Bill Bogstad wrote:
He probably can't run Windows 8 on his IBM PC AT either even though he could probably run Windows 1.0. At what point should it bother or not bother someone that they can't keep upgrading?
That's a good question. Per IRS regulations, computers have a life of 5 years before their value depreciates to nothing. Microsoft actively supports Windows for ~5-8 years based on the Windows 2000 and Windows XP support cycles. Apple's hardware support for OS X runs along a similar 5-6 year cycle.
Let's take a look at the minimum requirements for some of the games that I play frequently. Guild Wars 2 wants a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo. XCOM: Enemy Unknown has the same minimum requirement. Civ V wants a 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo. The oldest of these supported CPUs were first available mid-2006 and these are on the trailing edge.
Five to six years seems a good time to stop bothering unless you have a specific need to keep a specific box running. This is all on consumer-grade kit. Servers are in a different category as they're frequently under long-term maintenance contracts. You pay through the nose for support but if something breaks then the vendor will fix it including bugs in old operating system versions.
-- Rich P. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
