I agree with you mike.
win7 I can mostly live with since I have to handle that daily but 8
scares the living daylights out of me.
So much visual stuff and stuff I am not used to.
I have heard all the info and I am still scared to death.
I have used classic systems for ages, even7 is still simular enoough
that I am not to scared but 8 and its apps, start screen and other
stuff really does scare me a lot.
I know that XP is near its end.
I also know that there are newer operating systems (just the ones
from Microsoft).
I know that security is a factor which might bring people to upgrade
at some point.
True, if XP is now longer supported, hackers and other people can
possibly find holes in the security systems.
And true, not every antivirus program can protect you from such attacks.
However, the viruses are not the only danger when it comes to using
the internet. Criminals who manipulate websites to not directly
target your computer but to record or capture the communication the
moment it leaves your computer are more dangerous.
If you are on a manipulated website and whatever interactions you
have with that site (be it loggin in, doing money transfers or
whatever) might be captured without the need of actually cracking
some form of encryption.
I think that there is a term for such indirect attacks: "man in the
browser" or something like that.
And I also think that it has not to be limited to the web browser itself.
But that is the extend of that.
Fact is that such types of attacks might be a bigger problems.
Such is not a form of direct attack where the fact that you have an
outdated system might mean nothing.
If the transfered data is redirected away from the route it is
supposed to take, you can't see it right now.
And if such a form of attack happens, it is totally of no
consequence whether you used XP or Windows 8.1.
And I am sure that this is not the point some people tried to originally make.
I am all for better security systems for my computer, but I need to
get a manual which explains to me the (probably not knowledgeable)
user what I should do and what I shouldn't do.
Since XP users had their let's call it "Classic" design and
programs, they might be confused or might be afraid of things like
Modern UI in Windows 8 and higher.
I won't say that everyone won't be able to adapt in time if they
want to, but who will tell them the inns and outs of Windows 8
compared to XP (if your last operating system was XP).
These are of course only examples.
And let's not forget that Microsoft loves to drop a lot of programs
out of their systems without replacements or with suboptimal replacements.
This is just for as an argument, but I will adress them shortly.
XP has Outlook Express.
I have no idea if it is a bad program (security related) or if it is
horribly outdated for an E-Mail program.
It however does its job.
Vista had Windows Mail which according to my mother (she is sighted)
is like a newer version of Outlook Express with some new features
and some altered ones.
Then there is Windows 7 which still has a Windows Mail program with
its own folder, but it is totally disabled and effectively unusable.
Then back in the day (near the initial release of Windows 7( it was
strongly suggested that users who had first switched from Outlook
Express to Windows Mail should switch again to Windows Live Mail,
which is free, but now longer a part of Windows itself.
The same goes for Windows Movie Maker.
Windows Movie maker is a tool for actually editing or recording videos.
But Windows Live Movie Maker is not a "new version" of Windows Movie Maker.
The newer program is part of Windows Live and more for sharing your
videos or for publishing them on video sharing services.
But enough of that.
There is another interesting thing I'd like to mention here,
allthough I did not experience it myself.
I read that the rather old Bavisoft games wouldn't work on Windows 7.
I of course have no idea why or which component(s) might be missing.
I know that several developers mentioned that VB6 or other older
technologies are outdated and that there are replacements for them.
But I as an end user are not in the position to force the developer
(Bavisoft in this example) to make their games compatible with Windows 7.
If Bavisoft were still around, I could ask them nicely if they would
be so kind as to do something.
But if they would refuse I still would have a bought product which I
could not use.
True, it would be the developer's fault, but is this reason enough
to purposefully drop older runtime components from Windows just
because the developer product is outdated?
I mean, look at Jim Kitchen's games.
They use the VB6 runtime.
On XP most of the runtime files should be present by default.
On Windows 7 they are not "just because the system is newer".
At least it looks this way from the viewpoint of the end user.
Luckily the main installer for the game can install the runtime
files on newer Windows versions.
But would it have been hard for MS to not remove the components in
the first place?
Obviously installing them yourself doesn't destroy your Windows right away.
And why should the users of third party software be punished with
incompatibility if it would have been these software developers who
should have upgraded their development technology in the first place?
And which "standard" end user knows this?
You play your audiogame on XP where it runs fine after you installed it.
Then you get a new computer and install your game on it with
seemingly no problems.
And then you want to run it and get some error stating that
component x is missing or such.
Not every blind user out there has had enough training or the
knowledge to understand what this might mean at least in the beginning.
And then they might find out that the games they once bought are
practically useless because their new operating system won't run them.
Of course it is not always this way, but this might be some reasons
why people might be reluctant to upgrade if they think that their
operating system is stable enough.
And probably because they already know how to use whatever they need
for their daily interactions with it.
A new system forces them to learn new things and some might not want
to for whatever reason.
I am not saying that their stance is right or that it is completely wrong.
This depends on lots of things.
However it is a fact that every new version of Windows drastically
alters the design without any form of control of it except with
third party tools (Classic Shell).
And I will gladly tell you that I personally know enough sighted or
visually impaired people who would happily use Windows 8.1 if they
still had menus instead of ribbons in the Explorer, a Start button
which actually opens the Start Menu and more design options to
actually choose or customice the look of their Windows.
Surely a newer browser with more security holes fixed is not what
people complain about.
But I think that this is enough of this topic.
This was what I personally had to say.
And one more thing:
My mother is sighted and she uses a Windows 7 laptop and it crashed
more often than my current XP computer.
I am not sure whether her laptop is crap, or if it is the fact that
she has a Windows 7 DVD which was shipped with the laptop instead of
a clean one which she could have bought separately.
We had to reinstall everything on that machine yesterday.
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