Happy to report
My Debian box is not running WindowsXP :-P
If you're wondering who is still running Windows XP in this day and age, given that support for the OS is ending soon, the answer is it might be YOU! Or at least, so Microsoft suspects. But fear not: Redmond has stepped up its outreach program with a new website that's designed to get to the bottom of this mystery, once and …
It tells you to sit completely still until you feel a stinging sensation in the neck and black out.
Oh, and if you think something happened to your room while you were knocked out, that's just your imagination. The Recovery Team will cut it out of your building and transplant it into a permanent exhibit in Redmond without even disturbing the dust under the bed...
> What about Windows XP64, that ran on 5.2 kernel?
Nope, according to MS XP64 ain't XP :D
According to WhatIsMyBrowser.com "Your web browser is: Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP SP2"
But according to http://amirunningxp.com "You are NOT running Windows XP"
Now that's interesting...
Also, I don't get the "submit" button when my useragent says IE6 on XP. El Reg doing Redmond's dirty work?
"Isn't XP64, by any other Name just Server 2003?"
Only in the same way that XP is Server 2003.
So, no, XP64 is a client OS and it goes out of support next month. Wags will argue that its driver support was so poor that it never came into support in the first place, but it is still rather sad to learn that even Microsoft have forgotten about it.
Was that the add-on that had an option to resize the desktop somehow ? I recall installing it, and breaking one of our companies products. It was only me that had the bug. Eventually the developers had to remove my machine, and install debug on it, to discover it was the Plus feature. I would have got a bollocking, only two customers reported the same thing a few days later, and I got a pat on the head for being so thorough in testing ....
Don't like it? Don't use it. If you must use Windows, use version 7, otherwise, there's Mac OS, Linux, Android, use them.
I'm getting sooo bored of the constant whinging about Windows 8.x and I strongly suspect that most of the people complaining about it haven't used it and will only be happy if it looks exactly the same as XP, even then I remember the bitching about XP when it was released.
>I'm getting sooo bored of the constant whinging about Windows 8.x
Whilst I tend to agree that we have extensively chewed over the Win8 UI abomination, what is interesting or concerning depending upon your viewpoint, is that MS are effectively only promoting Win8.1 to those still running XP. Whereas, 7, although not the latest and greatest version, is probably a more suitable and less traumatic upgrade and is still shipping and conveniently side steps all the public negativity and animosity towards Microsoft that Windows 8 has generated, which can only help MS to rehabilitate themselves in time for when Win7 drops off support in January 2020...
As for being happy if it looks exactly the same as XP; well after the recent el Reg look back at Win3, I'm actually quite keen to get back to the simplicity and functional cleanliness of interface the early windowing systems such as Win3, SunView, OpenLook and MOTIF exhibited! My only real limiting factor is the application software I have to run to facilitate working with various clients - much only runs under MS Windows so like others I have to get to grips with whatever UI MS decides to ship...
There was little bitching about XP. As I recall, it was widely regarded as about time Microsoft finally abandoned the atrocity that was 9x.
This bitching is more like that that followed Vista: A lot of people complaining about a new interface that seemed to be change for change's sake, and grumbling that the new version provided little if any benefit over the previous.
This bitching is more like that that followed Vista: A lot of people complaining about a new interface that seemed to be change for change's sake, and grumbling that the new version provided little if any benefit over the previous.
There was quite a lot of bitching about WGA and how it would only inconvenience paying customers. Enough that Microsoft didn't distribute WGA with their volume license customers. Oh, and that fucking awful fisher price colour scheme, which was at least trivially changeable back to something.. well.. else.
Win9x was bitched at because it took up 80 to 100MB at a time when a 210MB HDD was not unusual. Oh, that and the horrific compatibility issues with DOS software which was still bloody common at the time.
The only "Fisher Price" stuff I've ever seen was on Windows 8. Windows XP, Vista and 7. Have all felt like a logical evolution to the Product. Vista has it problems. the GUI wasn't really One of these though, and such problems that it DID have, were finally corrected with Windows 7. Perhaps instead of working on Blackcomb, and that other Codename, of which I forgot... Microsoft could have charged for all those Service Packs on XP. To otherwise fund their expenses.
I mean whatever became of all those rumors of MSFS Filesystem, from 10 Years ago? That were to make NTFS seem as dated as FAT is now? Only to be droped 'cause MSFS can't brain now hurrr!
"There was quite a lot of bitching about WGA and how it would only inconvenience paying customers. Enough that Microsoft didn't distribute WGA with their volume license customers. Oh, and that fucking awful fisher price colour scheme, which was at least trivially changeable back to something.. well.. else."
Hey.. Don't knock WGA. A very valuable and useful project.
It was WGA that gave me the final push to give Linux a proper go. And I've been using it ever since. Proof that some MS products do actually work.
I had the misfortune to use Windows 8 for a week, the highlight of which was to temporarily lend the laptop to someone else whose machine wouldn't drive the projector available for his presentation. I just sat there and smiled knowingly at all the things he tried to do but failed.
Now back to a Win7 machine, which I brought home for the weekend to set up the Linux VM for everything that doesn't insist on Windows. I wish a few more places would port their stuff to Linux, it's chicken and egg at the moment where people stick with Windows because of the software and vendors won't port because they don't see enough people using Linux. If MS insist on continuing with their headlong plunge into the Windows 8 approach, I can see a lot of people would make the switch away from MS if all their favourite programs would run on Linux.
Dear MS, stop twatting about with crap like this and FIX the abomination that is Windows 8-8.1-8.1a or whatever....
Whilst I understand what you're trying to say, I'm not entirely sure how the people with the skills required to design and build a website could contribute to fixing the problems with Windows 8.
I seriously doubt that Windows 8 developers were taken off the project to work on this.
You evidently have not had to deal with the bureaucracies of big corporate. It is so frustrating that sometimes I've seen people pay with their own personal money for things just to save them from the hells of the purchase process. Especially for low cost items.
Some places have tried to fix this by issuing prepaid credit cards, but then botched the whole thing by putting on top of that a contrived and tortuous process for getting one of these. End result is the same: penny wise and pound foolish. But the beancounters are delighted because they have done one more thing to get "costs under control" Of course when a multi million project needs three weeks of paperwork for buying a $20 domain they don't see any costs associated with that.
"Because for such a low priced product it would be more efficient to put it through as an expense claim then raise a Purchase order.. no crackpot conspiracy theory required"
That's well and good.... until the beancounters, in their insatiable need to breakdown and analyze everything, start to classify all expenses and you can't log that expense because it does not fit into one of the categories.
Or worse someone abuses expense claims and "something has to be done" to prevent it happening in the future.
Why the personal details?
It's a PR/Marketing exercise that was done as a last minute panic, the domain name was registered by some graduate in a PR/marketing company with the help of an IT person who has never registered a domain name. When they realise that they didn't want them there, another panic will start to remove them...