Millions of People Still Use Windows XP

Windows XP's lifecycle lasted longer than your typical version of Windows - and many people around the world are still using it! But how has it hung on for so long?

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When he mentioned that Windows 10 is seven years old I crumbled into dust and blew away in the wind.

[TheKrstff]

A lot of equipment runs on XP, even if it doesn’t look like it does. When I worked as a factory engineer, much of our equipment ran on XP machines, but you’d never know because the user interface was always full screened.

[Sb]

WinXP and Win7 will always remain the pinnacle

[gltchygremln]

Windows XP is legendary, it's so cheery and really makes you feel that optimism for future technology that most modern tech's interface designs just lack in favor of solid colors and shapes.

[Feku]

honestly if Windows XP and 7 was still updated and safe to use I would propably use it instead of 10

[darkhoogan]

We have a machine at my work that would cost us ~50k to replace. It uses software that only runs on windows xp. Security is kinda irrelevant because the machine is air gapped, so what reason is there to upgrade? We will keep using xp until the machine it is attached to eventually becomes uneconomical to repair, which could easily be another two decades.

[InsaneCoaster]

XP is still incredibly common in computers that control or program industrial equipment. When you have a machine that likely uses software originally designed for XP, has specialist PCI cards using drivers that won't be compatible with newer machines/OSs and never connects to the Internet, then why upgrade? XP runs rock solid, it'll never get a virus or slow down significantly and upgrading would only create problems.

[NeverlandSystemZor]

The best thing about XP was you could beat it into a corner and strip it to a minimum of what you want and make it work FOR you instead of learning to work as IT wanted you to.
It didn't hurt that there were really great solid third-party apps to theme it and customize its look and feel to be wildly unique.

[michaelkeudel]

XP was so easy to configure, and easy home networking file sharing, didn't try hiding things from you. And things were located where'd you'd expect them to be in the control center.

[sanekibeko]

XP, 7, and 98 SE will always be my favorite versions of windows.

[JonathonV]

Another thing people don’t mention is the sounds of Windows XP. Before XP, we were used to grainy, crackly, fake noises when we turned on our computer, but how many of us let out an audible gasp the first time we heard the spine-tingling orchestra playing the sound effects of Windows XP? Still gives me chills. There were other great soundscapes included in XP besides the defaults, too.

[EXMachina.]

I was once making some documents on a Navy Base, and they still use Windows 95 till this day in their offices, and the most used software on that office was Microsoft Word and Excel.

[SinfulGFX]

Windows 7 will always remain my favorite version of Windows. But I remember using all those commands on DoS back in the day and then enjoying the change from that to Win XP. It was a nice visual improvement. Kinda sad that newer versions after Win7 has gone so far down hill.

[joakoc.]

I have a friend that work installing security systems and here in Argentina over 80% of the enterprises that he visit during his job still use Windows XP or older 95-98 running the software for inventory and internal enterprise tasks, and the broken machines are replaced with new ones with old Windows VMs running for the old software, because for those tasks, those old systems continue doing its job perfectly, there is no reason to update.

[Diesel]

I’m an engineer in a dairy factory. We got a brand new million £ carton filling machine last year, recently I had to restart it and windows xp loaded up on the screen :)

[Doggo_Norse]

It's sad to think that future generations will never experience or ever hear of Windows XP and all the nostalgia it brought

[FHC]

XP is my favorite operating system of all time. I actually installed XP on a virtual machine this week to play older games. It was really nostalgic even though i started with windows 3.1 or something like that. To hear the music when i installed it gave me a lot of flashbacks

[cellsheet]

Windows XP "Bliss" hill was still a vineyard back when the photo was taken, but due to a phylloxera infestation the vineyards were pulled out and a photo of a clear hill right after a storm was taken, thus giving birth to the perfect conditions for "Bliss" hill.

[coolbrotherf]

Because XP was supported for 13 years, there was a lot of compatible software for it made in that time. Many 32bit applications still only work on 32bit versions of XP. As it's so light weight, it's perfect for running offline programs for factory equipment, control systems, keypads, etc. Throw something written in 32bit C or C++ and it'll run perfectly fine.