OS upgrades

[trader_4]

If by "needs", you mean being able to access many of the common websites that many people visit today, as opposed to what was in existence 15 years ago, then the typical desktop user's needs have changed. He did say desktop as opposed to dedicated PC that he uses to run a couple pieces of particular software. Also, whatever he's doing, he obviously wants more performance, that's a change in needs that suggests whatever he's doing, it isn't doing it well enough today. And like I said before, IDK of any browser supplier that still supports XP. It seems very odd to me to be spending money on a new CPU, memory, HD, etc to upgrade an XP system that you're going to use as a typical desktop PC at this point, with the lack of a supported browser being a big point.

The thing I've seen is that more and more websites either won't work at all, work but then have a problem at some point or just don't work well with an old browser. You can use Ad Block or similar to block ads.

[rbowman]

I'm running one XP box at work. It runs just as well as it did 10 years ago so I have no burning need to upgrade it. The applications I build on it run on 7 and 10. They probably run on Vista and 8 too but we don't have any of those pigs around to test.

[rbowman]

db_VISTA 3.0. It has a very primitive interface called ida that depends on curses. Fortunately we very seldom use ida. It wasn't a bad idea in

1990 but legacy code lives forever. Come to think of it the whole mess is primitive. It most def isn't a RDBMS but it is fast...

[rbowman]

Microsoft blinked but we had a little panic last fall when there was a rumor the command prompt was going to be replaced by PowerShell in Win

1. There's nothing wrong with PowerShell -- except it doesn't run bat files.

Fortunately they heard the screams of agony in Redmond. There are more people than M$ will ever admit that are still running Visual Studio 6.0. VB 6.0 is not VB .NET and the migration path is painful especially if you have a collection of third party thing-a-ma-bobs. I'm not a VB programmer so I don't remember what they were called but there was a whole cottage industry building the widgets.

Python had the same push back. 2.7 may live forever because a lot of people weren't impressed with 3.

[rbowman]

If you can't do it in gVim is isn't worth doing... I think there still are binaries that would run on an Amiga if you could find an Amiga that could run.

[gfretwell]

I have a lot more trouble with ad blockers on web sites than I do because Firefox won't open them. In fact I have not had that problem at all.

[Younare]

If thatsall younare lookinfer thengiv Linux Mintashot.

[trader_4]

Experience will of course vary depending on what browser you're using. I use Chrome mostly, with Pale Moon on the spare XP notebook. And with whatever version of Chrome still worked on XP, I was starting to see websites where it would not work. My main point here is that whatever you're using, IDK of any browser that is still being updated on XP and as we move forward, it seems odd to be upgrading a system with the intention of running XP as a general purpose, typical desktop going forward. It's not going to get more compatible, only less so.

[gfretwell]

I have not found anything that Firefox would not open but more and more are rejecting Adblock. I just loaded XP on an i5 laptop that came without any COA for 7 (the system it was sold with). It is working OK. One tip, if you do not load SP3, microsoft will not talk to it. SP2 just says, "cannot connect". Once you get up on SP3 it flies through and I got 155 updates that night. They do not seem to be doing the hardware checks either. If you have a valid number, it goes even if you just used that one yesterday on another system. I saw an article that said, analysing internet logons, there are over

100 million XP systems still running out there (7-8% of all PCs). That does not include imbedded systems and machines that are not on the internet like all of those industrial applications (ATMs, cash registers, CnC controllers etc)

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

The current version of Firefox is supported on XP, although it's the last version to be supported.

FF52 is an "Extended support" version. IIRC, they're providing updates until fall 2017.

[Diesel]

Hmm. Sounds like it may have been a driver issue. If it was actually hardware related, linux should have failed to work as well.

I had the coco3. [g] I did purchase the 512k expansion board. Installed it myself. Wasn't difficult, mind you. The only slight pain in the ass I remember about the setup was the FD-502 double deck floppy drive. If you added the secondary drive, you had to snip a resistor free. Otherwise, it wasn't a bad machine.

Pending no serious hardware issues, and a reasonable cpu (you didn't provide specs, so...), I would have likely repurposed it with another os for a dedicated task. Say a file server for the local network. Or, perhaps an audio/video playback machine. Like, a jukebox.

[Diesel]

So you're both okay with the telemetry and key logging it performs? You can turn some of it off, but, not all. And, at any time, a 'windows update' may reset the settings back to default. IE: spyware functions restored. You may want to take a closer look at the service agreement you accepted as part of the installation process.

And then you have seperate issues with the new 'edge' browser.

Do you really like the idea of advertising built into your OS? Free upgrade or paid edition makes no difference...I personally think we deal with enough advertising in our faces just by surfing the web.

I've been using Linux Mint locally for nearly a year now and it hasn't foist a single piece of advertising on me yet. Most of the computers on my network now run Linux in one flavor or another. I'm about to build another box for file serving needs of the network. I may run Cent7 for that one.

I also have various flavers (versions) of Windows running in VM so that I can continue providing tech support without actually having to purpose a specific machine for the task. I'm not trying to convert you or anyone else though, Despite the stabiliy offered with Linux Mint that has ben missing from MS offers for years.

You don't need to go thru all that hassle to use the drive externally. I have several USB based drive connection kits that allow me to take IDE and sata as well as the laptop interface version of the same and turn the drive into an external. They come in quite handy for diagnostics and repair outside of the machine, itself. Especially useful for malware and data recovery. Without the host OS being operational to try and thwart my efforts, depending on the malware in question.

[Diesel]

Some years ago, I had a local box running an older copy of Redhat. It required some knowledge to get it to do much of anything a typical Windows user would want to do.

Things have improved greatly when comparing Linux Mint 17.3 to that experience. Nearly everything just worked, right out of the box. I had to tweak samba a bit and add additional firewall rules to ensure only some computers on the LAN could access my shares, but, otherwise, it's been a pleasant experience.

[Diesel]

I'm loathe to call the majority programmers when script kiddie is a more appropriate term. :)

[Diesel]

If you're basing your opinion on Linux from a distro 20 years ago, things have improved considerbly! I've downloaded the lastest Fedora ISO to play with, when I have the time. But, I doubt I'll switch over, unless Linux Mint 18 as it matures doesn't do what I want it to do. for starters, theres no full codec already available version to download; they have to be installed afterwards, online. That's a bit of a turn off, and I'm hoping they go back to the way 17.3 is with that; you had the choice to download an iso without them or one with them.

[Diesel]

You must not know much about the subject, then. Firefox will still support XP until 2017. And firefox isn't exactly a 'niche' browser.

Can you cite any SPECIFIC websites that I could test with? I surf a lot of different technical sites primarily and some news sites.. they all still work. And, I'm not even running v52 series firefox on this machine. It's using 45.8.0ESR

Not exactly a worthy reason to change out the entire OS. Not when other options exist, anyhow.

I dunno about going the ebay route. I picked up a used dual core p4 with 1tb sata hd, 2gigs ram, etc. for under 2 bills at a local pc shop I spent ten years of my life working in. I'd rather support local.

It came with windows 10. Windows 10 remained on the machine for about twenty minutes or so. It's running Linux Mint 17.3 KDE just fine now. Does quite well as a media server for my network.

As for upgrading the BIOS. that's not something you should do unless you have a real need to do it. If everything is working, the BIOS shouldn't be f***ed with in that regard. It's like upgrading the linux kernel just to be upgrading it. Don't! Unless, you've got a specific reason/need to do so.

[Diesel]

I have one XP box here. The only box that still runs Windows native. It's a dual cpu p3. When it finally dies, and, it will; the replacement machine will be native linux with various flavors of Windows in VM for tech support/program testing purposes. Windows has turned into a spyware pile of shit that only seems to be getting worse. I'm not going to keep playing that game for a daily OS.

[Diesel]

You may want to take a closer look at that board. Or, provide exact board specs and I'll be happy to check it out for you. Most of the time, the secondary bios isn't a full fledged one. it has enough code to boot the machine so you can reflash the primary bios in the event of a corruption issue. It won't on it's own, function as a complete backup in the event the primary bios is down.

So true.

[Diesel]

Some people here seem to be confusing many things concerning computers and are providing bad advice, to say the least.

Yep, it's more of a tech hack or workaround. It's not easy and it's not that reliable, either.

Same.

[Diesel]

And, as you well know, HDD isn't the only host for a 'boot sector'. Floppies can have them, as can USB memory sticks.