Microsoft: no more Windows XP on new netbooks after October 22, really
By Donald Melanson 
posted June 11th 2010 3:51PM
posted June 11th 2010 3:51PM
It's easy to lose track of the number of times that Windows XP has been proclaimed dead, but it looks like this particular cut-off date is indeed the real thing -- Microsoft is now reminding OEMs that they'll no longer be able to install Windows XP Home on new netbooks after October 22nd of this year. The venerable operating system could all but disappear from new netbooks well before then, however, considering that Microsoft itself notes that a full 81% of netbooks sold as of April of this year shipped with some form of Windows 7 pre-installed. There are still some Windows XP-based netbooks floating around out there though, so snap one up while you can if you don't feel like reverting back to the OS yourself.
In my mind, the success of Windows 7 vindicates all of us who tried to defend Vista SP1 against the ignorant masses. There really isn't 10 cents worth of difference between Vista SP1 and 7, but somehow one is "shit" and the other is "the best os ever" all while using XP as a benchmark comparison.
I just got an Acer Aspire Revo which came with XP installed. I have used PCs before but never to the extent of having to configure them. I hated it, so just for fun I tried Ubuntu from a usb stick and it seemed awesome so I installed it in a partition so I can get to the XP if my first impression was mistaken. Even though I had never used Ubuntu before I was up and running installing additional software and tweaking settings like it was the Mac that I was used to. This is a really impressive release in both appearance and usability. I will not be surprised if sometime in the next 5 years it becomes a serious challenger to the other big dogs.
i dont care xp is fine with me sure its not as visual but it works fine
Ok, I have used OSes from 3.1 to Windows 7, various flavors of Linux, OS2-Warp, everything.
I can't stand Windows 7, or Vista, I spent 4 hours rebuilding my wife's new Windows 7 Sony VAIO to XP.
All you people loving Windows 7, let me ask you this, do you ever use a secondary shell? Let me answer it for you, no, because you can't, Microsoft removed it after XP.
The search feature for W7 sucks (in fairness it has sucked since XP), period, if I'm in a folder in file explorer, and want to search "another" folder for a file, I can't, the end.
If my mouse is in the right-side pane of W7 explorer, I can't see what folders have sub-folders in the left, unless I move my mouse over there, why?
When I plug a removable hardrive in, why can't I select "Do Nothing" and have it do this for this device in the future? Can't MS removed that feature.
Thumbnail view for ANY folder, gone in W7.
Log in as Administrator, am I an administrator? Nope, not until I right-click, "Run as Administrator" and you better hope MS wanted you to do this with the icon in question, or you'll be making a desktop shortcut.
Go to the desert for 1 year, you better hope you can connect it to the internet somewhere, in a tent, because if W7 doesn't "phone-home" enough, you can forget about using all the features.
No LVLs.
DHCP mode changed it's broadcast method, causing some PCs to not pull an IP with W7.
No less than 5 clicks to see your current IP or net status.
Wi-Fi that sometimes in some situations just doesn't work, but will connect 4 days later, with no changes made to it.
Why hide my folders on the left with a "Favorites folder", the real file-folder structure never changes, but my favorites can, using "favorites" will only make you not know where things are really at, and turn you into the good little consumer that they want you to be.
All you W7 users, try this test, search for the term "html" in a file type of .xml, you can't, why "xml is some kind of code file thingy, and they could break it, lets not let them do that either"
"Run box" in the start menu, not important, who runs things anyway. Well I do!
W7 is shinny, the end.
I could forgive a lot of the issues of W7 and Vista if they just left the UI alone, or gave me the ability to change it back to the one I have used for 10 years. Do car manufactures move the steering wheel and pedals around every few years?
I would guess that most people who like W7 are under 30 and could use a Apple machine without a lot of complaints.
Signed,
Grumpy old tech
@MacGyver The run box isn't necessary because all you have to do is type the command into the Start Menu search box and press enter. If you really must use the run dialogue, all you have to do is find it in accessories and create a shortcut to it anywhere you like. There's no point them keeping the run item on the menu by default if you can just perform all the commands using the input box on the Start Menu.
I've not heard of anyone else complaining about Windows 7 itself causing issues with their wireless; it's more likely to be driver issue, as it was for me.
You really prefer XP's slow, kludgey search over instant results? Regarding searching a different folder, you can always perform searches from the start menu. Aside from your minor complaints about it, I'd rather have near-instant results than have to fiddle with options and then wait whilst it looks through my files to find something that might be what I want. If it's that much of an issue for you, just open up the other folder and search within it; I guarantee you that would still be faster than pissing about with XP's search options, telling it where to look, what type of documents you want, what time-frame, etc.If you want advanced searching, you can still use all of these options within the search box using the operators: "Type: .doc" etc.
I can't check at the moment (my desktop still uses XP) but I thought you could expand the folder structure on the left-hand panel to completely cover the favourites. I personally would rather be able to just click to go to my most common locations than scroll through and expand folders, since I prefer speed and efficiency to doing things the way I always used to. I can still access the file structure if I want. I don't subscribe to your silly conspiracy theory about Microsoft making it easier and faster to access my common folders being some attempt to make me "A good little consumer."
"Do car manufactures move the steering wheel and pedals around every few years?"
That's not what they've done at all. The basic way of using Windows remains the same; they've just altered some bits. I'd suggest your wife would have preferred it eventually to using a 10 year old OS, especially since - unless you installed 64 bit XP - she probably can't even use all her RAM.