Windows XP in 2024: Why it's so good (and what you can do with it)

anybody old enough to have been a keen PC user back in November 1985 probably didn't even notice an extra entry appear in the back of May order catalogs offering Microsoft Windows version one it's $99 it's an incredible value but it's true it's windows from Microsoft order today P box 286 dos except in Nebraska the muted launch was late and the software was not particularly well received by those members of the press who were willing to try it but you have to hand it to Microsoft for their perseverance for many decades later Windows is still with us and going strong but during its life it has undergone a great many revisions and some of those have been deeply unpopular oh what's wrong with this thing Windows 98 get Bill Gates in here you told us Windows 98 would be faster and more efficient with better access to the internet it is faster over 5 million most long-term PC users will have their favorite versions of windows but for me the operating system peaked with Windows [Music] XP XP is surprisingly old now it hit the shelves back in 2001 it combines the solid pedigree of Microsoft professional NT operating system with a friendly and easy to use interface aimed at everyone from novices to experts alike XP is remarkably well optimized and efficient with resources needing only 64 megab of ram a Pentium 1 processor and 1 and 1/2 GB of hard dis base to operate compare that with Windows 11 which needs 60 times more memory 40 times more hard dis base and a vastly superior multi-core processor yet it doesn't actually seem to do an awful lot more than XP does XP is delightfully devoid of all the bloatware Trucking and Metric harvesting that seem so embedded in Windows these days I like XP and I still use it a lot what can you actually do with it today well to help answer that question I'd like to introduce you to my main Windows XP based PC by today's standards this PC would be considered e-w but as an XP machine it is an absolute monster it has twin 22 GHz 4 cor zon processors from 2008 with the TDP of 50 wats each the 4 GB of memory run at 1,333 MHz and the hard drive is a small solid state sat unit the motherboard provides expansion slots in both 64-bit pcix and also PCI Express the graphics card is a very modest little Nvidia gt740 there is no floppy drive but a DVD drive is present as is a multicard reader let's fire it up the system drops into Windows XP pretty quickly if you've not seen XP before this is the default visual theme the famous Green Hills photo is set as the backdrop and alow the copy that comes with wind isn't very high resolution you can download it from the web in up to 8K the look and feel of the start bar the windows and interface generally is unique to XP and is intended to be welcoming and friendly without being too childish rounded Corners blues and greens clear icons and easyread fonts all work well together to make XP strangely reassuring but not overbearing the visual theme is customizable fast to navigate around and easy to find what you need Windows update doesn't work for XP anymore because Microsoft has turned the update server off but there is a superb community-driven replacement called Legacy update that does the job instead downloading patches and Bug fixes in the background while you work now unsurprisingly a lot of newer software won't work on Windows XP because the developers have understandably decided not to invest time and money supporting an old operating system yes that's a shame but there's still a surprising amount that you can still run on XP the latest version of Microsoft Office for example won't install on XP but office XP obviously does and it really does have all of the features that I personally need I don't feel much hindered by not having the newer releases office XP is also cheap I paid about $2 on eBay for my retail version the free Libra office suite also works fine Adobe Creative Suite version 6 runs on XP if you can find a copy although I myself just use Photoshop Elements many freeware applications like audacity or Thunderbird have versions available for download that do support Windows XP drivers are available for most devices from that General period but what's about web browsing well Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge have dropped support for XP now but there are other open-source web browsers that will work fine celeen for example is a very simple and lightweight browser that works great even on Modern websites as does C Monkey another very good modern browser with XP support chromium also works well and is based on the same engine that Google Chrome uses so it renders most websites and a very familiar way this leads me on to a potentially controversial subject security and vulnerability opinions on this seem to vary widely in the community ranging from some people insisting that a computer running XP must never be connected to a network under any circumstances right through to others saying it's basically fine and don't worry my particular position based on years of using XP and still using it regularly today is that it's perfectly reasonable to use it on the internet with certain basic precautions it is true to say that XP has not received any security updates for many years so I would agree that on balance you are more likely to get hacked using XP than say windows 11 I use XP with a mindset that someone could take control of my computer at any time or install a key logger or try to hold my files to Ransom therefore I don't have any private or sensitive files on this computer I don't log into things like PayPal Google or my online banking I don't keep anything on it that I'm not prepared to lose if I do get a virus or type anything I wouldn't want others to be able to see such as passwords my XP computer doesn't share a network with my other computers nor does to have a public facing IP address really I just use it like I would use a public computer in a library and if someday a hacker does manage to get some malware installed on it there is nothing on it to steal and nothing to see a bit like how it doesn't matter too much if the lock on your garden shed isn't very good if the shed is always kept empty anyway I do run a vast antivirus on it as it still supports XP and I do also use a firewall I turn off things like file and print sharing and I don't use Remote Desktop I don't open dubious files or wrong programs that I don't trust all things considered I can honestly say that in my Decades of using Windows XP on the internet right up to the present day I have never been hacked or had any malware installed I think much of the paranoia surrounding the use of older operating systems like XP doesn't really match up with reality and to illustrate the point fun fact one of the largest current users of Windows XP is the US military for weapons Control Systems many Banks ATMs also still run on XP as do many manufacturing robots in factories just [Music] so let's talk about gaming this is a fantastic use for an XP machine today because xp's era was so rich in excellent titles with legendary gameplay maybe the graphics are a little modest compared to what today's machines with Volkswagen size gpus can do but XP era games are still excellent fun I have loads of games for mine and none of them cost more of eBay than a fancy coffee on the High Street they generally come on a CD or a DVD in a case with an instruction manual and only physical media like this for each game is somehow nicer than everything just existing in a cloud which leads me on to a warning it was around the time of XP when steam started persuading some game developers to include their steam client with their games this means you need a steam account so that they can track what you're playing how long you play it for how far you get and so on so that you can be presented with tailored adverts for new games even if you are okay with this from a privacy point of view steam will insist on downloading the latest version of its client before it will let you play your game Steam doesn't support XP anymore so even though the game in question will run on XP the latest Steam client will not and therefore it won't activate your game steam's policy of always making you have the latest version of their client they moving support for operating systems for which there are already many games written for is unethical at best and unlawful at worst steam holds the power to render inoperable any game you may la awfully own at any time simply by deciding they don't like your computer anymore even if you've been playing it happily for years fortunately most games from the XP era did not come pre- crippled with steam bloatware but some did and these are all now basically scrap look on the back of the game case for a warning that you must activate the game via steam to play if it's there that game will not activate on an XP machine let me leave you with a short Montage of some of the excellent titles that do run to fine on XP all of this footage is from this actual machine and tiny gt740 graphics card running Windows XP enjoy they SED excellent there two much drags [Applause] [Music] gotcha a [Music] a [Music] got [Music] [Music] more over here how that feel nailed it stay on target sh [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah you're in my [Music] way [Music] [Music] [Music] bit bringing the sound of the street oh no can I hide this that don't be and use it wreck my [Music] killing get off the this is thei unit we got a clear get out the my whip fo I got another partner that's he goes by the name back in the days like remember

Channel: BoomerTec

Views: 53,686

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Id: 8DOQstZqNUA

Length: 20min 53sec (1253 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 22 2024