I have warm memories of Windows XP, upgrading to it from ME at about 11/12 years old, where I truly began my independent journey into SWE. I used to switch to the silver theme every now and then to keep things fresh. Windows XP + an internet connection, what more could a 12 year old geek want? Thanks for helping provide that!
Windows XP was actually the trigger for me to move to Linux full time. There was an option to let windows verify you owned the media files on your computer via a third party service when you set up Windows media player. Since this was slightly after all the hoopla about Napster and copyright law, it struck me then that perhaps Microsoft wasn't one of the good guys.
I was slightly older than you though, so perhaps that gave me a different perspective.
Windows Media team made a lot of bone-headed decisions. This was at a time when WinAmp was taking off. WinowsMedia could have leaned into MP3 culture while giving a very basic nod to DRM, instead they created a bunch of confusion. At the time Microsoft was considered the "evil empire" so being considered not one of the good guys would have made the marketing team proud at the time.
I never got on with Linux for a workstation, though I've tried. I used to use Windows XP for my workstation, and I had Gentoo running on an older computer for my home server. This was around 2001/2002, as I remember being on IRC during everything that followed 9/11, and it was during that time that I was learning to compile Linux. Strange time, lots of mixed memories, but also, such a sense of wonder — the internet, Linux, programming, Windows XP.
I am with you on that. Almost same timeline. Plus the amazing art work, icon packs, editing shell32.dll (or whatever it was called, sorry I dont remember accurately) to make it look like Aurora (or longhorn). Those were the days for a geek.
I held out on Windows 98SE for awhile because of games, and then went to Windows 2000 for the classic UI when I learned you could often get XP drivers to load in 2000 with a bit of INI fiddling.
It wasn’t until nearly 2003 that I finally moved over to XP.
I built and installed and repaired a lot of XP machines (tens of thousands, probably), but ran win2k myself until Windows XP x64 Edition came out, and then promptly installed that. Other than in a VM, i've never actually ran windows XP 32 bit myself. win3.11 "wfw" -> 98SE -> 2k -> xp x64 -> 7 'ultimate' -> 10 pro for workstations. In the gaps i used MacOS (7,8,9) and then redhat, then gentoo.
I also ran NT4 as a fileserver because it had the best SCSI controller support. had almost a year of uptime on that before a blackout took it offline.
Similar story, except instead of 98 for me I held on to Win2k (and the laptop running it, the first laptop I ever bought with my own money) as long as I possibly could. Absolutely loved that release.
Yep, the last Windows version I used was Win2K. It was my fave version of Windows by far. After that I switched to Linux on the desktop, warts and all.
I think when it comes to big companies of any sort, not just big tech, a lot of unloved initiatives are also not well-liked from within, but even fairly critical people tolerate it as long as they’re not in close proximity to it. I can only imagine others here can relate to the pressures of trying to balance pressure to prioritize short to mid-term business success vs investing in long-term gains and user trust. Maybe Google is a bit of a weirder case, but I was there when Dragonfly was uncovered and though some people quit, most people just complained. (To be sure, I definitely understand that some company culture would be more aggressive against internal dialogue like this. I’m somewhat neutral on it as it definitely had its ups and downs.)
I used to work in a field that clashed with my personal ethics. Took me a decade to figure out it. More than enough time to be culpable. Life is interesting.
Keep in mind that at the time Microsoft was being sued for being anti-competitive behaviour by Netscape and there were a lot of attention on the company for being a bad actor. Most of Microsofts's patents were defensive (they rarely used them offensively to my knowledge). There was a group of execs that were nervous about Linux but the lack of UI/UX/Usability strength put most of the focus on server capabilities. To this day many people want Linux to be a broader desktop OS but the only strong and focused effort on this are ironically ChromeOS and Android.
Interesting, from the outside it definitely appeared like there was a lot of effort into destabilizing footholds Linux and FOSS were making. There was the whole 'true cost of ownership' advertisement FUD, attempts to paint the desktop experience as poor (as you just did) when it was and continues to be a superior experience ever since KDE 3.5 (imo, of course), the sabre rattling about patents at the start of android, numerous institutions switching to and then back from FOSS equivalents of office repeating Microsoft PR verbatim as if it was facts... From the outside, it looked like a big deal.
Very interesting to hear it from the other side though, thanks.
My comments were objective, rather than subjective. Microsoft had a competitive OS lab and regularly tested off-the-street users on common tasks using Linux, OSX, Sun, BeOS, and others. In the XP days Mac would win on brand metrics and Microsoft would win on Usability. Linux won on power features but this was a detractor for more novice users.
Windows XP was my first operating system when my family got their first computer. At the time our school computers were running Windows 98. I felt so special having the new "XP" system at home haha. The login sound still brings back memories. Thank you for your contributions!
