version of Windows received.

Also, just as many people seem to forget that Windows XP was the successor to Windows Me in addition to Windows 2000, you in particular are similarly forgetting that it was the successor to Windows 2000 in addition to Windows Me. Not only were features from Windows Millennium Edition introduced in Windows XP Professional, and not only were many features from Windows 2000 introduced in Windows XP Home Edition, but the operating system as a whole also had new features from both versions of Windows. In addition, not only were both versions of Windows XP based on the same stable architecture of Windows 2000, but many programs also now ran on Windows XP Professional which didn't previously run on Windows 2000 but which ran on Windows Me. Meaning of course that it truly was the successor to both as such.

And looking at reviews from the time period, I have seen both, positive and negative statements regarding basically all of the versions of Windows mentioned above (Windows 2000, Windows Millennium Edition, and Windows XP). And likewise there have always been people complaining about newer versions of Windows who stay with old operating systems for a long period of time (for example, people when the versions of Windows mentioned above were new who still used MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, and Windows for Workgroups because of their opinions regarding modern operating systems, or people who still use Windows XP today for the same reasons).

Remember that with all versions of Windows, there will always be users of earlier versions who will complain about the changes made in modern operating systems. And this has simply not changed. The release of Mac OS X drew similar criticism from users of Mac OS 9 and earlier, and yet that was still the operating system that Apple saw its future in, and so the changes were here to stay regardless of user's complaints.

allgoodnamesareused

SoftPCMuseum wrote:

allgoodnamesareused wrote:

Yeah, I kind of thought someone would say that.

About your XP being rushed thing, I have a theory:

XP was created as a plan B for Windows ME. They developed Whistler a little and when ME was released and it was terrible, they decided to keep developing Whistler. It's possible XP might not have been made if ME was good. About it being rushed, it was because they wanted to get it out quick so ME was not the one everyone would be talking about making it look bad for too long.

First, Microsoft was always planning on developing Windows Whistler as the successor to Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium Edition, always. Where did you seriously get the idea that Windows XP was only released due to criticism of Windows Me? If Windows Whistler was already being developed by the time that Windows Me was released, then it would have been released as the successor to Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium Edition regardless of how much criticism either version of Windows received.

Also, just as many people seem to forget that Windows XP was the successor to Windows Me in addition to Windows 2000, you in particular are similarly forgetting that it was the successor to Windows 2000 in addition to Windows Me. Not only were features from Windows Millennium Edition introduced in Windows XP Professional, and not only were many features from Windows 2000 introduced in Windows XP Home Edition, but the operating system as a whole also had new features from both versions of Windows. In addition, not only were both versions of Windows XP based on the same stable architecture of Windows 2000, but many programs also now ran on Windows XP Professional which didn't previously run on Windows 2000 but which ran on Windows Me. Meaning of course that it truly was the successor to both as such.

And looking at reviews from the time period, I have seen both, positive and negative statements regarding basically all of the versions of Windows mentioned above (Windows 2000, Windows Millennium Edition, and Windows XP). And likewise there have always been people complaining about newer versions of Windows who stay with old operating systems for a long period of time (for example, people when the versions of Windows mentioned above were new who still used MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, and Windows for Workgroups because of their opinions regarding modern operating systems, or people who still use Windows XP today for the same reasons).

Remember that with all versions of Windows, there will always be users of earlier versions who will complain about the changes made in modern operating systems. And this has simply not changed. The release of Mac OS X drew similar criticism from users of Mac OS 9 and earlier, and yet that was still the operating system that Apple saw its future in, and so the changes were here to stay regardless of user's complaints.

allgoodnamesareused wrote:

Yeah, I kind of thought someone would say that.

About your XP being rushed thing, I have a theory:

Note I said theory.

I don't think that's true, it's just a "what if?" thing.

Fido2020

Microsoft actually made a 'Windows XP Mode' which is a version of XP for people running Windows 7 enterprise, professional or ultimate because of some programs could only run on XP or (sometimes) lower!

achunt

The only reason I ever used XP was because it came on my computers and the companies did not support Vista. I was not as smart with computers as I am now, but this was pre Windows 7 time. In my use, Vista has performed better than XP. XP even with all of the SP updates was very slow to just read a forum like this. I like XP, but it's very hard for me to have ever used it as a hard core machine. 1 GB of RAM and a dual AMD processor performed better with Vista than XP.

ArizonaDream

People just hate change... Personally I can't afford that we have been able to bear the silly blue interface and the stupid Windows XP sounds during five years!

Hypothesys

I guess it was just a case of the right place at the right time?