14 thoughts on ““What could possibly go wrong?””

1. Not sure about elsewhere, but most ATMs in Thailand use XP. Many are Diebold machines

2. The quote above has relevance to me for some reason. Can’t put my finger on it.

3. Would free updates to windows 7 help?

4. Most of those machines still out there running XP would probably buckle if you installed W7 on there.

5. You mean the latter?

6. Heavens, no. Neither my wife nor I are interested in fielding this guy’s inevitable series of telephone calls, complaining about how everything is either in the wrong place or missing. Especially after having ignored our suggestion to not buy a Mac without buying One to One training of any kind.

   We already have jobs.

7. We’re dealing with some of that here (A big US research University) A lot of folks are faced with the choice of continuing to use Windows XP or shell out thousands (sometimes tens of thousands) of dollars for new software for their instrumentation.

   Those Win2K systems in the hospitals he speaks of? Try $100K and up. This isn’t some office drone whinging about how WIndows 7 is different.

   Now, our solution is disconnecting them from the network..we’re still trying to figure out the remaining few systems that a) Won’t run under windows 7 and b) require that the software ‘phone home’ over the internet to function, because sure someone’s going to pirate software for a half-million dollar GC-MS-MS. They just have one laying around in their garage they want to use, just need to pirate the software.

8. Then shhhhhhhh. Windows XP? It’s just fine.
   If he must upgrade, then make sure he doesn’t upgrade to Windows 8!

9. XP won’t be fine if his personal information gets compromised. Again.

   Believe me, I’ve already warned him about W8.

10. It’s not that people don’t care to upgrade – they can’t. Going from XP to Win7 or Win8 isn’t an upgrade at all. It’s a wipe and full reinstall. The potential pain and suffering of having to install the new OS, reinstall all the apps, move over data, set up all the apps again, etc., etc., is too much to ask for almost everyone.

    OTOH, I haven’t done that on my Mac since I installed OS X Beta. Every upgrade since then, including upgrading the computer itself, has been almost completely handled for me. It’s true I had to reinstall apps when I moved to the new computer, but reinstalling apps on OS X is way less painful than on Windows.

11. Ahhhh, I see. So sorry to hear it.
    “What’s this? Okay, I’ll enter my bank information again but I really hope this is the last time!”

12. Oy.

13. Good point.

14. Exactly! Microsoft greed and stupidity has gotten in the way of serving the actual end users. It all comes back to the OEM sales model. It is the same problem that affects Android users except it is much worse there as unlike on Windows where you just have the PC OEM that wants you to purchase a new computer to get each new system version on Android you have the many of the cell phone carriers that want you to sign up for a new contract along with the handset OEMs that want you to purchase a new smartphone.

    You are 100% correct that it is a forklift (nuke and pave) upgrade as there is no way to upgrade in place directly from Windows XP to Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1. On Windows XP to upgrade to Windows 7 you have to 1st upgrade to Windows Vista and then you can upgrade to Windows 7. I can think of NO ONE who would do this as you would require a Windows Vista license to do so along with the install media. Totally user hostile. So while some users Windows XP systems would run just fine on Windows 7 even if they just needed some more RAM (really inexpensive now) most users that need to upgrade will just opt to purchase a new computer and start over.

    Lastly, Yes. On OS X it is WAY easier. You can upgrade directly from 10.6 all the way to 10.9 without any major issues other than some applications not working because they where old. The saying goes, you get what you pay for.