Windows 7 vs. 8

exl said:

In april Microsoft will cease development of any security-related patches. You can bet there's a lot of exploits being piled up for the remaining 23% of Windows XP users, ready to be put to use once Microsoft stops excreting patches for it.

I don't believe it for a second. In my 12+ years of using Windows XP, I've not once experienced an ill effect as they monotonously describe as being fixed in their countless security patches. Probably because virtually all of these exploits depend on the user either 1) exposing their computer to an unfiltered internet connection, or 2) willfully executing malicious code.

If my OS is just waiting to be overrun by viruses, it would have already happened.

Like that time you ran a program downloaded from Limewire.

Gez said:

I know Vista 32 existed as I had one, but I've only ever seen 7-64 around here, and as for 8...

I've seen 32 bit. In fact, I have a laptop with it installed. I'm pretty sure that when I bought Win7 to upgrade one of my Vista machines, the disks had both 32 and 64 bit on them.

7. I've got several devices with 7 and 8 and vista.

8 is actually okay... once you enable some sort of old school mode that doesn't have the big touch screen blocks fucking everything up. Windows 95 had an old school mode that made it look like Windows 3.1.

My only worry with "old school" modes in any software is that, sooner or later, they get dropped. So, all they allow you to do is put off using the newer system for a version or two but, eventually, the old school mode gets dropped and you are forced to adapt to the newer style long after everyone else has got the hang of it.

That being said, I really hope that MS will listen to the numerous voices telling them the the big "baby's first computer" coloured blocks interface of Win 8 is not suited to a desktop PC.

Of course there's 32-bit Win7. It's not even limited to Pro or Ultimate.

AndrewB said:

I don't believe it for a second. In my 12+ years of using Windows XP, I've not once experienced an ill effect as they monotonously describe as being fixed in their countless security patches. Probably because virtually all of these exploits depend on the user either 1) exposing their computer to an unfiltered internet connection, or 2) willfully executing malicious code.

If my OS is just waiting to be overrun by viruses, it would have already happened.

Put an unpatched original install of XP on the net and it'll be infected within minutes if enough copies of thsoe evil worms from 2003 are still floating around. Service Pack 2 was a godsend for those of us who worked in tech support. :D

The way these things usually work is the 3v!1 h4x0rz reverse engineer the patches MS releases. They then now how to exploit everyone who doesn't have that patch. Many of the flaws are common between two or three versions of Windows, so if you're running an unsupported OS you can get screwed pretty fast. All it takes is for someone you trust to give you a trojan your AV doesn't catch.

Why the love for XP around here anyway? 16 gigs of RAM is an awesome thing you just ain't gonna do with a 32-bit OS from 2001.

The bigger issue with sticking with XP post support isn't that there will be no more patches, but there are many developers who tie their OS support into whatever Microsoft supports. So expect after April to start seeing more applications requiring Vista or later. Web browsers will probably be of the first to do so and then games will probably stop being made for DirectX 9.

Given XP's popularity and the fact that the latest Visual Studio can still target it, it might not be as fast of a transition as I'm making it out to be, but the point is it's not all about security patches.

Aliotroph? said:

Why the love for XP around here anyway? 16 gigs of RAM is an awesome thing you just ain't gonna do with a 32-bit OS from 2001.

Well I wouldn't be surprised if there's a hack out there to remove the artificial limit (XP is a PAE kernel so it can address up to 64GB). If a large number of programs didn't require SP2/3, you could also downgrade to SP1 and not have the limit as well. One could also upgrade to the 32-bit server version of XP (2003/2003R2 Enterprise or Datacenter) to use PAE and that's supported until July 2015.

Even though I was an ardent supporter of XP nearly till the last, I had to concede that it's much less troublesome to install 7 on most modern PCs, and even some not so new ones: e.g. they worked wonders on an old (2004 I think) Fujitsu-Siemens E-series Lifebook laptop (Pentium M @ 2 GHz) which was literally dragging its tail with XP SP3 and all of the necessary updates. Yeah, there was some driver hunting because the laptop didn't have official Vista/7 drivers, but in the end it all worked tight.

As for XP being more lightweight, a "clean" SP3 installation might indeed still be lighter, but after installing about 200 updates on top of that...then nope, it ain't lighter no more, esse. Even on disk, both a W7 SP1 and a XP SP3 installation + updates end up weighing around 4-5 GB.

And even in RAM, with 512 MB and 1 GB machines XP SP3 + updates is not really much better than Windows 7 at the same specs.

The only case -so far- where a system didn't quite like W7 was an old Asus P4 motherboard with an ATI chipset...the (weirdly implemented) AGP bus just never worked right and remained stuck at PCI (!) speed, making it virtually impossible to use any sort of video hardware acceleration.

My only real gripe with Windows 7 is that it STILL doesn't support some SATA controllers out-of-the box (even when Ubuntu does, e.g. FastTrak controllers), forcing you to provide third-party drivers during installation. Hey, at least the source can now be something other than a floppy....

Enjay said:

My only worry with "old school" modes in any software is that, sooner or later, they get dropped.

They cannot afford to. Remember, all the Metro shit is completely and utterly worthless for working machines. Aside from toy apps it has no purpose whatsoever and making it the sole mode of operation will inevitably doom Windows to a fringe existence.

I had to migrate to Windows 8.1 because my employer started developing Windows Phone 8 and Windows Store 8.1 apps and those can't be done with Windows 7.

Once you install stuff to iron out the kinks (Classic shell is an absolute must) and make sure that the file associations to Metro apps are gone it's actually an ok system. My main gripe is that the window title is centered now and there's no way to easily change that.

Ever since I installed Windows 8.1 the only times I switched to the start screen was for checking if the live tiles of the apps I wrote were working. If you ask me, it's the most idiotic user interface I have ever encountered and deserves to rot in the deepest pits of hell.


Anyway, if you have to re-install Windows and got some spare money, make sure to buy an SSD and install Windows on that. It'll make a vast difference in performance.

Doomhuntress said:

didn't Microsoft offer XP to Win 8 upgrades sometime last summer for 40 dollars? i could've sworn that was the case...

Don't recall seeing that one, but I won't be surprised if it resurfaces in February/March. Probably an upgrade in name only, like with Win 7.

Zed said:

I also need a new computer, and I'm not sure if I should go for 32-bit or 64-bit

Good luck finding a new computer that's not 64 bit.

AndrewB said:

I don't believe it for a second. In my 12+ years of using Windows XP, I've not once experienced an ill effect as they monotonously describe as being fixed in their countless security patches. Probably because virtually all of these exploits depend on the user either 1) exposing their computer to an unfiltered internet connection, or 2) willfully executing malicious code.

As long as you're running a modern browser (Firefox/Chrome) and not running a server or something then you're *probably* okay.

That said, don't assume it can never happen to you. That's what I thought as well, and then my machine got infected. Suffice to say I never ran any executables from dodgy sources. Nowadays the main attack surface for consumers is browsers and browser plugins, hence why it's probably more important to keep your browser up to date than your OS. But if I still used Windows for anything I have to say I'd probably be looking to upgrade to 7 at this point.

Gez said:

Windows 32-bit is still compatible with 16-bit programs. Windows 64-bit dropped 16-bit compatibility entirely.

DOSbox and VirtualBox both exist - they're free and they're great. Seriously, use an emulator. I don't know why anyone has any expectation of being able to run 16-bit programs in 2014.

GreyGhost said:

Good luck finding a new computer that's not 64 bit.

1) Buy Win8 PC
2) Download ISO of Win8 32-bit OEM
3) Install using CD key on the sticker
4) Profit

GreyGhost said:

Good luck finding a new computer that's not 64 bit.

There's always the risk of getting one of the last Atom 32-bit CPUs dumped on ya, especially if shopping for an ultraportable/netbook.

By really scrounging the bottom of the barrel for what regards desktop offerings, I'm sure that it's still possible to find a similar "offer" if looking for barebones or "office-grade" motherboards.

I still use XP SP3. No plans to upgrade this april. I have ubuntu installed too. Probably will use that more often after XP support is dropped. But I havent really relied on microsoft for any support back when xp was supported. I have tried 7, dont like it. I dislike 8 even more.

go with the windows 7. Im reluctant to try windows 8 because of the weird boxy interface

I'm presently running XP on my home-office machine, 7 on my laptop, and 8.1 on my media PC. If you don't want to deviate too far from the XP experience, I'd go for 7 - unlike 8.1 (so far as I can tell) it's no trouble to configure it so that it looks and handles in a more 'classic' Windows fashion. Of the three, 7 is probably my favourite - a classic Windows feel, but with some nifty functions (e.g. 'snap' - really useful for multitasking, and I miss it when I use XP). 8.1 isn't actually as bad as I was expecting it to be, and it boots more quickly, which I like, but there are various aspects of the design which irk me.

exl said (of WinXP):

In april Microsoft will cease development of any security-related patches. You can bet there's a lot of exploits being piled up for the remaining 23% of Windows XP users, ready to be put to use once Microsoft stops excreting patches for it.

The lack of official support probably won't deter a hard core of XP users, though I suspect Microsoft have other tricks up their sleeve to coax/cajole/coerce users into upgrading. On starting up my desktop PC this morning I was informed that my hardware had changed "significantly" since XP had been installed and I'd need to re-activate Windows within the next 3 days if I wished to continue using it. The only recent "changes" I can think of which might have triggered that was by connecting to my (possibly faulty) ADSL modem and my backup router via their USB ports instead of the Ethernet port while re-establishing a connection to the outside world, which is the subject of my latest rant in Blogs. I'm tossing up whether to go through product activation again and risk being informed I'll need to upgrade, or restore C drive from backup.

Rejoice, rejoice. Microsoft will almost certainly have to back down from its dramatic "Windows XP ends on April 2014" statements, and continue developing security patches, even if not necessarily free (and we aaaaaall know how effective that will be, amirite? )

http://gcn.com/blogs/pulse/2013/09/xp-support-for-a-price.aspx
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/01/15/239235/microsoft-extends-updates-for-windows-xp-security-products-until-july-2015

Considering that XP still runs 30% of existing computers (especially in company/corporate settings) AND that it was still sold to corporate users until mid 2012, leaving it unsupported wouldn't be such a good idea. You see, corporate accounting doesn't take kindly to having a merely 2-year old product being declared "EOL".

So haters eat your heart out, XP will still be proudly flaunting its ugly mug around for a loooooong time

This is a particularly big deal in the health industry, since analysts are claiming that if left unsupported, XP will not be compliant with HIPAA or HITECH Act requirements unless the NIC is completely unplugged.

Some of the workstations we're talking about are integrated into $300K radiology equipment as the controlling "head", equipment that isn't manufactured or updated by its source company any longer in some instances.

So an end to XP support for such things equates to a mandate from the federal government to replace billions of dollars of health equipment. There's backlash, to say the least.

XP just got a performance fix. This potentially explains why my olde lappy developed such a long time between booting to desktop and being useful, even after reinstalls.

Ah, the infamous Windows Update/SVCHOST.EXE issue. It was about fucking time. Too bad that article loses street cred by repeating the "XP ends on April 2014" mantra, which with a 99.999% probability isn't true anymore, at least for corporate users. Even if updates are indeed pay-only, how long will it take until they trickle down to users, maybe in the form of an unofficial "SP4"?

Speaking of which, it would be about time that Microsoft released a (final?) official SP4 for Windows XP as well. SP3 is now 6 years old, and those updates really piled up. There probably are more differences between SP3 and an up-to-date machine than there ever were between SP2 and an out-of-the-box 2001 Windows XP copy.

As for anyone arguing that putting such an old OS on life support wouldn't be a good idea, well, they'd be right. It's not a good idea, but leaving it as-is with its current market share would be worse, so at some point a "politically" motivated extension of support will be taken (it's already happening, the new "deadline" seems to be June 2015. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a backport of IE9 or IE10 to XP, at this point.

For casual users Windows has changed dramatically since Windows 95. Most things they're likely to plug in just work, XP added those clever autorun menus, Explorer got those directory-specific sidebars, the control panel has categories, explorer windows got back/forward buttons, etc, etc. That shit matters to people who aren't gurus. My mom couldn't do anything with her computer if it didn't always keep prompting her with the next step.

@Maes: I saw an article indicating at least malware support will continue for XP past April. We, of course, already all knew corporate paid support would still be a thing anyway.

windows 8 has a bizarre and unfamiliar layout with the absences of a star menu button at the bottom and the apps can sometimes be annoying.