A Celebration Of Windows XP: 2001-2014

I thought you guys might appreciate this, it's not fantastic, but the first one made me smirk

Poke Staff / Apr 6, 2019 / Exclusive

Remembering the glory days of Windows XP: 2001-2014

Microsoft ended support for Windows XP yesterday, so instead of mourning the death of the operating system, let’s celebrate its glory… 1. The always helpful messages. 2. The eerily accurate predictions of the future. 3. The warm welcome. 4. The selfless devotion to your protection. 5. Giving you...

ratchet_freak

most of these is the fault of the program not responding to repaints and the user drawing another window about...

@ratchet freak said:

most of these is the fault of the program not responding to repaints and the user drawing another window about...

and the last one is not even from windows xp.

blakeyrat

Solitaire is supposed to look like that, it's an animation it does when you win.

And yes, the last one is obviously from Windows Vista, which inexplicably has Aero (which would have prevented that bug) turned off.

Lorne Kates

@blakeyrat said:

Solitaire is *supposed* to look like that, it's an animation it does when you win.

Did you know there's also a bug in Minesweeper where if you win the game TOTALLY GLITCHES OUT and draws sungalsses on the happyface icon? Sunglasses? Fucking sunglasses! Seriously, fuck Micro$oft!

Snooder

@Lorne Kates said:

Seriously, fuck Micro$oft!

Honestly, at this point I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't just buckled to pressure and renamed themselves with the $ included. I mean, the symbology implies that they're rolling in dough, which is a good thing for any publicly traded company, no?

morbiuswilters

@Snooder said:

@Lorne Kates said:
Seriously, fuck Micro$oft!

Honestly, at this point I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't just buckled to pressure and renamed themselves with the $ included. I mean, the symbology implies that they're rolling in dough, which is a good thing for any publicly traded company, no?

Not really. In fact, M$'s excess cash reserves have hurt its standing in the eyes of investors. Investors are bubble-blowing morons who run after money-losing shit like Snapchat and Twitter. Then it all implodes and people are like "Oh, yeah, maybe negative earnings on a company formerly valued at $30 billion is a bad thing?"

Buttembly_Coder

@Snooder said:

@Lorne Kates said:
Seriously, fuck Micro$oft!

Honestly, at this point I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't just buckled to pressure and renamed themselves with the $ included. I mean, the symbology implies that they're rolling in dough, which is a good thing for any publicly traded company, no?

For bonus points, they can change their stock symbol to include special characters or non-Ascii, just to see what breaks.

@blakeyrat said:

And yes, the last one is obviously from Windows Vista, which inexplicably has Aero (which would have prevented that bug) turned off.

Because they read something on the Internet, written by someone who doesn't know what the fuck they are talking about, and think they are now a clever computer geek who is boosting their performance.[quote user="Raymond Chen"]

Enthusiasts who think they are so awesomely clever love disabling anything that makes the computer look pretty, because they're convinced that making the computer look pretty is clearly done at the expense of performance.

Starting in Windows Vista, a lot of visual effects were offloaded to the graphics card. Consequently, the impact on system performance for those visual effects is negligible, and sometimes turning off the effect actually makes your system run slower because you disabled hardware acceleration, forcing operations to be performed in software.[/quote]

boomzilla

@El_Heffe said:

@blakeyrat said:
And yes, the last one is obviously from Windows Vista, which inexplicably has Aero (which would have prevented that bug) turned off.
Because they read something on the Internet, written by someone who doesn't know what the fuck they are talking about, and think they are now a clever computer geek who is boosting their performance.[quote user="Raymond Chen"]
Enthusiasts who think they are so awesomely clever
love disabling anything that makes the computer look pretty,
because they're convinced that making the computer look
pretty is clearly done at the expense of performance.
Starting in Windows Vista,
a lot of visual effects were offloaded to the graphics card.
Consequently, the impact on system performance
for those visual effects is negligible,
and sometimes turning off the effect actually makes your system
run slower
because you

disabled hardware acceleration,
forcing operations to be performed in software.

[/quote]

Yeah, but is the performance lost worth it to avoid the shittiness of Aero?

Snooder

@El_Heffe said:

@blakeyrat said:
And yes, the last one is obviously from Windows Vista, which inexplicably has Aero (which would have prevented that bug) turned off.
Because they read something on the Internet, written by someone who doesn't know what the fuck they are talking about, and think they are now a clever computer geek who is boosting their performance.[quote user="Raymond Chen"]
Enthusiasts who think they are so awesomely clever love disabling anything that makes the computer look pretty, because they're convinced that making the computer look pretty is clearly done at the expense of performance.
Starting in Windows Vista, a lot of visual effects were offloaded to the graphics card. Consequently, the impact on system performance for those visual effects is negligible, and sometimes turning off the effect actually makes your system run slower because you disabled hardware acceleration, forcing operations to be performed in software.

[/quote]

Wow such bullshit. I turned off Aero in Windows Vista because it broke my computer. I didn't need anyone on the internet to tell me to turn it off when I would get errors repeatedly after trying to switch tabs or run games in windowed mode. Which didn't happen with aero turned off, oddly enough.

morbiuswilters

@Snooder said:

I turned off Aero in Windows Vista because it broke my computer. I didn't need anyone on the internet to tell me to turn it off when I would get errors repeatedly after trying to switch tabs or run games in windowed mode. Which didn't happen with aero turned off, oddly enough.

We've been through this before: the LeapFrog is an impressive device, no doubt, but it is not a full-featured computer capable of running Windows.

Snooder

@morbiuswilters said:

Not really. In fact, M$'s excess cash reserves have hurt its standing in the eyes of investors. Investors are bubble-blowing morons who run after money-losing shit like Snapchat and Twitter. Then it all implodes and people are like "Oh, yeah, maybe negative earnings on a company formerly valued at $30 billion is a bad thing?"

Well, to a certain degree. Having excess cash reserves means that the company isn't utilizing its assets as aggressively as it could. Which means lower profits and a conservative board that may not respond well to changes in the marketplace. It's like the parable of the talents. Who is more financially savvy, the guy who stuffs all his money under a mattress and doesn't grow it, or the guy who invests it wisely?

morbiuswilters

@Snooder said:

@morbiuswilters said:
Not really. In fact, M$'s excess cash reserves have hurt its standing in the eyes of investors. Investors are bubble-blowing morons who run after money-losing shit like Snapchat and Twitter. Then it all implodes and people are like "Oh, yeah, maybe negative earnings on a company formerly valued at $30 billion is a bad thing?"
Well, to a certain degree. Having excess cash reserves means that the company isn't utilizing its assets as aggressively as it could. Which means lower profits and a conservative board that may not respond well to changes in the marketplace. It's like the parable of the talents. Who is more financially savvy, the guy who stuffs all his money under a mattress and doesn't grow it, or the guy who invests it wisely?

C) The guy who invests stupidly but hypes fanatically and sells to the Greater Fools at Facebook for $19 billion.

Anyway, yes, M$'s cash reserves are not a selling point. In fact I remember people mocking them for paying a dividend. Now you'd think that a dividend would be a good thing, but when your entire fragile economy is built on idiots into tricking other idiots into buying shit at wildly inflated prices dividends have a way of dampening the mood, like a Taco Bell buffet before an orgy.

Snooder

@morbiuswilters said:

C) The guy who invests stupidly but hypes fanatically and sells to the Greater Fools at Facebook for $19 billion.

Anyway, yes, M$'s cash reserves are not a selling point. In fact I remember people mocking them for paying a dividend. Now you'd think that a dividend would be a good thing, but when your entire fragile economy is built on idiots into tricking other idiots into buying shit at wildly inflated prices dividends have a way of dampening the mood, like a Taco Bell buffet before an orgy.

Man, I really need to make friends with some struggling actors. If I could only find the right patsy with just right amount of charm and stupidity, god the money I could make. I mean, look at the killing some lucky bastards made on the marijuana funds. Or fucking bitcoin. BITCOIN. If there was ever a fucking boondoggle full of sheep waiting to fleeced, that was it.

@Snooder said:

I turned off Aero in Windows Vista because it broke my computer. I didn't need anyone on the internet to tell me to turn it off when I would get errors repeatedly after trying to switch tabs or run games in windowed mode. Which didn't happen with aero turned off, oddly enough.

So you have a shitty computer. Not Microsoft's fault.

dhromed

@DoctaJonez said:

http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2014/04/09/a-celebration-of-windows-xp-2001-2014/

:|

@dhromed said:

@DoctaJonez said:
http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2014/04/09/a-celebration-of-windows-xp-2001-2014/

:|

Hey, I did say that it wasn't that good. I will endeavour to do better next time.

dhromed

@DoctaJonez said:

I will endeavour to do better next time.

I look forward to it!

DaveK1

@Buttembly Coder said:

@Snooder said:
@Lorne Kates said:
Seriously, fuck Micro$oft!

Honestly, at this point I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't just buckled to pressure and renamed themselves with the $ included. I mean, the symbology implies that they're rolling in dough, which is a good thing for any publicly traded company, no?

For bonus points, they can change their stock symbol to include special characters or non-Ascii, just to see what breaks.

Back in 2008 I instructed my broker (Lehman Brothers) to buy 500 shares in MSFT';DROP%20DATABASE--.

bstorer

@DaveK said:

@Buttembly Coder said:
@Snooder said:
@Lorne Kates said:
Seriously, fuck Micro$oft!

Honestly, at this point I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't just buckled to pressure and renamed themselves with the $ included. I mean, the symbology implies that they're rolling in dough, which is a good thing for any publicly traded company, no?

For bonus points, they can change their stock symbol to include special characters or non-Ascii, just to see what breaks.
Back in 2008 I instructed my broker (Lehman Brothers) to buy 500 shares in MSFT';DROP%20DATABASE--.

That's okay. I had already placed a recurring order for 100 shares of &delete=true&user=admin from Bear Stearns.

dhromed

I registered a bank account under the name Robert Tableaux.

Ben L.

@dhromed said:

I registered a bank account under the name Robert Tableaux Jr.

FTFY

RaceProUK

@Snooder said:

I turned off Aero in Windows Vista because it broke my computer.

Blaming Microsoft for your fucked up video driver is like blaming Bill Cosby for the X Factor.

Zemm

@boomzilla said:

Yeah, but is the performance lost worth it to avoid the shittiness of Aero?

I like Aero on Windows 7 (never really used Vista). I think Windows 8.x is ugly without it! (Ignoring the entire Metro side)

boomzilla

@Zemm said:

@boomzilla said:
Yeah, but is the performance lost worth it to avoid the shittiness of Aero?

I like Aero on Windows 7 (never really used Vista). I think Windows 8.x is ugly without it! (Ignoring the entire Metro side)

I find that the translucency is distracting and makes it more difficult to focus on the stuff I actually want to focus on. I like the KDE/Compiz translucency that's only active when moving or resizing windows. I've only spent a few hours inside of Win8, and I've yet to find anything I liked better about it than 7 (where I have to manually turn off Aero, so I guess not needing to do that is an improvement for me).

HardwareGeek

@boomzilla said:

I find that the translucency is distracting and makes it more difficult to focus on the stuff I actually want to focus on.

This. A million times this. I have a hard enough time keeping track of which window is active without them blending into the background and each other.

Snooder

@El_Heffe said:

@Snooder said:
I turned off Aero in Windows Vista because it broke my computer. I didn't need anyone on the internet to tell me to turn it off when I would get errors repeatedly after trying to switch tabs or run games in windowed mode. Which didn't happen with aero turned off, oddly enough.
So you have a shitty computer. Not Microsoft's fault.

It was a moderately new laptop. Primarily used for typing documents and browsing the internet. Yes, it IS Microsoft's fault if they bloat their OS with unnecessary features that break on commonly used equipment.

RaceProUK

@Snooder said:

Yes, it IS Microsoft's fault if they bloat their OS with unnecessary features that break on commonly used equipment.

Microsoft wrote your PC's video driver? And there I thought it would have been written by NVIDIA, ATI/AMD or Intel.

You'd be more correct to blame George Bush for cherries being red.

blakeyrat

@Snooder said:

It was a moderately new laptop.

And therefore it couldn't possibly have had a software problem? Is that the logic here?

@Snooder said:

Yes, it IS Microsoft's fault if they bloat their OS with unnecessary features that break on commonly used equipment.

Aero is ANTI-bloat. It offloads work to the GPU (which spends 90% of the time completely unused) to improve the CPU power dedicated to your actual work.

Snooder

@blakeyrat said:

@Snooder said:
It was a moderately new laptop.

And therefore it couldn't possibly have had a software problem? Is that the logic here?

@Snooder said:
Yes, it IS Microsoft's fault if they bloat their OS with unnecessary features that break on commonly used equipment.

Aero is ANTI-bloat. It offloads work to the GPU (which spends 90% of the time completely unused) to improve the CPU power dedicated to your actual work.

So the "anti-bloat" system that is supposed to make the computer run better actually makes things worse. And this isn't Microsoft's fault?

morbiuswilters

@RaceProUK said:

You'd be more correct to blame George Bush for cherries being red.

That son of a bitch did 9/11 just to rake in record profits for Big Prunus.

blakeyrat

@Snooder said:

So the "anti-bloat" system that is supposed to make the computer run better actually makes things worse. And this isn't Microsoft's fault?

If you have a broken laptop, it's not Microsoft's fault that your laptop is broken. Microsoft's software can't magically fix broken hardware.

You were *lucky* if XP just didn't happen to exercise the broken feature, and thus tricked into thinking your laptop was not broken but-- alas-- it still was broken and that still is not Microsoft's fault.

dkf

@boomzilla said:

I find that the translucency is distracting and makes it more difficult to focus on the stuff I actually want to focus on.

It's quite hard to use well; it needs to be subtle so that users don't really notice it. I reckon that anything in the foreground probably shouldn't be transparent at all, or at least no more than 15% transparent. Blurring the things underneath can also help, as if your windows are on tracing paper.

Flashy effects suck because they distract.

Snooder

@blakeyrat said:

@Snooder said:
So the "anti-bloat" system that is supposed to make the computer run better actually makes things worse. And this isn't Microsoft's fault?

If you have a broken laptop, it's not Microsoft's fault that your laptop is broken. Microsoft's software can't magically fix broken hardware.

You were *lucky* if XP just didn't happen to exercise the broken feature, and thus tricked into thinking your laptop was not broken but-- alas-- it still was broken and that still is not Microsoft's fault.

Except, my laptop wasn't broken. It worked fine for most things. Sure it wasn't a graphical powerhouse, and would fail to render video for certain games. But it's a LAPTOP, it's expected that it's not beefy enough to run graphically intensive applications. The problem is when "basic OS applications" started to fall under that category. And that's a failure on Microsoft's part.

RaceProUK

@Snooder said:

It worked fine for most things. Sure it wasn't a graphical powerhouse, and would fail to render video for certain games

It's either the video card or its driver. And Microsoft makes presicely 0.0000000000000000% of those.

By your logic, if one of my car's Hankooks fails, I should blame Ford, even though it was Hankook who made the tyre, not Ford.

blakeyrat

@Snooder said:

Except, my laptop wasn't broken.

Yes. Yes it was.

This is like the opposite of the Linux thing, where Linux users put it on a laptop then go around crowing about how "everything works", then you ask, "what about sleep mode?" "Oh that doesn't work." "What about the volume key on the keyboard?" "Oh that sometimes fails." "What about external monitors?" "Kind of works!"

Except you have a computer which demonstrably had a hardware problem and are in complete denial of it. It's kind of infuriating really.

error

@RaceProUK said:

@Snooder said:
It worked fine for most things. Sure it wasn't a graphical powerhouse, and would fail to render video for certain games

It's either the video card or its driver. And Microsoft makes presicely ~~0.0000000000000000%~~-1.068281969439142e-19% of those.

By your logic, if one of my car's Hankooks fails, I should blame Ford, even though it was Hankook who made the tyre, not Ford.

MSCTFY

error

@El_Heffe said:

@blakeyrat said:
And yes, the last one is obviously from Windows Vista, which inexplicably has Aero (which would have prevented that bug) turned off.
Because they read something on the Internet, written by someone who doesn't know what the fuck they are talking about, and think they are now a clever computer geek who is boosting their performance.[quote user="Raymond Chen"]
Enthusiasts who think they are so awesomely clever
love disabling anything that makes the computer look pretty,
because they're convinced that making the computer look
pretty is clearly done at the expense of performance.
Starting in Windows Vista,
a lot of visual effects were offloaded to the graphics card.
Consequently, the impact on system performance
for those visual effects is negligible,
and sometimes turning off the effect actually makes your system
run slower
because you

disabled hardware acceleration,
forcing operations to be performed in software.

[/quote]
I wonder where they could've gotten that idea.

Snooder

@blakeyrat said:

@Snooder said:
Except, my laptop wasn't broken.

Yes. Yes it was.

This is like the opposite of the Linux thing, where Linux users put it on a laptop then go around crowing about how "everything works", then you ask, "what about sleep mode?" "Oh that doesn't work." "What about the volume key on the keyboard?" "Oh that sometimes fails." "What about external monitors?" "Kind of works!"
Except you have a computer which demonstrably had a hardware problem and are in complete denial of it. It's kind of infuriating really.

Again, the laptop was working fine. It didn't have a hardware problem. It was simply a cheap laptop with shitty integrated graphics that couldn't handle a heavy graphics load. Which is fine. It wasn't supposed to be a graphics powerhouse, and I was fine with it not working for things it was intended to do. What I wasn't so happy with it, is having Microsoft include "open a new window" and "tab between windows" as things that stress the graphics rendering power of the laptop. That's not on the hardware or the video drivers, that's on Microsoft for fucking up basic functionality by adding cruft.

RaceProUK

@Snooder said:

shitty integrated graphics

operagost

@HardwareGeek said:

@boomzilla said:
I find that the translucency is distracting and makes it more difficult to focus on the stuff I actually want to focus on.
This. A million times this. I have a hard enough time keeping track of which window is active without them blending into the background and each other.

I also found defined borders and overlapping windows to be distracting, which is why I've upgraded to Windows 1.x^H^H^H8.

Ben L.

@operagost said:

@HardwareGeek said:
@boomzilla said:
I find that the translucency is distracting and makes it more difficult to focus on the stuff I actually want to focus on.
This. A million times this. I have a hard enough time keeping track of which window is active without them blending into the background and each other.

I also found defined borders and overlapping windows to be distracting, which is why I've upgraded to Windows 1.x^H^H^H8.

I find it funny that everyone who complains about Windows 8 has either not used it or has only used it on a phone.

morbiuswilters

@blakeyrat said:

"What about external monitors?"

I wrote my own daemon to monitor when displays are connected/disconnected and automatically resize the desktop after I got tired with every standard implementation causing the computer to freeze up randomly.

I don't mention this to brag. It's just that sometimes I think you give Linux too much credit.

blakeyrat

@morbiuswilters said:

I don't mention this to brag. It's just that sometimes I think you give Linux too much credit.

I'm pretty out of date. Last time I tried it on a laptop, it 1) required a reboot every time you plugged in a monitor (no 1995-esque plug-and-play), 2) only worked when both monitors were set to the exact same resolution.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's still fucking terrible, but it might be slightly incrementally better than when I last tried it. Maybe.

morbiuswilters

@Ben L. said:

@operagost said:
@HardwareGeek said:
@boomzilla said:
I find that the translucency is distracting and makes it more difficult to focus on the stuff I actually want to focus on.
This. A million times this. I have a hard enough time keeping track of which window is active without them blending into the background and each other.

I also found defined borders and overlapping windows to be distracting, which is why I've upgraded to Windows 1.x^H^H^H8.

I find it funny that everyone who complains about Windows 8 has either not used it or has only used it on a phone.

I've used Win8 quite a bit on the desktop. I think everyone here knows I'm not some pro-FOSS zealot or somebody who is opposed to change (I think Vista was better than XP and Win7 better than Vista.) I'm not one to jump on the bandwagon or one who is beholden to trends (I think OSX is awful and have always thought so.)

That said, I think Win8 is a step back. Taking applications or settings menus which should be in windows and moving them to full-screen applications with 72pt fonts? It's a UI sin. I don't mind that they killed the Start Menu because I hardly used the damn thing any more, anyway. It gets so crammed with applications that trying to search through folders is a pain. But the Start Screen is jarring. It should have been an overlay (like Expose) rather than its own screen. And it opens Metro apps. I'm guess "Metro" is some marketing euphemism for "asinine" like how "urban" means "black".

Trying to unify desktop and mobile UIs was a mistake. I can understand offering Metro apps as an option on the desktop, so if you're doing web development you can see how it will look on ~~a LeapPad~~ Metro IE. But why does Win8 feel like I'm being tasered into using Metro apps by default? Is it supposed to be easier to learn? Jesus, everyone who's used a computer in the last two decades knows how to use Windows. Kids take to Windows like it was HFCS. Who does Metro help? Ninety year old Russians who have never seen a computer before?

morbiuswilters

@blakeyrat said:

@morbiuswilters said:
I don't mention this to brag. It's just that sometimes I think you give Linux too much credit.

I'm pretty out of date. Last time I tried it on a laptop, it 1) required a reboot every time you plugged in a monitor (no 1995-esque plug-and-play), 2) only worked when both monitors were set to the exact same resolution.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's still fucking terrible, but it might be slightly incrementally better than when I last tried it. Maybe.

Yeah, multi-monitor support has always sucked in Linux. Like, even now your desktop has to be rectangular and have enough space for both monitors. My desktop is 4160x1440 because I have a 2560x1440 external monitor and the laptop screen is 1600x900. That means there is a 1600x540 region "underneath" the laptop screen which I cannot see. I can drag windows down there, I can even lose windows down there if I'm careless.

The automatic handling of monitors is the worst, though. I only wrote my own daemon because I got sick of having to power-cycle my laptop when it would decide to freeze up after unplugging or plugging in an external monitor. That's the kind of shit Windows had working back in the 90s. Hell, I have a friend who has a Chromebook and even it will sometimes spaz the fuck out over an external display. It's shameful.

Ben L.

@morbiuswilters said:

I have a friend who has a Dhromebook

≤3

@Ben L. said:

I find it funny that everyone who complains about Windows 8 has either not used it or has only used it on a phone.

Yes, it's true, there is this certain subset of people in the world who complain about things they have never actually used, including Windows 8, supermodels, and goatsex. However, you can find plenty of websites and Youtube videos of people actually using Windows 8 and explaining in great detail what is wrong with it. I used it for a week and if I had encountered anyone employeed by Microsoft during that time I would probably be in prison on murder charges right now.

The latest update (offically called Windows 8.1 Update 1, catchy name, eh?) fixes a lot of the UI fuckups but ultimately results in a computer that's pretty much the same as Windows 7 except with a shittier color scheme and a few other annoyances, so what's the point? I might as well use Windows 7. And so I do.

It also demonstrates that Microsoft's usability testing and research may have been good in the past but now pretty much amounts to:

Where is Grumpy Cat
\

blakeyrat

@morbiuswilters said:

Yeah, multi-monitor support has always sucked in Linux. Like, even now your desktop has to be rectangular and have enough space for both monitors. My desktop is 4160x1440 because I have a 2560x1440 external monitor and the laptop screen is 1600x900. That means there is a 1600x540 region "underneath" the laptop screen which I cannot see. I can drag windows down there, I can even lose windows down there if I'm careless.

Seriously? Jesus.