66% of All Windows Users Still Use Windows XP 931
An anonymous reader writes "Almost one year after the introduction of Windows 7 it appears that the hype surrounding it has faded. The overall market share of Windows has turned into a slight decline again. Windows 7 is gaining share, but cannot keep pace with the loss of Windows XP and Vista. Especially Windows XP users seem to be happy with what they have and appear to be rather resistant to Microsoft's pitches that it is time to upgrade to Windows 7."
Yawn (Score:5, Insightful)
This same story is trotted out months after every version of Windows ships. Hardly anyone ever upgrades a PC to the next major version of Windows. Instead, the upgrade happens automatically when people ditch their PC's and buy a new one.
There's no "THE" reason (Score:5, Insightful)
There are many reasons why people stick with XP.
One is that they have a perfectly good machine that's overkill for what they use it for, but that doesn't meet the requirements for Windows 7.
Another is that they have so many programs installed that it's a major task to upgrade. Especially these days when many programs are bought online and uses DRM -- you may not even be allowed to reinstall under a new OS without re-purchasing.
There's probably a few disillusioned Vista users who (IMO rightly) don't believe the street hype and won't rush into installing what could have been released as Vista SP2.
Then there are those who don't feel like paying big bucks for the upgrade when it's not needed to run the programs they use.
Then there's a small amount of users who have figured out that XP is faster for their use, if nothing else because it uses less memory.
And let's not forget the large amount of users who wouldn't dare upgrade an OS at all, but use whatever the manufacturer put on their machine. They'll get a new OS when they buy a new machine, and in this economy, that might not be now.
In any case, this is Slashdot and a car analogy is in order. Just because a new model has come out doesn't mean that everybody with older cars will switch. Expecting that is silly.
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:3, Insightful)
There's one very good reason to buy new hardware: When the old hardware fails.
Biased scores? (Score:1, Insightful)
For example, I have an iPhone. If I browse the web on my iPhone, I'm generating extra hits to sites that my phone identifies itself to my iPhone. I might not visit that site on my desktop, or I might visit that site on my desktop less than I do on my phone. That doesn't necessarily mean from those numbers that Windows is losing market share because I've hit the site 10 extra times in a day from my phone itself rather than my desktop.
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:3, Insightful)
Hard drive, maybe. That can be easily replaced. I haven't seen a full system failure (motherboard, power supply, etc.) in years.
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:5, Insightful)
Not necessarily. I still run XP, because it still works.
I do actually like Windows 7, but until I want to use my computer for something that I can't do on XP, I see no point in making a not-inconsiderable outlay of cash to upgrade just for bells and whistles. And as for the hardware, as you mention - XP runs a hell of a lot faster on older hardware. My computer doesn't count as obsolete by any stretch of the imagination, but I would most likely need to upgrade hardware to get anywhere near the same level of performance if I went to Win7.
So why bother?
But I do substantially agree with you - Looking at the bigger picture, I think Microsoft has a rather serious problem, not of their own making for a change. Even the last gen of PCs as "fast enough" for everything most people want to do. I very much don't mean this as a "640k should be enough for anyone", but do you really need quad core, over 4GB of RAM, and a video card that could render an older Pixar movie in realtime, just to check your email, surf the web, and play the occasional "casual" game? And if not... Why upgrade?
Re:Yawn (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting rid of DOS (Windows 3.1) and DOS-lite (Windows 9x) were much more compelling reasons to upgrade.
As Windows gets less crappy, the distance between a proper OS and what's in common use lessens.
Eventually, you are left with the annoyances that don't really go away and yet aren't severe enough to cause people to flee en masse to alternatives.
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:5, Insightful)
However, with the exception of large disasters (lightning, fire, flood etc), usually a single component fails and not the whole computer. Which means that it's cheaper to replace the failed component instead of the whole computer.
If my PSU failed, I'd rather buy a new PSU than a new PSU, motherboard, CPU and RAM (I could still use my case, videocard, hard drives etc).
Re:It's not like (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right that computer replacement is slow, but XP got about 38% of the installed base in only three years. Vista was released on Jan 2006, more than 4 1/2 years ago, and still Vista + 7 combined don't best XP's installed base.
This might be an indication of a changing user base, and it may be it's because a lot of businesses and households aren't doing as well these days.
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, a lot of people sit on WAY older hardware than Core 2 Duo.
In the room I'm in now (and counting only x86 compatibles) I have one Opteron 175, one P4 3.06HT and one PIII 1.13S. They work, so why should I trash them?
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:3, Insightful)
I've only known of a very few people who upgraded to Win7 because they "wanted" it. They wanted it because it was the new Microsoft toy, and they wanted the latest greatest. The majority of people I know with Win7 use it because it came on their new PC, that they usually bought because the old one died. Some of them have had me downgrade them to WinXP.
You are right, Win7 likes to have 2Gb RAM or more, but it'll run with 1Gb if you aren't doing much in it. I've used it, both in VM's and on physical hardware. BTW, it works very well in VirtualBox, if you get tired of tweaking VMWare to make it work right. :) I had to set it up for a Mac user, who needed to use MSIE for their college assignments.
My biggest reason to have Windows at all, is to run Windows specific apps. That's mostly Windows games, and a few apps like the Blackberry Desktop Manager, which are only a small part of what I do with a PC. Otherwise, I prefer Linux. I have OSX in a VM too, but haven't found much use for it. :)
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:5, Insightful)
And how many of those 65% have geek friends that they call and say "Hi, my computer broke, can you fix it?"?
That's probably a lot, considering how many computers I fix for my friends, and yes, that includes asking them to buy a new motherboard "Go to the store and ask for 'motherboard for Socket A CPU, that's mATX'" or just asking for the money and buying it myself. When the "broken computer" problem occurs, people try to save money, and if the new part costs less than a new PC, they'll buy the part.
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest have kids they can ask the same question.
In any case, "broke" normally means:
The battery in the wireless mouse is flat
A plug fell out the back
Its teh viruses, stupid!(I for one welcome our new porn overlords)
Profit!
If you upgrade them to Win7 they will hit you with a clue bat: Working means "Running WIndows XP".
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:3, Insightful)
It is hard to build a new PC for less than the price of a new complete (albeit crappy) PC preloaded with malware and trialware. Just the cost of a good motherboard and decent i5 or lower end i7 will be about the same as the price of a brand new PC from a big box store.
No raise for you! (Score:5, Insightful)
Could this be based on the economy too?
I Usually buy a new pc after a good bonus or raise. I think I was running XP last time that happened.
Re:Poorly-designed Flash ads that hog one core. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Price (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing is, it's a bad idea to just keep running an old system, even if it still works just fine for you. I see this all the time. People calling looking for help because they can't get on their bank's web site anymore. (java out of date, OS issue, NOT browser) Or they bough software that says it can't install. (not enough memory or OS too old) Or they have a special piece of hardware that broke, bought a replacement, and the newer software it came with won't run on their OS.
I tell people, "You really need to get a new machine. Yes, I know, it still works just fine for you, but eventually you're going to be forced to upgrade, and the longer you wait, the bigger of a problem it's going to be". I'll tell you a few stories of businesses that didn't listen to me, and paid the price:
Story 1:
Local designer. Designs posters, not sure what for, maybe movies, he's apparently pretty good, customers all over the usa. Anyway, he has a fancy machine that looks like a giant printer. It cuts posterboard to exacting size, for use in his big printer. Cuts perfectly straight long lines on the really heavy stock, both side and end. Brought in the computer and cutter, the computer had an OS meltdown due to dying hdd. It was 10 years old. He was lucky I even had experience with an OS that old. But although I could fix the OS, the software that ran the cutter had draconian DRM on it that made it require reinstallation when moved to another hard drive. I was unable to crack the protection, and he was unable to find the original discs. So he had to buy new software. (several thousand dollars) Come to find out, the new software wouldn't run on the old computer, NOR would it run the old cutter. He went from cussing over having just put in a new set of $250 blades, to REALLY cussing for having to buy a new cutter. (10 grand) And a new computer of course, which ended up being the cheapest angle.
Story 2:
Audio recording man. Does high end audio mixing and CD mastering. Had problems with a reinstall of his pro audio software. Come to find out he'd been with them since the start version 1.0, 1995'ish. He tried to reinstall the software, and it was an update and failed to find the older software so it wouldn't install. (and it wasn't the type to ask you to insert the older disc or type in the older license code, it required the previous version to be installed)
It took several days of scrounging around to find ancient machines and MEDIUM DENSITY FLOPPY DRIVES so we could start the installation chain from his version 1.0 floppies on Mac OS 7, and work forward, to vers 2, 2.,5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, and finally to his version 7. This wasn't so much a case of living in the past, but his software sure was.
Story 3:
Local newspaper. 7 machines about 8 years old, including server. Running old versions of adobe, quark, and pagemaker products. Kept telling them this is a bad idea holding off on upgrades so long. Editor was a penny pincher and refused to listen. Put more memory in. Upgrade/replace that hard drive. Who cares if the server has no video, it still works.
One of their desktops dies. Unrepairable, parts not available. So they bought a new machine. Whoops, it comes with a new os, won't run the old pro software. So they buy one set of licenses for it. Whoops, it can import from the old software but not export back to it and they have to be able to share. So they buy more licenses. Whoops, those won't install on the older systems, OS is too old. Looking further, whoops, their hardware is too old to install the reuqired OS.
So, all at once, they had to buy a new server, 8 new desktops, tens of thousands of dollars in software, and spend the next several months in the hell that is doing an import-open on everything they double click, requiring proofing and corrections/adjustments. I'm amazed the editor didn't have a heart attack.
Story 4:
This is one I see retold several times a y
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:3, Insightful)
When the hard drive dies, what's stopping you from just re-installing XP using the license you already have? Seriously?
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, there is a problem that is of Microsoft's making. That is that the Vista/7 interface is really really horrible. And the User Account Control thing that duplicates the Program Files folder for security reasons is incredibly misguided and wrong.
I like XP, but there are many features that could have been added to it without destroying it.
That is only partly Microsoft's fault. Poorly written/designed applications that store user settings and often-overwritten data to Program Files are also to blame. Data stored therein should only be read, not written.
I do agree that Microsoft could have made further enhancements to XP (although I am mostly ignorant of the specifics of what changed "under the hood" of Vista and 7, such as what the new driver model entailed). But updating an existing product does not make a profit... releasing something new and shiny does.
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:5, Insightful)
The flip side of that is, nobody wanted new hardware because it was coming with Vista on it. PC makers must have hated Vista a lot more than us, because I know many people who waited to upgrade old hardware because they didn't want Vista. Unlike Vista, I generally hear good things about Windows 7.
I'm still building new computers with XP or Linux on them (or dual boot). With hardware that Vista ran doggy on, XP runs like a bat out of hell. A 55.00 dollar single-core processor and a couple of gigs of RAM and XP will do what large numbers of people want it to do.
And I hate to say this, but look at the prices of Vista and Windows 7. The computer savy people I know have a copy of Windows XP Pro Corporate that they can install on anything without worrying about WGA or activation. They don't have that option with Windows 7, so XP and Linux still look good. It is very easy to build a very nice, very fast PC in the 300.00 range...until you start adding in the cost of Windows 7.
Realistically, that could make XP stay around a little longer and make Linux start to eat into their market a little more.
And it will be a fine day for Linux when there are no longer any corporate editions of Windows anything available!
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:3, Insightful)
It is hard to build a new PC for less than the price of a new complete (albeit crappy) PC preloaded with malware and trialware. Just the cost of a good motherboard and decent i5 or lower end i7 will be about the same as the price of a brand new PC from a big box store.
Making the staggeringly huge assumption that the big box pc has a "good motherboard" as you say. Sure, it technically "runs windows" but its an integrated memory unaccelerated graphics card, with like 256 MB of memory, a 80 gig 5400 rpm hard disk, all the fans are little 1 inch diameter things running at 40k rpm and sound like a small learjet starting up, one available USB port... I much prefer my own. And running linux, I tend to buy from the list of things that works on linux, not "whatever the big box mfgr could buy at the cheapest price"
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:3, Insightful)
Power supplies are not a full system failure, do tend to crap out, and are also easily replaced.
PCs last longer (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:3, Insightful)
I bought a PC for my parents long time ago. It's a P4 running Windows 98. It has been doing the job for them.
Windows 98!? It's been out of support now for 4 years. I hope they don't do their online banking on it.
Re:It makes sense, though... (Score:3, Insightful)
"It seems to me that what will happen is that the main driver of increasing the market share will be new computers with Windows 7 pre-installs"
It's a shame that more people don't just build their own computers and save money, rather than buying a pre-built with pre-installed garbage (software and such, that is). As for Windows 7, there's simply no groundbreaking reason(s) for people to upgrade.
I agree. 7 does some nice things, but if you have a system that is doing what you want and doing it well, there really isn't any compelling reason to upgrade. There just isn't.
... those days are long gone. The big chains came in and undercut the local shops and put them out of business. That actually presaged much of what happened later to the U.S. economy and local businesses in general. The thing is, what people didn't realize was that while those shops charged a little more, they also provided lots of free support and training. I know, I worked in a few of them back in the day. We even offered formal training classes in the evening for a very reasonable price: easy money, and the class was always full.
Still, you'll never get people to build their own: that's just not a part of their skillset. However, I look back at the early days of personal computing (mid-to-late seventies and onward) where there were small computer shops all over. You could walk in, have somebody slap a system together for you, shoot the breeze with them, ask questions from someone who knew more than just how to plug the damn thing in
Contrast that to your typical Big Box Mart nowadays. Yes, you get something passing for a PC for a few hundred bucks but, unless you happen to know a friendly geek-type who will help you out with it you're on your own. Something was lost when all those little homegrown computer stores disappeared, and it was this: support. You're not going to get anything significant in that regard from a store that's selling machines for a minimum margin, that hires low-wage teenagers, throws them in a uniform and calls them "experienced PC technicians."
Just as an aside, I had a Geek Squad van driven by a couple of those teenagers literally run me off the road because he was in a hurry and trying to pass me in the merge lane. When I honked at them, the driver immediately slammed on his brakes and both he and the passenger stuck their hands out their respective windows and flipped me off. I immediately took down their license plate number and called the "How am I driving" number on the back of the truck. Just the kind of responsible citizens that I would want working on my personal computer.
Re:They can still run XP even after they get a new (Score:3, Insightful)
Assuming you can find a driver for all your hardware for xp, which is becoming more and more unlikely.
Re:It's not like (Score:3, Insightful)
And besides which, now that the driver devs have had the time to mature their drivers, XP is quite stable, compared to what it used to be. Still has problems with being sluggish and really wanting to be regularly reinstalled, but it is adequate for many things, especially now that the computers are significantly more powerful than what it was designed for.
XP is easier to repartition for Linux dual boot (Score:4, Insightful)
I run Linux as my basic operating system but like to keep Windows around for purposes such as tax software that require it. If a machine came with XP pre-installed, I could squash the Windows partition down to about a quarter or less of the hard drive. Starting with Vista, you had to use M$'s partition resizing tool and it would not go to below half the hard drive. I managed to get XP for all my systems.
I don't know what I'll do some time in the future when I might need a new machine. Perhaps FOSS partition resizing will have caught up by then.
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Price (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not really sure why you were modded up. The cases you cited are fringe cases. Do you work for a major PC distributor?
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:4, Insightful)
Or you could beat the big box stores for any hardware by not buying the windows license at all. Especially if you don't use it.
The story is "66% of All Windows Users Still Use Windows XP". This discussion is about average Joe computer breaking, and they need to fix or buy a new computer. The majority of average Joes wants Windows. You're clearly not the target audience.
Re:Price (Score:5, Insightful)
Story 1: Dead HDD due to old hardware. Solution: Backup your data using drive cloning, swap the disk, done.
Story 2: Need a new version? Solution: Contact the company for a new version's license code, perhaps by presenting the fact you've had all the upgrade codes.
Story 3: New OS breaks backwards compatibility. Solution? Reinstall the old OS.
Story 4: And this generalization also generalizes the problem with the tech industry.
The tech industry moves too fast for individual consumers, and in recent years more and more time is spent on adding bells and whistles instead of any real functionality.
Games, for example, are constantly adding better and better graphics and hogging more space, but I often find that they lose the core gameplay concepts which makes games, well, fun.
Software, for example, are trying to become more flashy and bloated, such as Office and iTunes, piling on feature after feature which are sometimes redundant.
People should upgrade because they want the new functionality.
Today, the tech industry forces them to upgrade because not upgrading will cause them compatibility pains in the future.
The reason? Profits from selling a new software version with "great new enhanced features" yearly.
Re:I still use XP (Score:1, Insightful)
My XP Partition was dead, so I thought I would just buy a 7 upgrade, load it, and everything would be happy.
That is your first mistake. Never upgrade a Windows operating system.
Re:I'm not changing in Protest (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact of the matter is that the DX10 hacks for XP fail miserably as soon as multiple processes/threads attempt to use a single DX context at the same time. To enable a DX context to be highly threaded, the display driver specification itself needed to be changed.
So while some early DX10 games work fine on the DX10+XP hack, many newer ones do not because they use multiple threads and expect to not deadlock in the display driver when presented with DX10. Microsoft alone can't solve the problem because it also requires that nVidia/ATi go through extra work (more than they need to do on Vista/7 because its driver hooks implicitly supports threading) within their XP drivers, and its work that actually destroys the benefits of multi-threaded rendering.
The upshot is that even if nVidia/ATI were to play along on this, most DX10 games would still be listed as only supporting Vista/7 for DX10 anyways because XP just wouldn't have the same performance with the same hardware. The only realistic way to make XP properly support DX10 is to change the driver model of XP, which is an insane thing to do for a 10 year old OS that is in extended support phase. Its not a conspiracy. Its just the way it is.
Re:Price (Score:2, Insightful)
1. DRM,Propriatary Software
2. DRM,Propriatary Software
3. Proprietary Format
4. Proprietary Format
Moral of these Stories is don't get locked into your software because it will run fine. Hardware is cheap...software/people often arn't. Old technologies are the same as old ones flash=big floppy, dsl=fast modem. Only an idiot would lock themselves into their hardware. Fortunately it keeps people like the original poster employed, spend your money somewhere else Think about about formats now.
Re:Price (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Price (Score:4, Insightful)
And anybody who knows ANYTHING about money knows that these people did exactly the right thing, except for not having money set aside to cover situations like this.
Let's assume all those computers were 12 years old. Let's assume you'd advocate a 4-year upgrade cycle. They skipped 2 upgrade cycles, and got caught having to do the 3rd one all at once.
Let's assume an upgrade costs $1k - after all, you wanted them to keep their software current as well and that costs money too. For each of those PCs they saved $1k 8 years ago, and $1k 4 years ago.
Let's assume that the business makes a 5% return on capital (if they just put their money in a mutual fund they could make that much - so this is a VERY conservative figure). Plugging that into a TVM calculator tells me that they saved $2692 per PC in TODAY's money deferring those upgrades. Unless they spent more than $2692 per PC as a result of the delay, they saved money.
If your upgrades are more expensive, or if you upgrade more often than 4 years, then the savings is even higher. If the business could have taken advantage of an opportunity by sinking some of that money into capital then they'd make out even better, compared to just having shiny PCs.
Now, the only issue that might apply is that they ended up having a catastrophic failure and suffered downtime, which has a cost of its own. The solution to that isn't to keep upgrading computers under the hope that this will prevent breakdowns (it won't - it just reduces their frequency) - it is to have continuity plans (redundant hardware, backups, etc).
The bottom line is that a PC is capital for a business. It has a return on investment, like any other capital investment. Money spent on that PC is not available to spend on other things. You should spend money on the PC if it has a good ROI, and it is the best investment option available.
If I ran a business I wouldn't be upgrading my PCs all the time either. I'd upgrade them as often as serves a business purpose. If a shiny new PC will make me more productive I'd buy it that afternoon. If it won't, then the money goes into the bank for when I need to replace it. I'd anticipate failures and plan for them.
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:3, Insightful)
There is also little point in upgrading the operating system either. From my point of view, XP does everything I need, which is "be an operating system". It runs nice on my Core 2 Duo with 2GB of RAM (tho I do have a monster Radeon 2900XT supplying the graphics).
I use Firefox for web, Miranda for IM, Winamp for music, MPC for movies, Nero for disc burning, Paint Shop Pro for picture stuff, Audacity for audio stuff. I have a bunch of other little programs I use and sometimes I play video games. I have a Fedora box with a massive RAID array inside to store my files. What else do you need? The idea that an operating system should have more 'features' makes little sense to me, because I don't use any of those features.
Other than looking fancier, 7 doesn't have anything more that I need, so why would I spend the money on it? I think a lot of computer users are thinking the same way.
Re:Price (Score:1, Insightful)
Solution 1: Let's assume it's an ATA drive, the kind that's not sold in stores anymore. What'll you do? No external USB drive since this is an old computer, remember. Plus, it assumes the not-tech-focused designer will regularly backup. Doesn't help when the drive's already dead.
Solution 2: Let's hope the company accepts that. We all know how they can be. That said, it's a valid solution.
Solution 3: And if the old OS doesn't work in the new computer? I can't run XP in my computer 'cause ATI doesn't distribute Mobility Radeon 3870 drivers for XP.
Solution 4: Security. Bug fixes. Support for new features. Less nostalgia-filtered glasses and realize that there's no 64-bit version of that old design software that really could use the extra memory. True, not everyone needs to upgrade, but that doesn't mean nobody needs to.
No good reason to upgrade (Score:2, Insightful)
Obvious financial reasons... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:My Motto (Score:2, Insightful)
>> It's just more refined and polished.
But still not worth the cost or hassle of upgrading when a stable XP machine is quite capable. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Re:old hardware, probably (Score:3, Insightful)
$20 is about what you would pay for some online build-your-own-box vendor to build you a box to your specs.
You would get a much better box out of the deal.
I wouldn't use a Revo for anything but an appliance.
I agree, but just remember that "better" is a relative term. Not everyone buys PCs using the same criteria ... in fact, I'd say that the blind focus on price that most consumers have has been detrimental to the industry as a whole.
Just out of curiosity, what is a "tylenol fanboy"?
Re:No good reason to upgrade (Score:1, Insightful)
Windows 7 does not have the same hardware support as Windows XP it is also slower on the same hardware
Re:Poorly-designed Flash ads that hog one core. (Score:2, Insightful)
Another issue is that a lot of applications and drivers broke with Windows Vista/7. This is much the same problem Microsoft had with Windows 2000. The thing is Windows 7 isn't that much better than Windows XP. Whereas Windows XP was much better than Windows ME.
The Windows 7 user interface is slightly easier to use for doing average desktop work. The improvements are things like the program search bar and the improved taskbar. But it is a resource hog which will not work on older spec hardware. If you want to reconfigure your system the control panel is now a mess to navigate. Windows 7 is also a memory hog. It isn't unusable in a 32-bit system. So until people upgrade to 64-bit systems with 4GB of RAM they will stick to XP.
Many games programmers today want their games to be portable to game console hardware. Game console hardware is lagging PC hardware by some six years or more. This is another reason for not wanting to upgrade. Many desktop applications are being moved to the browser, and the ones which are not being moved to the browser run on older spec hardware.
Re:My Motto (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't have to go to Change adapter settings, it's available right there on the Network and sharing center, and it's not a double click.. it's a single click.
Single click network icon, single click open network and sharing center, single click Local Area Connection. Single click properties, double click tcp/ip. enter ip settings.
The XP network icon only appears on the taskbar if you set it to do so, not by default. Even if you do, you are talking the same or more clicks.
And, by the way... all the scripts for administration you developed in XP will work in 7 without change because the WMI api hasn't changed other than to add new stuff.
Re:My Motto (Score:0, Insightful)
Not sure if latest/upcoming KDE or Gnome have something similar, but I'd say every Linux DE developer should check out how it works in Windows 7.
It's way old news in the Mac/Linux world. As usual.
Re:Rounding Error? (Score:3, Insightful)
Vocabulary != grammar
So, no, you're not a grammar nazi. You're a vocabulary nazi but maybe just not a very good one.
Re:My Motto (Score:3, Insightful)
You know what, it's a tough job market out there, enjoy 1999's technology to it's fullest.
Yeah--when the economy picks up and companies start wanting to drive dumptrucks full of cash to Microsoft HQ again, let me know--I'll be there to recommend against it, be ignored, and spend years billing them to update the infrastructure and write apps to fix all the new problems introduced or priced into existence.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)