Win 7 or XP?

[Diesel]

internet content? Which codecs and/or protocols specifically are you writing about that are not available/not supported under XP?

[trader_4]

What he probably means is that AFAIK, none of the latest, updated releases of the popular browsers that most people use will run on XP anymore. You can still use whatever the last release was, but they are getting older, more out of date, each month. There may be some fringe browser still being updated and if so and you can live with that, then it's OK, but for how much longer? IF I was going to be browsing, I for sure would not be installing XP when Win 7 is the other choice.

[cruiser]

I only have one question. Lets say someone buys a computer with Win10, and only buys it to run office software, or they design graphics, or use it to operate a DJ music service, etc. and does NOT connect it to the internet at all.

Nothing can go to a cloud, MS cant spy on anyone, etc. Will Win10 even function without an internet connection?

I have an XP machine that I use to store data. I have many thousands of videos and music on it, and I have a backup of all my personal stuff on it (besides my regular backups). That computer has NEVER been connected to the internet, nor is it networked to any other computer. Everything I put on it, is put there using flash drives. I do use it to watch the videos and play music, but it will NEVER be connected to the internet. This way I dont have to worry about malware (I scan everything before I put it on that machine).

Anyhow, it works fine as it is. I installed XP Sp3 initially. I dont need any upgrades. It works fine as it is, for what I do with it.

But I question if Win10 would work that way? Not that it much matters, I have no intention to upgrade to 10. I dont want anyting above Win7.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Any search engine is taking your inquiries. I use Google on Chrome.

I use Yahoo mail as that is what my ISP uses. With Edge, I cannot reply to Yahoo mail so I'm sticking with Chrome. I could use another mail program, but that does not work well as I work from three different computers.

Google is no less evil than MS or anyone else, but it works for me. Even simple things like saving a password on one computer makes it available on others if I'm signed in. My calendar shows appointments my wife has too so it is easy to void conflicts.

[T]

Hi Snuffy,

Frankenstein (Windows 8.x) and Son-of-Frankenstein (Window Nein, oops, Ten) are both really difficult to use. Both are a bad case of "Where's Waldo?". Nein, oops, Ten is a good clean up of what was a bad design to start with. It is still a bad design and is in a great deal of flux with constant full rewrite updates of your OS. A lot of software still doesn't quite work right with it, except M$'s (what a surprise).

XP is wonderful, except M$ (Microsoft) is playing hard ball trying to get rid of it and is putting artificial block in its developers kits to screw with XP, so ...

I'd go with 7. Easier to use and the most compatible.

To give you an idea, I build custom computes. I have not has even one single request for Frankenstein and Sons (W-8.x or W-Nein, oops W-10). It is usually for Linux for Windows 7.

If all you are doing is surfing and reading eMail and are okay with using Libre Office for documents, Linux is a good alternative. Seldom if ever crashes,

40% faster on the same hardware, security hardened (the Fedora version), self healing file system, virtually no fragmentation, bad memory screening. Shotwell is good for pictures.

Downside is that you will only have about 5% of the software offerings as Windows.

My favorite Linux spin:

This is fly-before-you-buy, so you can boot off it and try it out before installing it to your hard drive.

You can "dd" it straight to a flash drive or burn it to a DVD.

HTH,

-T

[trader_4]

From everything I've seen, yes. You may have to connect once when you set it up, to validate, register your copy of Windows. But I've had a Win 10 machine that was not connected to the internet for 6 months and it was still working fine, no warning messages or anything. Could it have something in there that will complain to be connected after a year, 5 years, seems unlikely, but I don't know. Seems unlikely, because I think it would cause more problems for MSFT with no benefit.

[Jon Danniken]

You can make the interface exactly like WinXP with Classic Shell:

Jon

[Dan Espen]

As a Linux user, you must realize that if you aren't a corporate client, by running Windows, you turn over control of your machine to MSFT. You can resist the MSFT updates but eventually you will be forced into W10.

I think W7 is way ahead of 8.1 unless you have a touch screen. But telling someone to use W7 is hopeless. They'll be on W10 before they know it.

Me, I'm sticking with Linux/Fvwm2. No change in the user interface since I first started using it on Solaris almost 20 years ago.

[Roger Blake]

Some sites don't work well in older browsers. The only current one I know of that still works with XP is Mozilla Firefox.

A lot of newer hardware and software is not supported on XP.

So it depends on your needs. FWIW, if I were a Windows user making this choice I would go with Win7 mainly due to it being currently supported. The user interface is not all that much different from XP, the really nasty crap started with Windows 8. (Even that can be tamed to an extent if you use a 3rd-party program like Classic Shell.)

[cruiser]

When I installed XP on the computer (which is not connected to the internet), I just phoned MS to get the validation code. But Win10 may be different.... (Seems like it would be a major pain to have to pay for a months ISP service just to validate it (this is a desktop, not a laptop that could be taken to a WIFI).

Then again, correct me if I'm wrong, since I have never bought a new computer from a store (or anywhere else). But lets say I went to Walmart and bought a new computer with Win10 already installed. Isn't all the validation done at the factory, so when I take it out of the box, it's ready to be used without me having to do anything except plug it in and connect the keybd, mouse and monitor cords?

I would think it would be ready to go right out of the box, but I am only guessing....

[trader_4]

That level of detail, IDK. Certainly they will work out of the box, without any internet connection at least for some period of time. But is the software license registered, validated when the OEM puts it on the machine? Of does it happen later, when you have it? IDK? Somehow MSFT has a database of the license, what machine it's on and a set of info about that machine. That's so if I try to take it off my machine and put it on another machine, MSFT knows the hardware has changed and wants to revalidate it. I know if you put a new copy on a machine it wants to register it with MSFT, but will delay that, let it continue to work for maybe a month or so? Question is, a new PC, is that part already done at the factory or not?

It's been a few years since I bought a new PC, so whatever went on, I don't remember anymore.

[philo]

I could see win8.1 with a touch screen and I have a few test machines running Win10. What I hate about Win10 is the forced updates and reboots. I had to use the Policy Editor to stop that but the average user is probably not going to want to mess with that.

My first experience with Linux was RedHat 5.2 in those days one could easily spend all week installing and configuring...I even complied my own kernel once. It was an attempt to add USB support. Even though I compiled-in USB support, I neglected to add support for the add-on USB card so never got USB working until I eventually went with a later version of Linux.

That said I do not try to force others to use it because if one absolutely needs Win apps such as Photoshop, it's not going to work. Not too many are going to want to deal with GIMP but I got used to it.

[Dan Espen]

Pre-installed Windows is just that. The manufacturer installs then customizes the OS. The manufacturer may also install a bunch of Crapware. You never get Windows Install CD.

If you put the machine online, it's sure to try to contact someone.

[trader_4]

I agree, I don't like that either. AFAIK, with Win 10 you can delay rebooting forever, but once you do, it applies the update. That's still not great. If for example, you have a notebook and you want to shut it down, but have something important you need to do tomorrow, later that week, etc and you don't want the risk that an update is going to screw you up. And screwing up has already happened, there was so big deal over MSFT screwing up video cams so that they would no longer work with their big update for Win 10. Me, I'd like to do updates when I please. And I typically delay them awhile to let others go first and see what happens. That's what I did with the Win 10 upgrade.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Yes, we have two machines at work with no internet and they work well after some months. you don't get updares but as long as it works, wh cares?

[Ed Pawlowski]

Yes, but from a big box store it may be loaded with a lot of freeware crap on it.

[cruiser]

You must be one of the FEW, if you dont try to force others to use linux. There are far too many who think linux is the answer too all of life's problems, and nearly treat it like it's a religion or somthing.

I am not trying to start a flame war, so I am going to just say this and leave it at that. "I HATE LINUX". That thing nearly drove me to throwing all my computers into the trash and having an emotional breakdown. But I stopped there, formatted all the hard drives, and linux bootable thumb drives. Then I threw all linux CDs or DVDs in the garbage, and made a promise to myself to never allow linux anywhere near my computers again. I'm sticking to that for the rest of my life.

And just to be clear, this was not the RedHat nightmare from the 90s (I tried that too though). My last and final linux try was about 3 years ago. I tried at least a dozen POPULAR distros, several computers, and there is not one good thing I can say about linux.

I would like an alternative to Windows too, but linux is NOT the answer. I dont like the direction Windows has gone. I liked Windows 98, XP and although I dont own a Win7 machine, I have played with it and know I could get used to it. I want nothing to do with Win 8.x or 10.

I can only hope, or wish that MS would wise up and support more than theor latest bloatware, because soem of us like a simpler OS and/or dont want to keep buy new computers when our older ones still work fine.

-OR-

Someone would create an entirely new OS that's compatible with Windows software.

But I know that is only a dream, and MS will keep creating their bloated crap, which does the same thing as their olders OS, with 10X more complexity and problems, and needing 10x more hardware power.

Then again, I'm old, so I probably wont have to ever use their latest crap. I do just fine with XP and possibly will one day I get something with Win7.

[Terry Coombs]

I use Opera , it plays nicely with XP . I suggest a minimum of 2+ Ghz processor and 3 Gb of RAM . -- Snag

[rbowman]

If you're running XP and it does what you want there is no problem with it. I still have an XP machine at work that is one of my build boxes.

BUT a lot of software will no longer install on it if you need a new version for any reason. 32-bit machines are becoming problematic regardless of the OS. The last 32-bit Chrome version was released a while back. It works as well as it ever did but it's also the end of the line.

[rbowman]

No, 7 actually works... I had very few dealing with Vista but those were painful. Luckily our clients skipped it completely just like they skipped 8. MS has a reputation among IT professionals that you're better off skipping every other release. They've clouded that pool with the Windows 10 Forever scheme. Now you don't know which update is going to hose your machine.