(beeps) - [Narrator] This video is
sponsored by Surfshark VPN. Protect you and your online activity with just the click of a button. (mouse clicks) The other day, I was at a
coffee shop with a friend. Each of us were there just
getting our work done. My friend was accompanied by a client who was on a video call with him. This client was a game developer with a tech related question. The client proceeded to
share his computer screen revealing a custom-designed
and fairly odd, but familiar looking desktop. Naturally, my friend's first question was, woah, what is going on with your computer? The client responded with what is easily, one of the strangest and
most interesting answers I've ever heard to a question. Oh, I am running Windows XP. This freelancing game developer
professional, mind you, gets work done using an over
20 year old operating system. I have no idea how, or if he is using modern software to pull all this off. But from what I can tell, it looks like he's doing pretty okay. I had so much intrigue for the fact that this man
was using an operating system that lost support back in 2014. I mean, there has to be some
practical reason behind this, other than simply wanting to embrace a now vintage lifestyle. Right? But what and why? In 2001 Microsoft came
out with Windows XP. It was the OS which followed the releases of Windows Me and 2000. But the main direction XP
intended to take was simplicity. And this makes a lot of sense. Microsoft struck gold with
Windows 95, 6 years prior, and we're now very much on the mindset of, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Windows didn't need some
game-changing layout overhauls. It needed to be more secure,
fresher, and easier to use. Although it was primarily meant
to be a more nuts and bolts update of Windows, it introduced a new UI and a
ton of under the hood changes. Because of this, Windows XP
had a warm, welcoming energy, actually a little too
welcoming for some people. A lot of people initially
criticized XP for its, at the time unconventional toy-like appearance, calling it a Fisher-Price
OS or regardless, this didn't stop people from
upgrading their machines to it. And reviews were not only
overwhelmingly positive, but Windows XP in many respects would prove to be in the long-term, one of Microsoft's most successful and beloved products in history. As it turns out, what the client at the
coffee shop was doing, wasn't actually all that unusual. In 2014, it was estimated that over 1
billion copies of Windows XP had been sold since its launch. Despite having already ended in 2015, Windows XP was still the OS of choice for over 150 million users. The United States military
even still runs Windows XP. And so do statistically about one out of every 100 computers. What exactly is going on? Microsoft has already come
out with at least four more mainstream operating systems since then yet millions of people, business, and even the strongest
military in the world continue to use it. Not only that, Windows
XP has seemed to develop a cool following of people who consider it to be the
greatest operating system of all time, even some bold enough to claim that it's still better
than Windows 7 and 10. But why Windows XP in particular? Why does it seem to stand out so much among all other operating systems? Does this old clunky, outdated software really have this charm to it that just ties people in and makes them too stubborn for change? Actually, yes. And today we are going to talk about, what exactly made Windows XP
not only so great for its time, but why it continues to be very active among PC circles, even now. (soft music) (mouse clicks) (soft music) Windows XP may have been
secure for its time, but it is nowhere near as secure as Surfshark VPN is today. Surfshark is an incredible tool designed to prioritize
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across multiple platforms. With my link shown on the screen, you can get 83% off your subscription and three months completely free. So give Surfshark a try and help make the internet a safer place. Windows XP was able to establish such a positive name for itself
for a multitude of reasons, which included structuring, how it was compared to other Oss, and most importantly,
it's unplanned longevity. Windows XP's success starts
during its development and how it was approached. This goes back to 1998. This is going to be a
little bit of a refresher on Windows Me's development. If you haven't already
watched my video on that, check it out. Originally Microsoft intended to create two separate operating systems that focused on different
target audiences. One for the home users and consumers, and one for businesses. Respectfully given the code
names, Windows Neptune, and Odyssey. The late '90s were a time where computers were really starting to evolve. You've got the internet, laptops are becoming more commonplace and popular among younger people, and a lot of other things. MS-DOS the foundation of
Windows operating systems at the time, was starting to become outdated. And it was time for Microsoft
to change things up a bit. They were instead focusing
more on their line of software, known as Windows NT, literally standing for new technology. And Neptune was meant to be
the first Windows version for consumers that would be built on it. Getting rid of MS-DOS completely. It introduced features
that would be seen in XP, such as firewall and a
similar log on screen. Not a whole lot of information
is available on Odyssey. Other than that, it was
worked on alongside Neptune. Ultimately, both these
projects would be merged into a new project code named Whistler as Microsoft chose to release Windows Me to consumers instead, which would be a rookie mistake. Beta releases of the Whistler OS would be released up
until the end of 2001, where it was released
under its official name of Windows XP an abbreviation for experience. Evidently XP introduced
a ton of new features. Many of which seems standard
in ordinary at the time, but would prove to be incredibly
impactful in the long term. To name a few, this would
include device driver rollback. This is something that we even
see today with Windows 10. If you have a device driver update that for some reason just
does not want to cooperate and is causing terrible
crashes and instability, with just the push of a button, you can revert to the previous version. Just one small feature like this, has saved users, arguably
hundreds of hours of arduous work. Another one is remote desktop. Although this was
incredibly ahead of its time compared to the capabilities
of previous Windows versions, it was standard in the
sense that many technologies were going to adapt it
at that same time anyway. Heck, Apple released its remote
desktop program on OS 10, not even six months later. But regardless, Windows XP
being the first to adapt it, only worked in its favor. And even now, remote desktop
has saved many people from trips to the store and has allowed them
to solve their problems and transfer their files in
the comfort of their own homes. Lastly, arguably the
most impactful feature that Windows XP had for
creating its success was merging the code
bases of the Windows 9x and NT product lines into one. Remember how we mentioned that MS-DOS was starting to become both outdated as well as a security risk? Well, this was a big issue for most of the current Windows versions. All of Microsoft's
home-based operating systems were built on the Windows 9x kernel, which included an underlying
foundation of MS-DOS. This was quickly going to become a problem as software got more sophisticated. So there was huge demand
for Microsoft to jump ship and head over to the much more
stable and NT based model. But there was a caveat to this. Although this new NT based Windows would be much more stable and secure, most, if not all the
Windows 9x based programs would just not run on it properly. Despite that it was quickly aging, Windows 9x was still being
used by tons of people and the apps and drivers that they rely on might not work on NT based platforms. Consequently, they were stuck on an
unstable and insecure system. It was a double-edged sword. There was a workaround for this though, to merge both 9x and NT together. This was a very ambitious feature
for Microsoft to introduce and a lot of users wanted to see it. And finally, Windows XP actually did it. For the first time, there was a Windows OS
that combined the 9x and NT code bases, and now users could benefit
from the best of both worlds. Windows XP allowed them
access to the stability of NT, while also being able to say, run Sid Meier's Civilization III, without worrying about
the system crashing. People could work with
their favorite software without having to leave
their comfort zone. It was the ideal compromise
between business and home. Of course, there were some cases where DOS and 9x based programs could not run natively on
an NT environment like XP. But XP's approach helped
this be way less of a problem than it could've been. Emulators, such as DOSBox
or virtual machines could circumvent this issue. And another new, at the
time standard feature called compatibility mode,
helped with these problems too. This feature allowed you to
essentially trick the program into thinking that you're running it on, say Windows 98 or 95. The feature was introduced in Windows 2000 Service Pack Two, but this was a business operating system. So the features continued presence in XP revealed it to a ton of new home users. So for most of them, the first time they saw this feature was in XP. Again, another feature that would prove to be
revolutionary over time. It wasn't perfect, but it helped things tremendously. To sum it all up, people liked XP at the
time because these features which ended up being executed very well, gave it for the most part, a great first impression. On top of this, how Windows XP was distributed
helped a lot as well. Because NT was new, it
was also a bit expensive. Windows 2000's retail price was about $320, much more than the standard
price of 9x Windows at the time. Rather than putting XP
at this price range, a full purchase of Windows
XP was about $20 cheaper. And those upgrading to
Windows XP from 98 or 95, would save more money than
those who upgraded to 2000 upon its initial release. Windows XP was offering
a cheaper starting price while also providing more. As a result, all of these decisions attracted a lot of people to Windows XP and gave these users and businesses, the opportunity to make
a pretty big upgrade at quite an affordable price. Over the next couple of years, people using XP were quite
pleased with their upgrade. And at this point, it
did just about everything that they wanted it to. The release of Service Pack Two had just about the least number of bugs of any other Windows release. And arguably made it
one of the most stable operating systems at the time. During all of this,
Microsoft was now developing and hyping up what would
soon become Windows Vista. And ironically, this would actually solidify
XP's positive reputation, even further. Windows XP would fight itself being compared to other operating systems. So in some ways, it wasn't
that Windows XP was that good, but that the other operating
systems were that bad, at least at the time. Right before XP, you had Windows Me, which had a terrible
reputation upon release. For those that did the
upgrade from Me to XP, it felt like a total breath of fresh air to get such a step up in stability. Then after XP, you have the failure of Windows Vista. A lot of consumers were
unhappy with its problems and decided to just stick with XP because it wasn't doing any of the damage that might show up with upgrading. Luckily by the time
Windows 7 arrived in 2009, many people actually
were convinced to switch. And Windows XP's market share
would decline rather quickly. But this didn't convince everyone. Some people saw Windows 7 as just a re-marketed version
of Vista and were skeptical. Consequently, they still stuck to XP because even eight years later, it was still doing what
they needed it to do. In some cases, Windows XP was being compared
to other operating systems rather unfairly. And this was apparent with the release of Windows 8 in 2012. For a lot of reasons,
Windows 8 was a disaster. So of course people didn't wanna upgrade. And as you'd expect the now
much smaller group of XP users just stuck to their guns. It might seem unreasonable to compare Windows XP and Windows 8. And that's because it is. These Oss came out over a decade apart and both systems supported
different computer needs and whatnot, but users didn't care because even a whole year
after XP lost support, it still had more users than Windows 8. Some other operating
systems like Mac OS 10 were actually catching up
in the game rather quickly, especially with the release
of OS X Snow Leopard in 2009. Though this didn't have
as much of an impact on XP as other Windows versions might have. That's because not all, but a lot of Windows users were just too comfortable
in the Microsoft environment and weren't planning on
buying a new Apple computer so they didn't pay any regard
to whatever Mac was doing. It was comparing apples and oranges. Ultimately Microsoft series of misfortunes would actually benefit XP and contribute to its most
important factor, longevity. This was the biggest component in making Windows XP so successful because the majority of their newly released Windows versions were not very well received, Microsoft was basically
stuck, continuing XP support. People were now using a
ten-year-old operating system and they were okay with it. Windows XP had become an old friend and receiving a decades worth of updates, made it incredibly reliable. The OS was given such a long period to resonate with people, as well as the opportunity
to introduce itself to another generation. For a huge range of ages, Windows XP was something
that was just nostalgic for each person in its own way. And including the other
reasons we discovered, a lot of them just didn't wanna change. At this point in time, XP was sort of aging like a fine wine. And for two main reasons, it's use of hardware and software. Because Windows XP was now so old, but still relatively mainstream, it had something, a lot of Oss didn't. High capability, low demand. I say 2012 standards, Windows XP's hardware
requirements were now very low. And anybody with just average hardware, as long as it still supported it, could run it with incredible performance. This was a great option for people who didn't really have
a whole lot of money to get powerful hardware, but still wanted to get
things done without problem. In addition, because XP was
still supported by Microsoft, this meant that a lot
of third-party software still supported it as well. Let me remind you, an operating system from 2001 was still getting support from
programs made in the 2010s. In other words, a lot of
people using XP in 2011, 2012, were having a pretty good time. They could run about 10 to
12 years worth of software, including some 9x-based programs with virtually no compatibility issues and without needing expensive hardware. And for those reasons, Windows
XP was still the way to go. So we've talked about what made Windows XP so great at the time, but what about now? I mean, now we have Windows 11 and
support for XP ended in 2014. It's outdated in every way, shape or form, and now completely vulnerable
to security problems yet it continues to be used and remains to be the
favorite of many people. Why? With everything we've just gone over, the answer is quite simple. It's the same reason as it
was back in the early 2010s. Cost and compatibility. Just on a smaller scale, a lot of the users
might not have the money to upgrade their systems at all. You actually see this in a
lot of developing countries, as well as low funded
businesses and schools. Windows XP doesn't require
a lot of computing resources nowadays and fulfills basic user needs. Also, even now with say Windows 10, a lot of users still need
to rely on old software that can only run on XP. Well, they could just run the program through compatibility
mode, problem solved. But as we mentioned earlier, this didn't always work. Compatibility mode did
improve things significantly, but it wasn't perfect. So there are some cases where the actual OS needs to be running. Well, they could use a new Windows version and just run XP through a virtual machine, but that can be costly and even free alternatives like VirtualBox would still require for
businesses, for example, the cost of user training. On top of that, virtual machines don't fix
hardware incompatibilities. These users might also have hardware like printers and scanners that also only work on XP. And that equipment would first have to work on
the new version of Windows before working on the virtual machine. It all becomes convoluted and these users are actually willing to risk the lack of
security because of this. While Windows XP may not be
supported by Microsoft anymore, one of the only exceptions
is the military. And it's for this exact reason, an overwhelming amount of
critical government software actually cannot run on
new operating systems. With the reasons we've mentioned, upgrading these computers
is way too risky. Unless you wanna like put a
giant crater in the earth. The easier route is to just pay Microsoft huge amounts of money to
continue security updates. And lastly, another reason people still use Windows XP that might seem a bit superficial, is simply because they like it. They just like how it looks. It's simple. It's nostalgic. For a lot of people, including myself, growing up in the early 2000s
was a pretty magical time. And what was a huge component
of early 2000s culture because of longevity? Well, Windows XP. It's their favorite operating system because it reminds them
of a nicer, simpler time, depending on your age and era of fun and no responsibility. And it's the simple things that bring them back to that. Whether that's the iconic startup sound, or that beautiful field of green. (soft music) Oh, and search dog was terrible. Is Windows XP your
favorite operating system? If so, why? Lemme know that in the comments below. Don't forget that you can use my code located in the description to get 83% off and three months free on your
Surfshark VPN subscription. You can't miss a deal like that. Thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe and hit
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