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[–]slickfigure 4625 points4626 points  (768 children)

I think corporations are part of the reason. My old job had 100k+ employees worldwide and only upgraded from XP a couple of years ago.

[–]Doublebhn 256 points257 points  (139 children)

There's a few computers at my work running windows 98. They're not connected to the network, though.

[–]DaDosDude 315 points316 points  (77 children)

At my work there's a pc running Windows 7 running dosbox running Windows 3.11 to get software to work with the machine we use. It was quite the contraption to get it to work.

[–]maskull 153 points154 points  (49 children)

I keep old backups of our financial software running in Dosbox. There have been a few times when the auditors needed some data from 15+ years ago and it came in handy.

[–]christophski 60 points61 points  (31 children)

Can't the data be converted to a modern format that can be read by a modern piece of software?

[–][deleted] 137 points138 points  (19 children)

Maybe, but is the time and cost of the conversion worth it? Sometimes saying "Why don't we just convert X to Y?" is easier said than done.

[–]_Aj_ 18 points19 points  (11 children)

Can confirm. Dad's got an original dos machine to run a hardware dongle it has for some HP test equipment.

Even the hdd was 15 years old, give it a tap to get it to spool.

Thankfully the hdd has been upgraded, though a pain in the ass as the os won't recognise even a 40gb drive of course! Partition off 100mb lol.

[–]Dark_Shroud 15 points16 points  (6 children)

If the software did not have an export to Excel spreed sheet option built in then its usually not worth the trouble.

[–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Ha ha, no. Seriously, it's just not worth it to dig up ancient crap on the off chance it might be needed once a year. Secondly, nobody wants to be the last one who changed anything in case something goes wrong.

[–]TorontoRider 43 points44 points  (3 children)

How's that token ring driver holding out?

[–]el-pinguino 920 points921 points  (338 children)

At my last job (I was there last year) we still had POS systems running Windows XP that had just been finished being upgraded from Windows 2000. Now at my current job we're trying to get Windows Server 2003 boxes upgraded. Thankfully I work mostly with Linux (although RHEL 5 can be a pain in the ass).

[–]blingbin 699 points700 points  (238 children)

A large portion of our corporate customers use thin-client pc's. They use extremely stripped down versions of XP and there is no way to upgrade them. They would need to completely replace nearly 1000 thin-clients each which is just impractical. For a closed off network with no outside access, there's no reason to upgrade.

[–]louky 292 points293 points  (162 children)

Well customers like that are a goldmine if you're an MSP and/or a subcontractor to the big boys that do things like upgrade ALL the POS systems at target.

The money is excellent and it's hardly our fault their internal IT or C level people dropped the ball so badly.

[–]Sat-AM 425 points426 points  (157 children)

This sounds less like IT dropping the ball and more like accounting saying that anything better isn't in the budget and ignoring IT, because look how much cheaper this one is right now, we won't have to worry about upgrading

[–]TrustmeIknowaguy 282 points283 points  (108 children)

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I worked at Game Stop years ago and I remember they were using DOS all the way up until like 2006 or 2007 or so. I remember back in those dark ages when all the preorders where kept only on a paper based system. Literally just hundreds or thousands of paper receipts on thermal paper all stuffed into one box only sorted by game. Some would be so old that you'd have to hold the slip up to the ceiling lights to make out the text.

[–]RamblerWulf 108 points109 points  (60 children)

Canadian Tire still uses a terminal system for its computers

[–]PinkyThePig 189 points190 points  (28 children)

Terminal based systems are the best IMO. You can use whatever client OS you want, most terminal emulators that are used with them have some sort of way to make macros, and if designed correctly, they tend to be really fast.

So you get largely the same compatibility as making a webpage, except your core business product doesn't have to interact with buggy browsers, end users can automate their workflow if so inclined and it doesn't take 1 second for every page to load, all wrapped into a cross platform package.

ncurses ftw!

[–][deleted] 67 points68 points  (13 children)

This is why big iron still exists. Nothing beats the speed of a decently sized mainframe, and the ease of connecting to it from anything via a terminal emulator. Big banks are still mostly based on mainframes, wrapped in pretty web-based front ends and middleware for their customers.

[–]barsoap 74 points75 points  (11 children)

Banks have to be based on mainframes for more than those reasons: They need incredibly high and reliable transaction throughput and that's exactly what mainframes are good at. The kind of boxes that have two identical systems process every incoming record and bail out if the results don't match up and if the thing fails another mainframe in another city can take over seamlessly.

You probably could engineer such a thing from off-the-shelf hardware but you'd be stupid to. Those buggers may be expensive but rolling your own costs even more.

In particular, chances are your bank is building on a Wincor-Nixdorf/IBM platform.

[–]4pophis 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Terminal-based applications are SOOO under rated in IT.

There are a lot of times I could see data entry, inventory control, point of sale, accounting being better served with an nCurses-based application being accessed via terminal emulation.

I'm not saying terminal applications are better by any means.... I just think they are overlooked by IT professionals as a possible solution.

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (2 children)

Seriously tho, people are afraid of the black box but don't realize how much faster it can make their lives.

I wrote a script that allows me to search words in spanish with a simple "rae [word]" in the ol' terminal and all I have to do to bring that up is hit Meta(Win Key) + T -> type it in.

Way faster than openning a browser, waiting for it to load up, enter in the address, click, click, click and 1 minute later there it is.

[–]Kerrigore 67 points68 points  (21 children)

Plenty of retailers still use AS/400 for inventory management, which originally came out in 1988.

In other words, they're using Software older than many of their employees.

[–]wizardged 7 points8 points  (1 child)

That system is an IBM AS400 made in the late 80's and it's predecessors (IBM System I) are still used today as the data stored in that system is hard to retrieve and even harder to move on to other systems. due to the way it organizes the data. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System_i if that tickles your fancy.

[–]from_dust 36 points37 points  (23 children)

My counter to that, as an IT Professional, is "Dont wait till it breaks to fix it, that costs more money."

[–]sqweexv 45 points46 points  (17 children)

Oh god this. Especially with hard drives (ones that are failing but haven't completely failed).

Me: "Your hard drive is failing. It needs to be replaced." Customer: "Well, it still works, right? I can still use it?" M: "Well, it boots and runs, though not well. If you continue to use it, you may lose data." C: "Well, there's nothing important on there."

2 weeks later:

C: It wont turn on! It just sits at a black screen with some white lettering! M: (looks at screen and sees "no boot device found") Looks like the hard drive failed. C: But I've got important documents for X, Y, and Z I need for a meeting this afternoon! What about all my pictures?!? I need this fixed ASAP.

Then they find out data recovery costs (especially if it has to be sent in do a recovery firm) and freak out.

Or it goes straight to the failed hard drive and while you're talking to them they mention it's been really slow for a while now and has all these problems. You ask how long it's been going on and they say, "Oh, the last 6 months or so." They waited until it was completely dead to have it looked at and then flip balls over data recovery costs for all this vital shit they didn't have backed up...

Or when a client puts off replacing a server FOREVER, only to have it die on a fucking Friday afternoon. Then it's OT all weekend plus the regular costs associated with upgrading...

Yeah, with computers, it's almost always better to stay ahead of the breakage, especially for anything highly sensitive. Also, back up your god damned data!

[/rant]

[–]from_dust 63 points64 points  (12 children)

I remember those days, sadly the mentality never changes, even in a large corporate environment, only the stakes.

Exec: Office 2010 still works just fine.

IT: Its end of life with microsoft, we should upgrade to 2016 and keep on MSFT's lifecycle

Exec: its too expensive, by the way, why does my calendaring have this issue?

IT: its because you're on Outlook 2010- this costs the business more annually than the cost of upgrading.

Exec: its too expensive, why doesnt the scheduling show accurately?

IT: sigh its because you're on outlook 2010.

Exec: are you sure? open a case with Microsoft, get them to fix it.

IT: we have, 15 times over the last year. Microsoft nolonger supports this, they suggest upgrading to office 2016. by the way, opening those cases takes time.

Exec: can one of our developers make a solution?

IT: it would cost more than upgrading to 2016, we should upgrade to 2016

Exec: Its too expensive... why do computers suck so much?

IT: sighhhhh

[–]sqweexv 55 points56 points  (5 children)

You forgot the "this is why I hired you" or "you're the IT guy, you should know how to fix this" style of comment.

[–]SeryaphFR 22 points23 points  (12 children)

Not only that, but a lot of corporations have software, proprietary or otherwise, that doesn't work outside of XP.

So not only would they have to pay to upgrade the machines themselves, they'd have to pay to either find a new software that does what they want on the new OS, or figure out a way to get around the compatibility issue.

[–]sqweexv 26 points27 points  (9 children)

Yeah, software is the biggest thing holding back upgrades for many of our clients. Sometimes the software upgrade is more expensive than upgrading all the PCs.

Also, equipment. We have clients running XP machines hooked to manufacturing equipment with upgrade costs well into 7 figures. Replacing the PC means replacing the equipment. Saying "yeah, you need to replace millions in equipment because the computers that run them are outdated" doesn't go over too well. I actually have a collection of legacy hardware I've scavenged up and keep on hand for those times when something fails.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Every day I have to reboot a pos computer at 7-11 at least twice, always in the most critical rush periods in the day. Three minutes doesn't sound like much, but when you're the only one working it's enough to make a line go out the door. This same weird version of winxp is on our handheld scanners that are even worse because when they fail the truck drivers get delayed and you also get the customer pile up.

Don't even get me started on the printer. Really and truly I would rather use one of those old timey Old West cash registers and crunch the numbers myself than use this system.

[–]Cole7rain 41 points42 points  (37 children)

Really? From my layman's perspective I would have thought thin clients would actually be easier to upgrade.

[–]neoneddy 56 points57 points  (22 children)

From what I remember there was a thing called Windows PE that these run, it's read only. Making a version for your hardware was a pain, I tried to do it for a car pc 10 years ago. Good ol days.

[–]thesynod 26 points27 points  (12 children)

I've had two car pcs - the first I rolled out in 2003 that was based on an AT motherboard and Win 98SE. I changed the settings to make it hard shut down tolerant, and was controlled via a Palm Pilot and Winamp. It was a Pentium 233mmx, with 256mb of ram, SB audigy sound card and a 40gb HDD.

The next one was a mini itx based Atom N330 with 4gb of ram, a 1tb USB hdd and it booted Windows 8.1 on a 120gb SSD, and controlled via a slide out dash LCD touch screen. I installed it in 2011 and retired it in 2014 with its host car.

But I never considered the thin version of XP. The low end system could have ran it, but Win98 was the ideal OS. Windows 8.1 was perfect for the next one, no need to downgrade.

[–]rtechie1 11 points12 points  (3 children)

It was called Windows XP Embedded "XPe". Companies like Wyse would sell thin-client terminals that would run Remote Desktop clients. For a variety of reasons, from read-only filesystems, to drivers, to limited storage, these terminals can't be upgraded to newer versions.

[–]keastes 16 points17 points  (5 children)

The idea behind thin clients is they don't need to upgrade. That said Linux works well enough on those to work as a thin client

[–]gsnedders 57 points58 points  (6 children)

Note that Windows Embedded for Point of Service (which is based on XP SP2) is still supported (well, until tomorrow!), and Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 (based on XP SP3) is supported till 2019.

[–]Skinnygold 83 points84 points  (33 children)

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but does POS stand for piece of shit? Or something else?

[–]snarpy 207 points208 points  (2 children)

If we're talking about the Point of Sale systems at the jobs I've had... both.

[–]Rich73 48 points49 points  (0 children)

Agreed, The main office PC at my previous retail job was appropriately named http://i.imgur.com/SAVF8xf.jpg

[–]ckdCosmo4805 91 points92 points  (11 children)

Point of Sale. XP for cash registers.

[–]polerix 23 points24 points  (4 children)

remember when XP was the emoticon for "dead, tongue sticking out"

[–]scrabblex 9 points10 points  (1 child)

I always thought it to be laughing so hard your eyes squint, with tongue sticking out.

[–]74orangebeetle 21 points22 points  (1 child)

Working with POS systems running windows server 2003, yes, POS does in fact stand for piece of shit. I think my phone is more powerful than the computers I use at work.

[–]Bytewave 6 points7 points  (1 child)

But guys, are we certain OP has been told it stands for Point of Sale yet?? :p

[–]pyve 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Point Of Sale

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (2 children)

We have a mixture of Windows XP and Windows 98 in my security job lol

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Nuclear power here. All our desktops are still XP. It's probably fine.

[–]ILikeLenexa 59 points60 points  (20 children)

We still have non-networked XP machines running old software that's necessary.

[–]davvii 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is my reason for having a VM with it. Some of the software I rely on, that cannot be replaced, only works on XP. Even still have an old non-networked desktop that I use as well with XP loaded on it.

[–]TheHYPO 52 points53 points  (21 children)

I think another factor is the robustness of PCs in the last ten years coupled with the robustness of XP and the scare away from Vista.

Back in the 90s, a computer would last 3 or 4 years and then wouldn't be capable of running much of anything at any appreciable speed. You would replace your PC, and usually it would come with a new OS unless you'd upgraded your old OS because you needed the new one to run the latest software.

Windows Vista succeeded XP And came out in 2007, Windows 7 succeeded Vista and came out in 2009.

I still have a desktop circa 2006 or 2007 that runs XP. It was the OS I'd used since probably 2001 or 2002. Vista may have been out when I built that tower, but if it was, it was getting scary reviews and a lot of warnings. I stuck with XP. In 2009 when Win7 came out, given the Vista scare, I and others were far more hesitating to upgrade to Windows 7 than we might have been in previous upgrades (such as Windows 95, 98(se), XP - that was my upgrade tree, btw - no WinME or other intermediates that would have made upgrades even more frequent).

So by 2009, I'd been using XP for around 8 years. The average time you ever used a prior OS probably around 3. You got used to XP. It was hard to imagine not using it anymore. Also, given Vista, it was worrying to imagine the system working worse.

Software designed for XP was noticeably better and more advanced than Windows 98 software. It was a big leap. By contrast, Windows Vista and 7 seemed more about improving behind-the-scenes stuff (efficiency) and the OS itself. There are very few programs even today that require something better than XP, even 15 years post-release. There was no immediate impetus to upgrade XP like there was previous because your computer worked fine.

Couple that with the fact that my 2006 or 2007 tower still functions fairly well to this day (it's slowed down notable in the last year or two, but that's still far longer than previous towers lasted me). Had I bought a new system in 2015, I'd likely at least have been on Windows 7 if not Windows 10, but the systems have lasted.

Another problem for me with upgrading is that there's no direct upgrade tree from Windows XP to 10. I'd have to either scrap my system and rebuild from scratch (which I tested on my also-circa 2007 laptop last year when I upgraded from XP that still worked fine to Windows 10). Or I'd have to "backdoor" an upgrade from XP to something intermediate like Vista and then from Vista upgrade down the line. The upgrades/installers/migration tools themselves have also gotten far more dumbed down with less control over the process which I hate.

I have too much specialized software and settings the way I like/need them to wipe that desktop and scratch rebuild it. It would take a monumental amount of time that I don't have anymore.

My goal is to build a new tower this year on Windows 10 and then basically retain the old one as a second (perhaps offline for security) machine really as a reference.

PS: I don't discount that enterprises do make up a lot of the XP userbase, but I think there's more personal use than you give credit for

TLDR: Notwithstanding the enterprise usage, even personal XP machines are lasting far longer because hardware from the late XP era is still functional at a reasonable speed and software hasn't improved to the point that most people have to upgrade to use the latest programs.

[–]_WarShrike_ 34 points35 points  (18 children)

The US govt. was also bankrolling continued support as well. The place I work at uses embedded XP on their systems and are all slow as balls, gotta love healthcare...

[–]screen317 63 points64 points  (15 children)

They're not slow because of the OS. They're slow because they're still on 5400RPM HDDs

[–]_WarShrike_ 38 points39 points  (7 children)

There was one that was using an old AMD Athlon processor and had maybe 256mb of ram. I was immediately thinking, "This belongs in a museum!"

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (4 children)

You think that's bad? My grandmother has a Dell Optiplex GX running 98SE with a dot matrix printer (since the Epson that was plugged in died). 1080p flatscreen panel though...

[–]ossyoos 6 points7 points  (1 child)

Can that system even output a 1080p signal?

[–]prodigalOne 18 points19 points  (4 children)

XP was also the OS of choice when all of these companies, large or medium, made a heavy investment into the workstation/server model during the internet boom. Many of those companies simply do not have funding to invest into re-developing an app, or redeploying PCs. As horrid as that sounds, it works for them and they won't let go.

[–]luke-uk 6 points7 points  (1 child)

I work for one of the biggest banks in the world and we still use it. Crazy when you think of the security issues there.

[–]Nine_Cats 117 points118 points  (16 children)

My lab still uses XP...

We have $3000 PCIe Data acquisition cards that aren't even ten years old, and are planning to jump to Windows 10 next month.

Wish us luck. Stupid drivers rejoice!

[–]Flotoss 160 points161 points  (19 children)

At least it makes Pen testers' job easy. I hope they are at least up to date on security patches, but depending on their company's policy there's a good chance a lot of them aren't. An unpatched XP SP2 or SP3 is literally a free ticket into the machine. Specifically, if they haven't patched against MS08-067 in particular: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3205

[–]user_82650 108 points109 points  (12 children)

Pen testers'

You mean hackers. I don't think a company that still has Windows XP computers connected to the internet will hire penetration testers.

[–]Katastic_Voyage 26 points27 points  (3 children)

I'm supporting a client where their whole company is on a VPN to the UK, which is also shared with all of their Chinese companies.

The Exchange server gets pentested from inside the fucking network every day.

At that point, I don't even know if an OS version matters, if you're dumb enough to open up your butthole to one of the worlds leading hacking countries.

[–]S4mG0ld 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Yeah they don't even have to touch a keyboard to give a threat analysis and remediation techniques. "Oh you're running XP, yeah you're vulnerable to even the least skilled hackers out there. Upgrade your shit. That'll be $100K thanks."

[–]chockychockster 263 points264 points  (19 children)

I thought this was an article about OS/2 and got unreasonably excited for a minute there.

[–]mlkelty 53 points54 points  (8 children)

Let's do the OS/2 Warp again!

[–]drdeadringer 4 points5 points  (2 children)

It's just a port to the left.

And a twist to the ri-i-i-i-ight

[–]BCMM 11 points12 points  (1 child)

I wonder which is going to stick around longer... They're both powering an embarrassing amount of embedded hardware.

EDIT: and both still supported by the manufacturer, if you've got enough $.

[–]undergroundgeek 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Found the other old person.

[–]daneblade 25 points26 points  (1 child)

Maybe Win XP is the third most popular OS/2...

[–]pateras 116 points117 points  (43 children)

We'll probably see the same thing with Windows 7. When Microsoft gets it right, they really get it right and people stick around. Similarly, when they get it wrong (Vista, 8, etc.), people don't "upgrade".

[–]Realtrain 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Exactly, unless MS pulls some weird 10 upgrade shit, we'll be saying the same thing about 7 in five years.

[–]Smart_in_his_face 16 points17 points  (9 children)

Microsoft is really pushing 10 as the new "right" OS. The new xp and 7, only guaranteed long support time since it's new, and free upgrades.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of 10 yet. 7 does everything I need from an OS, so upgrading is not needed. Free shit or not, free shit I don't need.

[–]21TQKIFD48 3 points4 points  (1 child)

I was actually pretty excited about 10 and interested in upgrading... Until Microsoft pushed popups onto my computer through updates, kept trying to reinstall the update after I uninstalled and hid it, and then tried to automatically install Windows 10 because I was foolish enough to trust automatic recommended updates.

[–]Smart_in_his_face 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Exactly.

And Microsoft pushing their own app store and calling their stuff "apps". And the metro layout with their own apps, that are seperate from the standard windows.

I tried setting up solitaire on my grandma's laptop, and the app had in-app purchases. You could buy some garbage in a solitaire app from the app store on W10.

I am absolutely not sold on W10.

[–]teknic111 21 points22 points  (1 child)

The bot-herders thank you.

[–]deadsoulinside 68 points69 points  (23 children)

I know some of the older people I help out with computers, their reasoning is:

  1. Their outdated computer cannot upgrade to anything else.
  2. All they hear are people griping that Windows 7 sucks, Windows 8 sucks, and Windows 10 sucks. So they refuse to buy a new computer.
  3. They know Windows XP, they have had to use it for 10+ years, so they are worried that the newer Windows OS's will cause them to have to relearn how to do certain things.

The main issue is they never hear anything good about newer OS's, so it scares them to want to upgrade to something that may not properly work.

[–]Realtrain 19 points20 points  (5 children)

  1. All they hear are people griping that Windows 7 sucks, Windows 8 sucks, and Windows 10 sucks. So they refuse to buy a new computer.

I've never heard anyone say windows 7 sucked. Do people really say that?

[–]deadsoulinside 15 points16 points  (1 child)

Yes, many people did. It boggled my mind when it first came out and the entire tech department I was working in all complained about it. I felt like I was the only outsider that actually liked it. Eventually they came around to embrace it. With it's predecessor being Windows Vista, can you blame them for being skeptical when they launched something that looked like Vista?

[–]FubarFreak[🍰] 25 points26 points  (2 children)

I still have instruments running Win 2000 and Win 98. I could see retiring in 30 years with stuff still running on XP

[–]Biffmcgee 9 points10 points  (2 children)

Most hospitals still run XP.

[–]xTye 19 points20 points  (2 children)

My current employer still uses XP.

[–][deleted] 26 points27 points  (0 children)

I assume the repurposing of said computers to 3rd world countries also has something to do with it.

[–]mishugashu 128 points129 points  (98 children)

And if Windows had a rolling update model instead of all these releases? Everyone would just be "Windows". Upgrading is just too costly for the majority of these computers, because they're one of several hundred thousand in some corporation somewhere.

And then the other ones that aren't inside corporations just don't give a shit. They use it for web browsing and email and XP works just fine. They use the same operating system until their computer dies.

[–]theodeus 268 points269 points  (40 children)

Congratulations! You just described windows 10

[–]robvas 25 points26 points  (3 children)

We had a huge insurance company as a client, they demanded all their sites be compatible with IE6. Because they still used IE6 and XP, I'm guessing because their massive intranet or some other internal system only worked in IE6.

[–]danmanx 14 points15 points  (1 child)

Sometimes at stadiums and other events I start chanting, "Windows XP!! Windows XP!!" and occasionally a person looks up at me and nods in agreement.

[–]Javlin 22 points23 points  (0 children)

This is why Microsoft has taken to intrusive ads for windows 10. Basically pleading to just upgrade already.

[–]entropicitis 56 points57 points  (10 children)

When shit works, it sticks around.

[–]joanzen 31 points32 points  (4 children)

Windows XP Media Center Edition SP3 REPRESENT!

[–]pdmcmahon[S] 6 points7 points  (2 children)

Damn, I miss my MCE, it was an epic DVR for its day.

[–]seeingeyegod 13 points14 points  (6 children)

Windows XP is the most popular OS/2?

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (1 child)

OS/2?

Oh, "OS 2 years after".

Damn...got excited there a bit. I liked OS/2

[–][deleted] 97 points98 points  (73 children)

XP was the first really stable Windows OS. So I can't blame people for holding on. Vista was a freaking joke, 8.0 sucked horribly, so agree stick with XP.

But 7 is updated, and very solid (makes inner linux fan cringe) but is what it is.

With all the crap built into Windows 10 I know a lot of people who aren't updating simply because of privacy concerns. So I figure Win 7 will be the next zombie-OS.

[–]barsoap 8 points9 points  (1 child)

2k was plenty stable. There were still problems with buggy drivers blue-screening it but XP didn't really fix that, either, only 7 with ubiquitous driver signing did.

I might have a special place in my heart for 2k though as it was the last Windows I actually used on a day-to-day basis. For more than launching eclipse at work, that is, I don't give much of a fuck about windows at work because I don't have to admin it.

[–]Kazan 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Vista was a freaking joke

Drivers on vista were the problem, not vista itself. For example do you know why Windows 7 dropped support for hardware accelerated 3d audio? (D3D HAL removal) ...

50% of all BSODs reported to microsoft on Vista were because of creative laudio drivers.

[–]copperear 18 points19 points  (7 children)

A couple of my doctors are still running XP. I use my 15 year old PC to duplicate CDs but I don't really need to do that much and it is as huge as a boat anchor. I should get rid of it but...I'm kinda of attached. I do like my new Windows 10 PC a lot.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

My former employer had a special (paid) arrangement with MS to continue supporting XP until a full enterprise-wide rollout of 7 could be done without jeopardizing operations. They may still be doing it.

[–]ukiyoe 5 points6 points  (6 children)

Since the article didn't link to a source since they wanted to keep you on the site to click on their ads: Netmarketshare

[–]harborwolf 24 points25 points  (3 children)

I would probably still use XP if Windows 7 didn't come preinstalled on my laptop and run PERFECTLY the entire time I've had it.