Monday, 28 March 2016

XP users are dinosaurs – but that’s why I like them

I thoroughly enjoyed your ‘Are XP users PC dinosaurs?’ debate in Issue 470. It reminded me of the good-humoured arguments at my local computer club, often accompanied by a pint or two down the pub. I’ve always sat on the fence a bit because I can see both points of view. I would like to suggest a ‘third way’ of looking at the issue

For me, the key aspect of computing is security. If your PC is hacked beyond repair, then it doesn’t matter what operating system you’re using. That’s why I upgraded one of my PCs from XP to Windows 7 a month before Microsoft ended support. The risk was too great.

But I kept XP installed on another PC, intending never to use it to go online, and to be very careful what I do on it. I’ve stuck to that safety-first policy since. I continue to use it precisely because I enjoy being a PC ‘dinosaur’. I take great pride in running old programs and technology, not because I can’t be bothered to upgrade, but because I am curious about how they work.

And that’s why I sympathise with my fellow XP stegosauruses and brontosauruses. Their love for old operating systems shows that they are The Star Letter writer wins a Computeractive mug! just as interested in computing as people who joined the Windows 10 bandwagon on day one.

I would never recommend that anyone uses XP as their only system. I think that would be acting contrarily, almost like relying on candles when a flick of the switch gives us light. But nobody should be made to feel out of touch, or stupid, for wanting to stick with what they know, as long as they do so safely

What’s wrong with dinosaurs, anyway? OK, they didn’t see that comet coming, but they did rule for 165 million years. Not bad for creatures that were stuck on XP!

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