Windows XP turns 20: Microsoft’s rise and fall points to one thing...

[El Heggunte]

— don’t fix what isn’t broken.

https://theconversation.com/windows-xp-turns-20-microsofts-rise-and-fall-points-to-one...-broken-166493

[pandy]

Don't get me wrong but XP is overhyped - best Windows NT ever is Windows 2000 - XP is the first Windows that started long process of "fixing what isn’t broken"...

[usually_quiet]

That linked article is inaccurate. Did anyone bother to fact-check it? It says:

"Windows 7 followed Vista in 2009, confronting users with massive changes. It initially forced users on computers with a keyboard and mouse into a tablet-style interaction on the home screen.

The familiar icons and desktop format vanished. Instead, users were greeted with differently-sized tiles, and scrolling mechanisms that were perfect for touch-screens but awkward for mouse navigation."

I can see how that criticism might apply to Windows 8 but when was it ever true for Windows 7? I installed Windows 7 almost as soon as it was released and saw nothing like that. The only significant problems I had with Windows 7 were that device drivers for my drawing pad (with a serial port interface) were incompatible and a few programs that used deprecated commands no longer worked. I had to get used to some changes in the user interface but I also had to do that when I moved from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 and from Windows 95 to Windows XP. I quickly grew to like Windows 7 more than Windows XP.

[sophisticles]

I don't know in which reality this author is living but the article starts with a ridiculous premise, namely that Microsoft ever "fell". It didn't.

It also ignores all the lawsuits and DOJ monopoly investigations that prevents MS from engaging in the same business strategies it did when XP was released.

It's also flat out wrong about the way it describes Win 7, I've never seen or used a Win 7 install that behaved the way the author describes.

[jagabo]

He has Win8 confused with Win7.

Start bars, XP, 7, 8.1:


[Attachment 61471 - Click to enlarge]

"Academic rigor," my ass.

[sum_guy]

Microsoft fell all the way up to the Fortune 500 #15 spot. Doomed.

[DB83]

Memory plays strange tricks.


I still have a Win7 install and I did have to change something to make it look like what I was used to previously. Not tiles but still IIRC crazy floating windows with those various themes.


But even with Win10 one could get rid of the tiles and revert back to desktop icons.


Never bothered with Win8 so I can not comment on that.

[davexnet]

I liked 8.1, used it for the last 2 1/2 years. Originally had an early version of 10, but I found myself fighting it,
I ran into a bunch of problems with updates, I scrapped it and installed 8.1. Disabled as much of the store/metro apps as I could
and it works well.

Have since upgraded to the latest 10 as an experiment (within the last week); seems much better than the earlier version I had trouble with in the past

Have taken a full partition backup of 8.1 and can revert back to it in about 20 minutes if I'm inclined to do so.

Also have an XP install on this PC; it's still usable, avast free A/V and the Basilisk web browser

[usually_quiet]

I'm typing on a laptop running Windows 8.1. I didn't need to fight my old habits anymore after I installed Classic Shell. If I had fewer apps installed or had a tablet maybe I would have liked the Start Screen.

[usually_quiet]

He has Win8 confused with Win7.

I would have expected more careful writing, given the author's profile. Her brief profile says she's a lecturer in Computer Science at an Australian university. I guess that is where the claim of academic rigor comes from.

[Alwyn]

I didn't need to fight my old habits anymore after I installed Classic Shell.

Same here. Now called Open Shell, works great with Win 10.

[Hoser Rob]

I think the fall of microsoft is a bit overstated, they still have an enormous market cap.

But they have declined. This, however, has nothing to do with XP and much to do with their failure to make much of a dent in the mobile area.

[netmask56]

Leaving my MAC's alone (for real work!) I'm still on Windows 7 and have not had any major problems. But time to move on and Win 11 coming up! What dramas will that be?

[abolibibelot]

I guess that is where the claim of academic rigor comes from.

Where in the linked article do you see such a claim ? Out of curiosity, I searched the whole page for those two words, not a single hit, same for the author's profile. (She sure doesn't seem to be the epitome of dietary rigor !)

[jagabo]

I guess that is where the claim of academic rigor comes from.

Where in the linked article do you see such a claim ? Out of curiosity, I searched the whole page for those two words, not a single hit...

Right at the top of the page:


[Attachment 61500 - Click to enlarge]

[Brad]

Heh, that's not a part of the Mobile Portrait version, but is there in Landscape mode.

[jagabo]

It's not dead yet... "Microsoft reclaims title of most valuable public company..."

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/10/microsoft-reclaims-title-of-most-valuable-publ...r-apple-falls/

[sophisticles]

The sad thing is that this lady teaches computer science in a university. I guess things are upside down in The Land Down Under, and they see companies that are rising as falling.

[abolibibelot]

Right at the top of the page:

Some parts are automatically translated, hence why I couldn't find it. (Strange by the way that “rigor” gets translated as “expertise”, which has pretty much the same meaning as in english and is not quite the same thing, even though “rigueur” would be a direct equivalent, while another possible translation would be “exigence”.)

[Attachment 61523 - Click to enlarge]

The sad thing is that this lady teaches computer science in a university.

I have witnessed university teachers saying / writing much more egregious B.S. than that, sadly... Once I went out of my way to find an article that contradicted something a biochemistry teacher had said during a class (specifically : he had said that “omega 3” or “n-3” fatty acids “which are good for the heart” — that's already a very crude way of describing the role and importance of these molecules, worthy of a mainstream television show at best — were branched-chain fatty acids), he looked at it, made a cursory remark like “uh, that's interesting”, promised that he would look into it... then of course never mentioned it again. In another instance, a physiology teacher drew a cell membrane with the phospholipids upside-down (that one caused an uproar, contrary to the previously mentioned mistake which went unnoticed by ~50 4th year biology students).