As XP Dies, Will Users Step to Windows 7, 8 or Something Else? Discussion

While Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer boasted this week about brisk sales of Windows 7, another Microsoft exec, Stephen Rose, blogged dire warnings that lingering Windows XP users will face security hazards if they don't upgrade to Win 7 by April of 2014. Yet in almost the same breath, Microsoft is giving sneak peeks at an early edition of Windows 8, an OS tentatively planned for late 2012.

Microsoft has now sold400 million copies of Windows 7, Ballmer declared, speaking at Microsoft's Worldwide Partners Conference. The Microsoft CEO did not break out those numbers in terms of how much of that software came pre-installed on new PCs.

Read the full content of this Article: As XP Dies, Will Users Step to Windows 7, 8 or Something Else?

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Windows 7 is a solid choice. But if you can hold off a hardware purchase, you might as well wait for Windows 8.

 

Really depends on the users. Most people change Windows when they change computers because "ready made" PCs have Windows pre-installed. So if they're still running that PC from 1995 and it's fine with them, they probably won't shell out any money for an extra OS .

So really, the switch will happen gradually as people upgrade their older computers to newer ones. XP was really popular because Vista took a long time to release so in that time bracket people had time to change their computers and their OS.

For another smaller %, the change will happen as their tools evolve. Some people still cling to older OSes cause of some specific programs or hardware that are only available for said OSes (and they haven't found an alternative they like compatible with the new OSes). I know that at home we have this great laser printer that still fully works wonderfully but has no Windows 7 drivers (generic print ones don't work either) so it's connected to an XP printer server so we can still use it.

 

I recently switched to OS X myself for my home PC but at work we are still working towards a migration to Windows 7. Maintaining applications in the business environment is a good excuse to stay with an old operating system especially if you need to support 200+ apps. Switching to Windows 7 has been a slow and tedious process and I'm sure Windows 8 will be out before we are done.

 

i actually held off on my laptop purchase because i did not want vista and waited for windows 7 to launch. when microsoft officially drops support for xp, users will have no choice and as technology advances, software and hardware will eventually need to upgrade.

 

Every 3-4 years I tell myself that the moment Linux gets near universal game development support, I will drop Windows forever, but it will probably never happen. Sieg Heil Microsoft Windows! *vomit*

 

I still think people will be stubborn till the very last minute and hold on to XP until their computer dies out and they are forced to buy a new one which comes per-installed with the latest OS.

 

The memory manager is horrible in XP compared to that of Vista or seven. That alone is worth dumping XP. But at work (hospital) we are stuck with XP with legacy applications and lots of freezes and reboots. That may also have some bearing on the IT department.

 

Since when is XP dead? XP is still a fully functional, modern operating system (with SP3), and it's the ONLY operating system that can play ALL of my games correctly without various compatibility issues.
Computer makers are still supporting XP with drivers, even with new hardware releases. Intel supports it in their chipset and graphics drivers with sandy bridge, still updates arrandale/clarkdale drivers. AMD still supports it as well as nVidia.
I can tell you, that as much as Windows 7 has been optimized and improved over slow and bloated Vista, XP is still much quicker and uses less resources (not to mention just a 1.5GB standard install vs. 10GB for Seven). I can do everything in XP that I can do in Seven, and just as well. XP isn't dead yet.

 

I'm not trying to be a snuffer, Roger, but I think you are wrong in some areas.

XP can't run DX10 and 11 or Internet Explorer 9. XP is dying a slow and painful death.

But XP is still a fine system if you don't need this new stuff.

 

XP can't run DX10/11 or IE 9 because Microsoft refuses to support it. It's still very much capable of it, but since it is Microsoft's code, if they wont support it, it wont get support.

 

someone needs to fire your IT department!

 

Yep, but games are beginning to use DX10 and 11 as a standard. DX9 is outdated. Therefore XP will die =/.

 

I work in IT at our children's hospital and we are set to deploy Windows 7 and replace windows xp starting at the end of the summer. We just upgraded to Epic Summer 2009(Hospitals EMR) and according to Epic that works with Windows 7.

 

Sometimes you get stuck with a mom and pop app that is literally one of a kind. Then you need to spend money on in house developers to get out from under it.

 

Most of the laptops in my hospital were upgraded to Windows 7 when they purchased a ton of E6400 laptops. From personal use, I've always had more issues in XP than Vista or 7 (in fact my laptop actually had less issues in Vista than 7!) It's more of an issue with the accounting department for budget than IT IMO.

 

indeed I am running dual boot for those same reason, It seems than every game I use in XP runs a bit better than on seven... BFC2, the witcher 2, CoD Black OPs is another world, yet that is because of its poor coding...

also true, first one will be Battlefiel 3...

But hey, games are almost all porting from console, and they use DX9, so until new console Gen is out there is not much to fear

 

My dad's company is in the midst of a slow migration from Windows XP to Windows 7. Part of this is the replacement of older T60 and T61 Thinkpads with new T420 and X220 Thinkpads.

The hospital I work in is still 100% on Windows XP, with no real changes coming up in the near future, from what I can see. The research lab I'm a part of is likewise on Windows XP, as it's part of the medical center infrastructure.

But, as an answer to the title question, it seems the general consensus in businesses is that W7 is now a stable, reliable, and proven platform that they're willing to adopt.

 

Just in time for windows 8 to come out too.

 

The "loan-around" (that's what it's called).. laptop I am using at work right now has XP on it, and Office 2003. The laptop is older so they don't want to go with anything newer on it...

They said they would move forward to W7 when they replenished stock.

 

Our XP users FUBAR their computers much more frequently than the windows 7 machines. Its just that much easier to get crap on it. Also the XPs tend to be older slower hardware. Easy to justify upgrading when all the extra time spent adds up to more cash than a new computer.

 

I was reading that, with Windows 8, Microsoft will be trying to integrate desktop and tablet operating systems. History suggests that it will do neither very well: Windows releases alternate between introducing new ideas (ME, Vista) and relatively bug-free implementation of these ideas (XP, 7). On that basis one either installs Windows 7 or waits until 9.

John

 

My company is still using XP. We've tested Windows 7 and are testing virtual desktops. We use Google Mail and Google is dropping support for IE 7 and IE 9 won't run in XP. Google is saying they will only support 2 version of browsers so we will have to do something around the time Windows 8 comes out because I believe IE 10 will ship with Windows 8.

 

Yeah, but XP just flies on new hardware. It's pretty obvious Microsoft is trying to kill XP by not supporting IE9 and DX10/11.

 

At my house, except the two Apple laptops, everything is still XP. Since most everything is still XP compatible, there isn't much motivation to upgrade. But since XP support is getting dropped soon for some things, we will have to upgrade.

 

Well users have 3 more years to putz around with XP and by then Im sure we will be talking about whether they will switch to windows 8 or 9 or some OSX variation.

 

im still on xp cause i have not faced a single compatibility issue yet. i will be moving on to windows 7 once i get a new laptop

 

I think Microsoft is approaching its Gil Amelio moment. The big difference is that Bill Gates is no Steve Jobs. Jobs spent his time in the wilderness founding Pixar, while Gates has blown through a fortune on failed philanthropy. Even if Bill Gates stepped back in, I'm not sure he's a capable of pulling off a turn around.

Microsoft really doesn't appear to have a strategy for upgrading XP users to Windows 7 or 8. Maybe they're just hoping that the old hardware will simply get replaced, eventually, and that the default replacements will all have Windows 8 preloaded. The problem with that thinking is that businesses and consumers are actually accepting OS X, which would have been unthinkable 5 years ago.

I think there's a real possibility that Apple will continue to skim the cream off the hardware market, with the PC market continuing in a state of slow decline. Apple takes the profits, the PC manufacturers fight each other to the death on price. Companies like Dell are still shackled to Microsoft.

What I see is this:

1) Apple might increase OS X's market-share to 20 or 25% but iOS will completely dominate the tablet market and the high end of the smartphone market.

2) Conventional Linux might double or triple its share of the desktop market, but we're still talking about single digits.

3) Windows will have a majority or a large plurality of x86 desktop market share until at least 2015, but will completely fail in the tablet market, just as it has failed in the smartphone market. As the x86 architecture fades away in favor of embedded processors, Microsoft's future will seem increasingly uncertain.

4) There will be tens of millions of PCs running unsupported XP and Vista operating system, although numbers will decline over time.

 

Until Steve Jobs dies, then Apple will crumble like a house of cards.