Gary, the reason XP had so many issues with security, was because of its exposure. With Linux covering 1 or 2 percent of the home computers, and Apple stuff having 10%, leaving Microsoft to cover the rest, who is going to get the most attacks?garys wrote:I had a friend who had an XP machine fry the motherboard. I wasn't able to get an exact replacement motherboard, so I bought a different one. XP in Microsoft's twisted logic would no longer run because the stupid software thought it was loaded on a different computer. I called Microsoft and got someone in a foreign country who spoke such broken English that she was almost intelligible. She was unable to give me the necessary codes to make it work again. That is a total failure of Microsoft support when you spend your money for their operating system, and they can't make it work.
I fixed that machine by dumping XP and loading Fedora Linux on it. After that, it ran trouble free for years with no patching.
As far as updates. None of them would have been necessary if Microsoft hadn't written such an inscure system the first time around. And, when Microsoft wasn't able to fix their security holes within a year, some of the independent security firms stepped up and wrote security patches within days instead of years like Microsoft.
People need to wise up and ask themselves why these massive security problems and endless patches happen only to Microsoft. Every other software company seems to get it so close to right the first time that patches are a rare occurance, and even when they patch, they are almost never critical like Microsoft.
If I was a criminal lock breaker, I'd rather make a pick that worked on 80% of the locks, instead of 5 or 10%.
steve
) is that the obsolescence wasn't necessary, the "improvements" could have been seamless and secure. It is all about resale and the bottom line. The other problem, and one that I had to deal with, was function in the real world. We had to develop software for the organizations we supported and the only way to do that, was to use the Microsoft platforms. That is still true today. I hope Linux eventually takes over. It is a far better OS, but less forgiving and harder to understand with it's cryptic approach of user interface. I think that will continue to change over time. I hope so!