12 years, 7 months and 15 days ago, Windows XP was released to OEMs. Today the official support for it stops, though businesses and governments can continue to purchase support for it. This means that bug fixes won’t. It means that support will only continue if you can pay Microsoft to do it. And it means that if you’re hitched to Windows and not already running Windows 7 (or planning your Windows 9 deployment) then you should probably consider a new career.
Schools in Northern Ireland have done well out of Windows XP as of today, they’re (both primary and secondary) still running it.
At least we can say they were right when they insisted on Windows being the default OS – after all it is the operating system used by most businesses. I didn’t think they actually meant Windows XP.
Windows XP was the first time I felt comfortable with Windows. The pre-NT kernel editions were creaky as hell but I wished for the hardware compatibility and software ease of use of Windows 98 with the pre-emptive multitasking of Windows NT 4 and Windows 2000. XP was the first time it really worked. It’s stood the test of time as well – if you run a lean machine and keep the services under control, it still can be blazingly fast. On newer hardware it just gets out of the way. But that’s all coming to an end.
Today you die. You had a good run.
When I started at Microsoft, we were just switching over to WindowsXP and I hated it. I just didn’t like the way it looked. It took me a while to switch.
When it came to switch to Windows Vista hahaha then I REALLY hated it. I brought in my Mac to the office so I wouldn’t have to look at it all day.
Now I’m using Windows 8.1. It’s ok.