Some of us have computers that are 10 years old.
We have the best operating system (OS) ever created: Windows XP.
But, Microsoft (MS) says it will cease all support for Win XP on 2014 April 8.

How much will this negatively affect us Win XP users,
other than not being able to update our free Microsoft Essentials (ME)?

OSs have deliberately gotten shittier & shittier over time.
That's because people paid jobs at MS & Apple have no real work to do.
So they make up unnecessary work by deliberately making OSs worse.

Win 7 & Win 8 are absolutely unusable. I've seen them on a friend's computer.
She screams and curses at them, too. The mentally inferior subhuman morons
at MS decided to mimic the horrible worthless style of Apple computers, just to
make things worse for everyone.

I got to try a different friend's Apple computer last year for a week.
Useless. Impossible to actually do any work or get any work done.

When some computer programmer figures out a way for me to access the UMD
without a computer or internet access, then I will be impressed.
Then I will believe technology is actually advancing.

All technology peaked in 2004 and has gone downhill since.

The agency I work for had to buy all new computers. We had to replace all computers that were 2 years or older. Some may even had been only 1 year old. Anyway, the biggest problem was that we would not be able to update our spyware, malware, firewalls, etc. So there is a confidentiality risk and a security risk.

What you said about being able to "find everything done on my computer".
I've actually done a complete System Restore, about 3 times since I bought my computer in 2004. Last one last November 2013.
Resets the harddrives to factory settings.

Are you saying you can even get around that? :ohbruther:

Yes. I know. Win 8 looking & behaving nothing like XP is the problem about which I (and my friends, and many others) am furious.

Just search "Windows 8 is terrible/sucks" etc on youtube and find many people who feel the same way.

Yes, I know about the difficulty of even finding a Win 7 computer.
My friend had to go on e-bay. Amazingly, she won her bid, found a laptop that carries Win 7. But, Win 7 still sucks.

Believe me: I can tell when putting massive effort into learning some piece of technology is a waste of time. I have always had a very instinctual gut feeling that I totally trust (sorry for that nauseating blatant piece of pseudo-scientific rhetoric I just spouted - completely out of character with my pro-science attitude).
But, in this case, I've always been proved right. (Ok - no. I offer no evidence that an "instinctive feeling" means anything. That's an entirely different topic.)

e.g. installed and tried to use TeX typesetting, at least 12 times in 24 years.
Never got past installation. Then deleted.

All that - plus I cannot afford a new computer - will be the #1 reason I may end up giving up the internet in a year. Plus Comcast endlessly lying to me and raising their rates each year. I'm fine with them this year because I screamed at them at the start of January and they offered me a discount for 12 months.

Anyway, not that anyone cares, but, if in the next 9 months, if anyone wonders where Dr Zoidberg has gone, these 3 reasons:
1. can't afford a new computer
2. can't handle the tech
3. high speed internet monopoly Comcast raises rates each year

will almost certainly be it.

P.S. I don't know why you felt you were being combative. :-S

Thank you for your long & thoughtful (albeit frightful) & detailed replies.

I threatened Comcast to discontinue their service, which I've had for 12 years.
Told them it was no empty threat.
I lived without internet for the first 36 years of my life. I can live another 36 without it.

And I have lived now 2.5 years without a car, which I thought was going to be a bigger hardship than it has turned out to be. (It's still hard.) And I was BORN into a car world and lived most of my life with one. So, if I can give up something THAT central to my life, I can give up Comcast.

And I consider myself very pro-technology: technology that works!
Even if *I* cannot get it to work.
I'm no luddite. Can't stand the fantasy bullshit about "robots will take over the world". When Max Keiser, my hero for his guts to speak the truth about banksters, says crap like this repeatedly, I don't know if he's joking or really believes that crap coming out of his mouth.

Understand about 1st world problems. Why do you think I think every day about the physical fundamentals (that I learned in engineering classes at college) about thermodynamics, work, energy, and most importantly... entropy?

Why, until I see everyone on earth with access to an electric car or truck or boat, even if it means carpooling and car-sharing, powered by solar & wind, and maybe a FEW nukes, I can't stand seeing massive amounts of praise heaped on guys like Steve Jobs for, as you say, making some minor variations - changing the color, the style, the computer interface - nothing of real substance?

P.S. Sure. I invite you to my house some time to see how much past data you can recover from my computer. I'm curious.

I am extremely skeptical & doubtful of that. The history of computing for the past 70 has been an ever-increasing density and quantity of storage for each user. That's suddenly going to stop and do a U-turn because people will suddenly trust their data storage to a cloud? When high-speed access to that cloud is neither universal nor affordable?

People (as opposed to commercial entities) already trust their data to the cloud - do you know any individual with a non-webmail email address? It's simply incredibly convenient having many years worth of communication accessible easily, and from anywhere. Convenience always wins out in the long term because people are essentially lazy whenever they can be and when said laziness has no consequences to speak of. Trusting apps to the cloud will work too, once any internet connection has a 99.9999% uptime, and becomes sufficiently fast as to be transparent to the workflow (and that's where we're heading).

I support DrDarkwing too - Windows 7 is reliable, and has seen me through thick and thin (and I'm a heavy graphical user). I haven't yet updated to Windows 8, but of the "proper" reviews I've read ("it's different, therefore it sucks" doesn't count as a review) I see no reason not to when the time comes.

PS, as a Brit, whose broadband service is just about to be upgraded to 150 Mbps for around $56 US per month, I find the rates, both data and charging, in the US to be astonishingly low and high respectively. Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to why this is so in what is arguably the home of the internet?

UMD is built on Apple computers, so I know first-hand they can work... with some coaching LOL. Not that I'm an Apple fanboy; Apples suck. Windows and Linux suck, too. Fuck XP, too. I love/hate computers, but what are we going to do? We have to adapt. They're the ones making the computers, so at some point, refusal to drink the kool-aid and just upgrade your shit might have a point of diminishing returns. I mean, my grandmother refused to get a microwave, and my father took 2 years to warm up to a Keurig. That's just the way things are going, pop, now take this Vanilla Biscotti flavored coffee and enjoy!

Sorry man, it's Friday.
M

"Giving nowt to Gates" seems to me to be a poor reason for choosing something as important as an OS. Having said that, Linux works fine if you're a tech-head who needs a limited, and specific amount of software to keep running. If you're a general experimenter, however, I wish you the best of luck - you'll need it!

FYI the first major exploit that *won't* be patched for XP is already out, so at the very very least XP users should switch to Firefox or Chrome from IE:
http://www.cnet.com/news/stop-using-ie-until-bug-is-fixed-says-us/