[LINK] Win XP to Win 7

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Greg Taylor wrote,

> On Fri, 31 Jul 2009 06:33:56 +1000, Stilgherrian wrote:
>
> > If by "most users" you mean "most users who are IT professionals
> > with sufficient experience to know what a 'partition' or 'drive'
> > is", then perhaps your comment might approach the trust [truth].
> >
> > No, "most user", as in "the majority of people who use a computer",
> > store things in  whatever default location the file gets saved in
> > when they are confronted with a dialog with a button marked "OK" in
> > whatever application they're using at the time.
> > ...
> 
> The original proposition was "It appears that the end of the dominance 
> of Microsoft Windows, in favour of OS source [presumably meaning open 
> source] operating systems, may date from October the 22nd this year",
> on the basis of an article that suggested that it was too hard to
> upgrade from XP. The demise of Windows has been predicted since Adam
> was an ankle-biter, but I can't see it happening anytime soon, for a
> variety of reasons:


And the many, many new Netbooks that were, and are, still, sold with XP?

Microsoft is saying (haha) chuck them and buy another machine so you can 
run the wonderful new Windows 7 .. haha, as if .. and, Linux is fighting 
back with even, gasp http://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/Site/Home.html

"Hannah Montana Linux is a linux Operating system, based on Kubuntu with
Hannah Montana Themes" Just install it on a kid's computer and watch the
response. Seriously.

In our real world, there are more machines with XP than Vista, (can't be
bothered finding the quotes again) and, especially in the 2nd/3rd worlds.

Won't we all be happy when MS stops supporting Win XP presumably shortly
after October the 22nd? Whatever, I for one certainly hope Linux thrives
and certainly think another MS Vista-like-mistake will help quite nicely.

Not being anti-MS, I like rock-solid XP, but also like the OS philosophy
as against MS business-greed purposely making world XP machines obsolete
and in the process presumably making us ALL vunerable to un-supported XP.


> - many (most?) users of XP are in a work environment where the IT dept
>   will have implemented policies such that data location is transparent.
> - many home users will have Vista because that was what they were sold.
> - many home users have become wiser about data storage and backup owing
>   to the availability of cheap disk drives, memory sticks & USB drives,
>   even home NAS. They may not be knowledgable about partitions, but
>   they know about drives other than C.
> - many home users will simply take their XP machine to the nearest
>   computer shop and have them upgrade it to Win7.
> - many home users will continue using XP till they need a new computer,
>   and then they have to deal with data preservation anyway.
> - many home users are becoming better educated about computers than
>   they once were, even if only because their kids are.
> - any small remainder (if any) will not change to open source anyway
>   because that's a much harder proposition (and the data management
>   issues still exist).
> 
> So I reckon the original proposition is bunk.  Greg

Whatever ..

Cheers,
Stephen