Support for Windows XP is ending soon

your "biggest complaint", 32bit vs 64bit, is practically invalid. You can run a 32 bit Windows 7 or Windows 8.also, this is more of an application issue and not an operating system issue.

What you may not realize is that Windows 7 and 8 are extensions of Windows XP. Anything you could do in Windows XP should always be available in the next OS generation BUT due to some changes, you might find it in a different place for example.

The desktop.ini is a feature that I can confirm exists in Windows 7 but in order to access it, you need to enable hidden files and folders and view protected operating system files. Then you can see it and modify it as you normally would.

You sometimes get an error using Windows 7 trying to run your old programs just because Windows 7 is a 64-bit OS and Windows XP is 32-bit OS.

This is not true. The difference really is that a 64-bit OS can handle up to 128GB of RAM while a 32-bit is limited to 4GB (actually you will never get 4GB, only about 3.5GB due to its limitations). Sometimes you get the error due to changes within the OS can make an old app incompatible. It's up the original designers of the application to continue making the changes and testing to make sure it's compatible for future operating systems. In most cases once a software gets replaced by a higher version or becomes too old, the developer stops supporting it so you don't get any updates. The good news is that in Windows 7 and higher, you can run old programs in compatibility mode for earlier operating systems like Windows 7, Vista or XP.

Hi Akul,

 Computing is as to different strokes for different folks. To each is his own way of doing things according to their own needs. To me, it is a full time hobby, to some, it is a business. However, I wish I could write the code for Windows to work for me instead of against me as Microsoft has it, and defeat every default (Going back to the same size or position on the screen). Some windows cannot be changed, the majority can. I am really a programmer not a user as 'EVERYONE' as Microsoft thinks. If I can write my own program as I did with Commodore SX-64 and the Commodore C-128 as so I made my own hybred programs ro work with the differences I found between the two computers as a smart program. Obsolete or not, I even got around Commodore DOS, and wrote my own assembly code. Too bad Microsoft made that almost impossible to change to defeat the copy dialog box in Windows 7 as to make it bigger so I can see ALL of its text. That is one drawback for a fixed sized window. So is the window when you try to defragment the partitions. And the text not all of it can be larger, unless you use the magnifier and then that stops the animations and freezes them and that is no good either. EVEN in this reply window, the text cannot be expanded, and trying to insert expanded or larger text reverts back to its normal 10 point size. I cannot see too well... It has to be 14 points or better. Some of this microsoft's fault. Even with a larger monitor, the text remains smaller not larger, except when using MS Word.  To defray from losing everything you have to copy it to an external hard disk or onto your own network server all of your installer programs IF you need to reinstall them. only a very few (two in my case out of 400 need the CD to install it, the rest can run from where they are at. AS in my case, I have a big box full of CDs just for this purpose as about 93 GB on file on the larger hard disk drives over 150 GB. JUST IN CASE I need to reinstall something without going on line and not finding the drivers for my HP 5370C professional scanner. HP wont give me or wont make the drivers to work with Vista or 7, only XP. I just installed them on my new PC just an few hours ago and I had to bypass the Windows digital Signature bit as instructed to get the scanner to work professionally enabling to make copies of my 35 mm color negatives saving me a bundle of money sending them out and some of then will be censored... The new flat bed scanners wont do what this one CAN DO, add that \*\*\*\* to Microsoft's armor and arrogance. What happened to the original CD? A munchie in a bad CD drive, it shattered because the CD was not spinning and the heat from the laser made it overheat and it exploded... Then I had asked my brother to get a copy fro HP and the CD I got did not have the additional photo software that was on the original CD. It was the drivers only and its own scanning software. Since then I, myself got several copies of the same software from HP from their website only for XP and 98 only! Oh GEE, you get a new Hard disk from WD, where are its two SATA cables and the CD that used to go with it? Also if you buy a new HDD from Seagate, YOU do get the two SATA cables, four screws, a manual and still NO CD? I do not care now, I have enough spare SATA cables and past CDs to go about installing the drive. Going on line to download anything is not always successful as everyone expect you to do. Trying to find the exact AGP drivers for your Intel Video Graphics Acccelator is a poke in the dark sort of thing. Worse tring to find the exact drivers for your intergrated audio when there are so many variants. Where is the common ground? Computing is as to different strokes for different folks. To each is his own way of doing things according to their own needs. To me, it is a full time hobby, to some, it is a business. However, I wish I could write the code for Windows to work for me instead of against me as Microsoft has it and defeat every default (Going back to the same size or position on the screen). Some windows cannot be changed, the majority can. I am really a programmer not a user as 'EVERYONE' as Microsoft thinks. If I can write my own program as I did with Commodore SX-64 and the Commodore C-128 I made my own hybred programs ro work with the differences I found between the two computers as a smart program. Obsolete or not, I even got around Commodore DOS and wrote my own assembly code. Too bad Microsoft mad that almost impossible to change to defeat the copy dialog box in Windows 7 as to make it bigger so I can see ALL of its text. That is one drawback for a fixed sized window. So is the window when you try to defragment the partitions. And the text not all of it can be larger, unless you use the magnifier and then that stops the animations and freezes them and that is no good either. EVEN in this reply window, the text cannot be expanded, and trying to insert expanded or larger text reverts back to its normal 10 point size. I cannot see too well... It has to be 14 points or better. Some of this Microsoft's fault. Even with a larger monitor, the text remains smaller not larger, except when using MS Word.  To defray from losing everything you have to copy it to an external hard disk or onto your own network server all of your installer programs IF you need to reinstall them. only a very few (two in my case out of 400 need the CD to install it, the rest can run from where they are at. AS in my case, I have a big box full of CDs just for this purpose as about 93 GB on file on the larger hard disk drives over 150 GB. JUST IN CASE I need to reinstall something without going on line and not finding the drivers for my HP 5370C professional scanner. HP wont give me or wont make the drivers to work with Vista or 7, only XP. I just installed them on my new PC just an few hours ago and I had to bypass the Windows digital Signature bit as instructed to get the scanner to work professionally enabling to make copies of my 35 mm color negatives saving me a bundle of money sending them out and some of then will be censored... The new Scanners wont do what this one CAN DO, add that \*\*\*\* to Microsoft's armor and arrogance. What happened to the original CD? A munchie in a bad CD drive, it shattered because the CD was not spinning and the heat from the laser made ot overheat and exploded... Then I had asked my brother to get a copy fro HP and the CD I got did not have the additional photo software that was on the original CD. It was the drivers only and its own scanning software. Since then I, myself got several copies of the same software from HP from their website only for XP and 98 only! Oh GEE, you get a new Hard disk from WD, where are its two SATA cables and the CD that used to go with it? Also if you buy a new HDD from Seagate, YOU do get the two SATA cables, four screws, a manual and still NO CD? I do not care now, I have enough spare SATA cables and past CDs to go about installing the drive. Going on line to download anything is not always successful as everyone expect you to do. Trying to find the exact video AGP drivers for your Intel Graphics Acccelator is a poke in the dark sort of thing. Worse thing to find the exact drivers for your intergrated audio when there are so many variants. Where is the common ground?  



Trying to find the audio for my Gateway Solo notebook I got for my birthay four years ago, was impossible because Gateway no longer supports Windows 98, Nor will I get a good battery for it. HOWEVER,... I got it all working on AC with Windows XP PRO! It needed a serious upgrade, I needed to get its internal CD ROM drive working at a cost of $114.00, but its 6 GB internal HDD is not worth spitting at and its 96 MB memory made it dead slow as a snail! I bough an 80 GB IDE notebook drive, and got a 256 MB card with the original 64 GB card and got half of the combined memory at 160 MB, and when I installed Windows XP Pro I also paid $100 for, I got its two USB ports going at 1.1 speed, better nothing at all also with its intergrated motherboard sound. SO, in having the software on hand really pays off BIG! it is not worth spitting at and its 96 MB memory mad it dead slow as a snail! I bought an 80 GB IDE notebook drive, and got a 256 MB card with the original 64 GB card and got half of the combined memory at 160 MB, and when I installed Windows XP Pro, I also paid $100 for, I got its two USB ports going at 1.1 speed, better nothing at all with its intergrated motherboard sound. SO, in having the software on hand really pays off BIG! So is being a pack rat so I can go on using my nine PC regardless if anyone goes belly UP like e Machines. I still have one left out of three I had. Yeah, I do make my reality being my own techie, I have the knowledg to back it up to take any PC apart and put it back together MY WAY with bigger hard disk drives, more memory, a better power supply and lots of additional hardware, as I wont get stuck with a lame duck or a dead duck PC like the Gateway Solo Laptop. Of course it is obsolete, IF it works USE IT, IF it bombs out like the T2862 e Machine I had, I gut the innards and leave it with the motherboard, I take out what I put into it and it is inside a newer PC. As they come from the factory as empty PC with one CD and ONE HDD and the minimum amount of memory and expect you to surf thwe whole wide world is absolutely crazy! THAT is the BIG WHY I bough two refurbished PCs, so I can build upon them, ONE is done and the other is in progress! The one is done, I bought it with 4 GB of memory at $119.92  and it is worth $800 and that does not include the extra cost of the software I also put into it about another $500. make it a super fast fully loaded PC! That is one of nine that I have all UP and ready to go as one giant PC. 

P. S. I really do not like go on the internet, because someone likes to interfere like being hacked, like in my case three times because of old software from a used PC from the past users, I just assume to reboot Windows and start anew with a better hard disk drive. The other one gets reformatted and reused as an external drive! SO what? The moral: having your own stash of softeware installers is the best backup, you will never know when 'Murphy's Law' creeps up on you! BE dammed the hackers, full speed ahead!

Edmond The Hardware and Software engineer

You know its true!

Hi Andre0111,

I do not care if Windows XP is acient history created 40,000 years ago, or thirteen, whatever, IT works for me. Yeah, I have Windows 7, SO WHAT? I still lose a lot of my customizations by using it. However, It runs with three of my PCs Faster, Also SO WHAT? THAT IS no subitute for what is NOT in it and what Windows XP can do for me.  True, both versions do have their merits and demerits, but I am more familiar with Windows XP because I made a extensive study of it, and I can get around most of the flaws. And it takes Windows 7 to get around the partitioning flaws in Windows XP. I ran this up against Staples so called tech expert and he muffed it! HE did not know Windows Vista and 7 can repartition drive letter C or any partition, as to shrink or expand that partition LIVE inside its own Disk managment without losing one bit of data! I have paid $75 all for naught and did it myself later when I got my new notebook home that day. I wanted to shrink the C Partition by 26 GB as so I can have a much larger recovery partition and keep within three partitions on a 250 GB drive with Windows 7. What I got was four partitions and I scream like '7734', (a boggle, type this in any 4 function calculator and turn it upside down then you know what I mean). Later, I kicked out the data of the recovery partition after I copied it elsewhere, so I can use the rest of the drive for MY USE. YOU cannot do this with Windows XP unless you delete all of the partitions and start over dead blank, and re install Windows over again. At this point, you better have a BOOT CD and copied your data elsewhere. That to me is minor setback just as getting a NEW PC and putting your stuff on it. After  that the 250 GB notebook drive, was too slow as it was spinning at 5400 RPM, and the CPU was pegging the usage meter at 100%, so I cloned the drive minus the recovery partition entirely onto a 7200 RPM 500 GB notebook drive (2½-inch form factor), and that made the notebook respond faster without pegging the Frequency meter all the time and then I have half of the drive as drive letter D, And drive letter C has a 60 GB Page file so I can do my copy work between all the drive letters from A to Y, and Z is the DVD optical R/W drive. But that is just the beginning. And with my Dell Notebook, I did the same by replacing a 5400 RPM 120 GB drive with a 500 GB 7200 notebok drive and made it four partitions, also to increase its page file with Windows XP. and it proformance is a lot better than Windows 7 in the other notebook because it has a dual core at 1.6 GHz versus one core at 2 GHZ. Besides, Dell cost three times as much as it was special ordered by me from the fractory. I paid almost a grand for it, ($1,000.00), and now its performance is like WOW!!! It was ordered with 2 GB DDR2 RAM and now has twice that at 4 GB, as that makes the difference with any PC. The funny thing about all this is that it took me in using Windows 7 to understand Windows Vista, and I got it working flawlessly like 7 and briefly I had to fo back to Windows XP on one of my PCs because I was hacked and I reinstalled Windows XP PRO in that PC, It too cost me a grand to buy, and now is worth four grand because it is NOT an empty PC as to whence I got it, and IT can run on either Windows Vista as I got it, or Windows XP Pro, and now I have its Boot CD and application DVD and a few more drivers for the video, IT is considered as my master PC. One draw back, I had to buy a sound card to hear the audio while using Windows XP as the Boot DVD is in Vista only  has the drivers for the motherboard sound. The rest of the expense is the hardware I put in the case and a lot of software. IF I want a 32-bit version of 7. I have it as Vista. They work the same for me except the size of my defined icons.  MY version of Windows XP PRO, whatever it is unique, and legal! It is a combination of Windows 98, XP, Vista and 7.  all rolled up as one... I do not want to lose it as why I have six out of nine PC having it. Even I have my own version of 7 by combining it all too, but I rather use Windows XP than 7, unless I am doing special procedures that Windows 7 only can do! That is why I am against Windows 8, it is a quarter of what I want Windows to do, and it is really a downgrade to me regardless what everyone else thinks. Besides, some idiot threw out a perfectly good DVD of Windows 7 64-bit, IF and when I need it with its CD key... worth $200 and a battery for the laptop I have.  THAT is luck in my favor.

WARNING!!! Both Windows 7 and 8 has a fatal flaw!!! It not only crashes the PC it smokes it or fries its disk controller!!! It goes self destruct like in Star Trek! It burned up three of my ACER notebooks because of it. I know the sequence! THAT IS why I will go with Windows XP or Vista! The sequence is Valid for them as to shut the PC down or restart Windows... The reason why is that Windows 7 is faster than the hardware can respond to it and the backward EMF kills it dead just like pulling the plug instantly, as you never do  to a running PC!!!

ON the PLUS side, I got this from HP tech support and it works for XP, Vista or 7:

If your Windows explorer crashes or freezes up or you lose your customizations, as your desktop goes blank, YOU do not have to press the OFF button or restart the PC! DO NOT PANIC!!!

YOU call the TASK Manager by: [CRTL + SHIFT + ESC]!!! UP pops the weasel, and RUN the EXPLORER from the FILE part of the menu from NEW TASK. Theexplorer stopped working by some odd means. IF sometimes the explorer does not start correctly YOU have to END TASK and restart it again from the Image list from the Process tab. I recommend tapping the header bar as to sort alphabetically to spot it and then end the PROCESS TREE! as that only will close all of the windows that were open and the desktop will then be blank then you call the task magager to restart the explorer again. By using [CRTL+ALT+DELETE] does NOT call the task manager, it goes into a dialog box asking you to SLEEP, RESTART, or Shutdown, if nothing is open! It wont work in Windows 7.

From Edmond The hardware and software engineer (MASTER).