On Monday, March 31, 2014 4:07:30 PM UTC-4, Mayayana wrote:
| But XP is zippy on old hardware, and does just fine with 256

| MB RAM for most uses.)

|

| Bull****.

|



Interesting reasoning.



| The biggest mistake people make is to view a computer as if it is a

| major appliance. Sure, ovens and fridges don't change much over time,

| so they'll still perform their basic functions just fine even when

| newer models are on the market. But computers are dynamic devices. The

| software and peripherals that run on/with them are constantly

| changing. They gradually lose efficiency, and eventually lose

| compatibility. At some point, they won't be good for much anymore.



In practice that's often true, and in Jerry's case

it might be easiest to just buy a new machine,

especially considering how cheap they are now.

But if you know how to re-install the system and

manage your software -- or if you have a friend

who can help -- then there's no reason to have the

problems you describe. Software doesn't "lose

efficiency", and most people rarely if ever change

their software.

Really? People don't change software? Not in my experience.
Who for example is still using the same version of a web
browser from 12 years ago? And for what? A browser from back them
would be incompatible with most websites today.
Try to open a new document with Adobe Reader that's 12 years old,
play a newly created video with a 12 year old video player app, etc.
It's rarely going to work. Software is constantly evolving. You
can almost always open an old file with the new app, but not vice
versa.




But if you don't manage startup

programs, if you allow browser toolbars to be installed,

etc then the system will get bogged down.



I was working on a friend's PC just yesterday.

He had wanted to download an audio file. The only

option was iTunes. In order to download he had

to install the iTunes software.


Perfect example of why new software gets installed all the time.



For one audio file

he ended up with *4* nonsense Apple programs

running at startup. Most people don't understand

about such things. Even if the Apple installer provided

a choice about installing their junk (which I doubt)

my friend would have just gone along with the

suggested default install, as most people do.
That's

the kind of thing that causes what appears to you to

be ageing and "lost efficiency".


That can certainly contribute to decreased performance, sure.
But it still doesn't
mean that a 12 year old XP machine is up to what most people typically
want or find acceptable today for their PC. And if he wants to stick
with XP, he's going to find less and less software that runs on it.
If he uses Windows Explorer, IDK when the last version was that runs
on XP. It's sure not the last couple versions, so he can expect increasing
compatibility trouble there. I'm sure someone will say he can use
some other browser, which is true, but it's an example of the kind of
frustration,work arounds etc that are going to become more common
with an EOL OS.