I Installed Windows XP in 2018 And Here’s What I Found

[nir]

Windows XP was released no less than 17 years ago

 

Windows XP is a relic, there’s no doubt about it, and after reaching the end of support back in April 2014, everyone is recommended to give up on it and switch to a Windows version that still receives updates and security patches.

 

However, this doesn’t mean that everyone is getting ready to abandon Windows XP, and market share data is living proof in this regard.

 

Data provided by NetMarketShare for the month of September indicates that Windows XP was running on 3.19 percent of the world’s desktop computer, which is quite impressive for an operating system whose demise was announced more than four years ago.

 

And since I’ve always wondered how come so many people stick with Windows XP after its retirement date, I got the chance to find this out on my own the past weekend when I actually installed the 17-year-old operating system on an old laptop.

 

Before blasting me for encouraging users to install unsupported operating systems that could expose their data, let me emphasize that I’m not by any means trying to do that, and the only reason for installing Windows XP was for experimenting how the ancient OS feels on an aged laptop.

 

“Clean, simple, and fast experience.”

 

In fact, Windows XP is pretty much the only choice on my super-old Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pro V2010 laptop, as it came with an Intel Pentium M 725 processor clocked at 1.6 GHz and paired with just 512MB DDR SDRAM.

 

Needless to say, going for something newer like Windows 10 isn’t really the best choice given the processing power, so re-installing Windows XP was, besides an experiment, a method to breathe some life into ancient hardware.

 

After more than 17 years on the market, Windows XP still installs and runs quite fine, especially on such old hardware like the one mentioned above. For some reason, I find Windows XP on this laptop as responsive as Windows 10 on my Surface Book, despite the obvious differences in terms of features and functionality.

 

However, the OS boots quite fast, apps don’t take more than a few seconds to launch, and guess what, the essentials are still there, even after so many years. Truth be told, software developers have retired support for Windows XP one by one, but you can still find a bunch of apps that you can run on a computer powered by this operating system.

 

For browsers, for instance, Firefox has an ESR release that still runs fine on Windows XP, and you can also try out Vivaldi 1.0, though feature updates are no longer released for them.

 

Media players are also available with Windows XP support, and so are email clients, security products, and other common programs, which means that you may be able to stick with this old OS version for a while before upgrading to Windows 7 or Windows 10.

 

Even after so many years, Windows XP still feels like home, and this is what I liked the most. Everything is exactly where you’d expect it to be, and truth be told, I really liked that the OS isn’t bloated with features like Cortana, which I rarely use on Windows 10.

 

However, this doesn’t mean that Windows XP is good for anything else than running on a testing machine in a closed environment. Without security updates and patches, Windows XP is a sitting duck, and hackers could not only target your computer, but also hack it quite easily.

 

For what it’s worth, running offline tasks like working with documents or watching movies and listening to music is still possible on a Windows XP system, and without a network connection, you shouldn’t be exposed in any way.

 

Sure, you’re missing out on a lot of features that are part of Microsoft’s modern platforms, but for many people, this doesn’t really matter because what they’re interested in is just a clean and simple experience like in the good old days.

 

Are you still running Windows XP on your system? Does it make any sense to run this 17-year-old operating system these days? Let us know what you think below.

 

Source

[Pete 12]

XP is outdated ............just like Win7 will ,in a couple of years...........

[debebee]

Quote

 

For what it’s worth, running offline tasks like watching movies is still possible on a Windows XP system, and without a network connection, you shouldn’t be exposed in any way.

 

 

 

Not unless you get THESE HEVC based or 4K files that your XP machine can't play because hardware is too slow

[brain_death]

[zoky1985]

Linux Mint Mate

[luisam]

A one-liner patch in registry converts XP to XP POSREADY, with security updates till 2019. I'm even getting security patches to outdated Internet Explorer 8. I need Windows XP for my outdated LPT scanner and my USB 3.0 which for some unknown reason refuses to work with its proper Windows 7 driver! I need USB 3.0 for my 1 TB external drive used to backup system and files. Long live Window XP with 7 on dual boot! Well, at least, some more months! Probably I'll install Windows 10. Already tested once and found the computer somewhat slow but actually it can run it as well as Windows 7; still will continue on dual boot with XP.