Thank Goodness for Windows XP

[webjr]

ubuntu.com

Checking hardware compatability is a piece of cake. Download the CD image file and burn it to a CD, then boot from the CD. The entire operating system will run from the CD without needing to install anything on your hard drive. It comes with OpenOffice, which supports all the standard MS Office file formats. You can effectively try it out extensively before having to commit.

And the best part of all ......... it's all open source ..... and free.

 

[Thalassamania]

Thanks

 

[under water]

Bill,
Change is hard.
Vista is a better OS then XP, but I know what you speak of. I have a few systems and one is still on XP. Don't believe the Apple ads. Those little boxes that pop up in Vista are there for a reason. A pain when you are installing something that you know about, but a nice thing to have when something is trying to install itself.
Application compatibilty can be acheived by using a compatibility mode for all but the worst written applications.
Save those Vista disks, you may decide to use them someday.
Menu stuff moved around from WIn98 & Win2000 to XP, and they change again going from XP to Vista.
I remember folks not wanting to go to Windows 95 from Win 3.1 because the menus were changed and it looked different.
MS has been pretty passive letting Vista get beat up by folks who haven't used it. That might change.

 

[drbill]

Interesting that so many here have not had problems with Vista... that contradicts what I've heard elsewhere, and much of that came from corporate IT folks.

If I had faith in using the compatibility mode in Vista, I could have bought a more feature-laden system.

I've heard that trying to dual boot Vista with any other OS from Microsoft is a PITA. If that is NOT the case, I may do it. Had thought about running apps under Wine since I've used Linux off-and-ion since 1992 or 93 (Yggdrasil).

I now have systems running everything from CP/M to DOS to Win 3.1 to Win 95 to Win 98 to Win 2000 Pro to Win XP. Just call it a computer museum!

 

[Sas]

Yea I've had Vista a while and the kinks have been worked out, had very few problems with software incompatibility (one with a program from 1992). Had a few driver issues at the start though.

I have to use a lot of different OSs seeing as I am a software tester and Vista is my favourite by far. At my new job I am back to XP and really notice the difference, Vista has better usability IMHO for one thing, so if you have the option I'd upgrade. But yea, if you already have XP setup then it is probably not worth changing it around just for Vista. At home I run XP on one PC (my partners, that I use for testing sometimes), Win98 on an old box, FreeBSD on our server, Xubuntu on my laptop (as it is really old) and Vista on my main PC, they each have their benefits for different things.

 

[Thadmn]

3.1 sucked the big one. Vista runs nice and stable for me, but they dumbed down the menus and made things hard to find. I only use it when I have to. Maybe some day I'll adjust, but I still keep a DOS 6.11 boot disk around.

I would think that you can customize it to your liking. I can't stand the cartoony look of XP, so I choose the classic menu option, easier for me. I do like the way it doesn't lock up all the time, like the old DOS based software.

Now it's Vista, and soon something else, and so on, and so on. There will be some remarkable advances in computers and especially cell phones in the next couple of years, from what I've been hearing. Don't get too attached to your old hardware, or spend too much money upgrading. We will soon be wearing all of this stuff on our wrists!

I have friends who actually get mad at me for not being a slave to my cell phone, but sometimes you just have to shut the damn thing off!

 

[Warthaug]

Interesting that so many here have not had problems with Vista... that contradicts what I've heard elsewhere, and much of that came from corporate IT folks.

I used to complain about it a lot, but now that SP1 is out all of the big issues have been resolved. And I am a manager of sorts of a computer facility. But I am a far cry from an IT folk of any sort - corporate or otherwise.

Bryan

 

[ekremer]

We've been upgrading many of our system at work, and so far we've had great success with vista (using compatibility mode). There is only one exception to that, but that software dated back to 1991 and was originally designed to run under dos on a 486 system.

One option that I've seen a few people use is to use a linux box with windows programs running under wine (or a similar windows emulator). Wine does a pretty good job of running XP and earlier windows applications. You take a performance hit, but on todays processors those old programs run just fine.

Bryan

Try this for your dos software DOSBox, a x86 emulator with DOS

 

[mike_s]

I've had two experiences with Vista.

one was maybe early this year when I bought my father a new computer and it had Vista on it. All kinds of problems getting software to work and the system being DOG slow.

I've recently gotten a new laptop with Vista. Lots more memory also. but so far no big problems. (but I haven't loaded much either... yet)

 

[drbill]

Heck, I don't see any reason to upgrade unless I need features in the new OS or software. My CP/M laptop (ca 1984) had the longest battery life (7 1/2 hours) of any laptop I've ever used. Of course that's because it had no floppy or hard drive. It is still good for word processing under Wordstar.

In another 5 years I will undoubtedly consider a new computer, but probably not before that regardless of the upcoming technology.