Despite my being an Apple fanboy, I can’t deny that Microsoft had numerous products and services that changed the world, specifically Windows XP. Ten years after its launch, XP is still the most used operating system in the world. That is absolutely incredible to think about. The only other product or service that I can think of that has had XP’s longevity is the Sony Playstation 2, which is quite possibly the greatest video game console ever.
Windows XP was the simplest and most user-friendly operating system. Windows 95 and Windows 2000 were great, and then once Microsoft upgraded and made XP, the functionality of those OSes was tied in with more beauty and power. XP was stable, clean, and functional. Once Service Pack 2 came out, it had become the world’s operating system, apparently fixing bugs and reliability issues that existed in the first generation version of the OS. It gained even more traction over the last few years when Vista failed, so thousands of people moved back to XP. Microsoft didn’t even anticipate that XP would have the shelf life that it did. Now that Windows 7 has been well-received, XP will likely fade into retirement over the next few years. It was an incredible run for one of the greatest products in the history of computing.
Despite that, the one problem that I had with XP - later on, of course - was how there seemed to be little development over its time. I don’t think I could notice a particular difference between Service Pack 2 and Service Pack 3 (hell, I couldn’t really tell a difference between SP1 and SP2.) I’ll admit that Apple makes very negligible changes to OS X too, but sadly so many rave over each cycle because Apple renames it something entirely new (Tiger to Leopard to Snow Leopard, etc.), and they add some more aesthetic or fun features (Expose, etc.) as opposed to those that can alter the computing experience. If Microsoft actually renamed XP Service Pack 2 to something entirely new and added even the slightest new feature, I’m almost positive people would have believed that that it was worth upgrading to the new version (I’ll admit that whenever I saw a newly-named upgrade, I wanted to justify to myself that there were a lot of new, helpful features. Damn you Apple). Regardless, the reason I switched from a Windows to a Mac was that there didn’t seem to be much growth or change with XP over the years, despite it being perfectly functional and useful still. Vista had not come out yet in 2006, so XP was still the only viable Windows alternative, but at that point, it had already been five years, and I wanted change, either functionally or aesthetically. So, I decided to jump ship. No regrets since. However, I will fondly remember my years with Windows XP too.
Congratulations, XP, for still plugging along in your old age. You’re a role model to all OSes!
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pavyedav posted this
