Windows XP SP4?

fallenangle · 25 Mar 2014 at 11:36

Once most MS Windows XP support ends is there any chance they will release a SP4 which includes all the updates etc in one package?

I ask as I've been looking into how to create a XP 'slipstream' (re)install disc post support ending as backup in case I ever need to (re)install XP. It seems like a hell of a lot of faff to do this, even just finding out how/where to get all the update files required to the make the disc is a hassle.

If MS were to make a WinXP SP4 available it might at least assuage some of the anger of those who want to maintain a XP OS on their computers for whatever reason.

fallenangle · 25 Mar 2014 at 14:03

But I have software and so on designed for a 32bit OS and any number of games that are easy to run on XP either because of its own backwards compatibility or because it was the OS of the time. Even with Win7's virtual XP and other alternatives I just don't see the point of throwing away something that still works well and has been paid for.

I'm not saying I want to use XP for everything, I'm building a Win7 64bit based machine to take over as my main computer but I'm not going to dump my old laptop, which can't run anything more than XP, just because MS want me to make them richer.

Wanting to keep that going as long and as easily as possible is not unreasonable.

fallenangle · 25 Mar 2014 at 16:06

Thanks for the suggestions and links, most very useful.

KIA said:
There's also http://www.autopatcher.net/forum/ & http://www.windowsupdatesdownloader.com/

From the autopatcher forum I actually found a link to another forum where some brave soul and various others have in fact been working on a WinXP SP4 since last year.

That does indicate there are many others out there who don't think it is a stupid idea either.

It would just be an unexpectedly pleasant sign off for XP if MS themselves recognised that with 30% of the world's computers still running XP their customers deserve at least a gesture of support like the provision of a Final XP SP.

fallenangle · 26 Mar 2014 at 12:15

Quite right. 'Upgrading' (a weaselly term if ever there was one) to a new OS doesn't affect what the majority of ordinary people actually use their computers for most of the time ie. browsing, shopping, messaging and playing YT videos etc.

As pointed doing these things on any OS is barely any different. It is only when you get incompatibility issues with web sites, software or hardware, usually because they have been 'upgraded' that the age of the OS you're using makes any difference.

I know this very much myself: I was using the Sega Dreamcast with Dreamkey 3.00 browser (based on Netscape 4 I think) for a weekly shopping order from Tesco's from 2001 - 2003. I could use it for buying and selling on Amazon and Ebay and as late as 2006 I used it to order something from Argos.

Slowly as web sites 'upgraded'; ie. became more cluttered and filled with irrelevant garbage compatibility issues made its use impossible. In 2003 I swapped to another TV type browser using the NetGem iPlayer STB with a Linux based OS. I used that until 2010 before being forced to buy a proper computer for the same sort of reasons.

My point is XP isn't even close to that sort of compromised usability level, it still works just as well, particularly for those casual PC users purposes, as it ever did. There are no compatibility issues of significance and indeed it is more likely to be the new OS being incompatible with old software or hardware that is a problem. In other words there is actually a strong incentive not to 'upgrade' and that is why the stubborn 30% are still happy enough with XP.

fallenangle · 26 Mar 2014 at 13:29

A car with an automatic gear box is easier to drive than one with a manual shift but most people who enjoy driving still choose a manual shift because it gives them more control and just makes driving more interesting.

That might be a bit of a stretched metaphor but the (questionable) comparative ease of use of later Windows OSs is not the whole story.

Familiarity and with it the inate operating skills that years of experience teach you make 'ease of use' much less relevant to existing users. It is the difficulities and, as suggested by others here, the costs caused just by the change itself that are the prime factors.

fallenangle · 27 Mar 2014 at 13:09

It is not about living in the past it is, as at least Daytrader understands, about maintaining XP as a useful, working tool for just the sort of reasons described.

The IT world is obsessed with 'upgrading' always claiming that new is better (was Vista better than XP?). Lots of people here seem happy to buy into that, quite literally, I'm just not one of them.