Can You Still Get Windows XP?

mathsmaster

As someone who has XP in Classic Mode so that it looks like Windows 95, I sympathise entirely with this post. I just don't see the point in spending time learning how to do things that I can already do. And as for the latest version of Office :eek:

chewynut

Notmyrealname wrote: »

If you get it a lot perhaps you should take a long look at yourself and ask yourself if its the way you come across or whether you overreact.

If I get what a lot? Being mistaken for a guy with family issues?

Okay...I guess that means taking a long look at my boobs and then hugging my parents more?

Thanks for your helpful advice about Windows XP

chewynut

TakeThis wrote: »

There are no Drivers for XP on their website, so XP Mode is their only option.

Do you want to have a go at that?

Thanks for the link. I've bookmarked it so I can take a look at it in the morning.

I think it's probably going to go nowhere. I'll just keep explaining stuff to them. Tonight was bookmarks for the 10th time lol.

TakeThis

chewynut wrote: »

Thanks for the link. I've bookmarked it so I can take a look at it in the morning.

I think it's probably going to go nowhere. I'll just keep explaining stuff to them. Tonight was bookmarks for the 10th time lol.

Did you take a look at the video?

They can run XP from within Windows 7. So surely that solves the problem. Otherwise, what was the point of this thread??

If you want to go ahead with installing XP Mode, let me know.

elektra

chewynut wrote: »

I'm also looking at getting them to join a computer class if I can find somebody brave enough to teach both of them at the same time :rotfl:

I think this is a good idea. Some people learn better when the person teaching them is not related. Think of parent teaching you to drive.

You can find courses on ageuk website, and probably at your local library.

Maybe they would learn from a book

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Computing-Made-Easy-Over-50s/dp/1844901122

cottager

I've yet to move from XP to Win7, but will be doing so when I change systems in the next couple of months probably.

But I'm slightly familiar with Win7 from using someone else's laptop for a short time, which also has Virtual XP installed (as TakeThis suggested) -- but your parents' version of Win7 needs to be Pro or higher to be able to install/use it. Could be costly to upgrade first if they don't have Pro+ already?

Virtual XP Mode worked pretty well from what I saw of it: you switch into it (from, say, a desktop shortcut in Win7) and it overlays the Win7 screen. When you're in it there's a central 'always on top' kind of toolbar which took up some screen space at the top, and IIRC it apparently couldn't be moved. Personally I didn't like that (more associated with way I've always had my desktop arranged in XP, with the taskbar at the top).

Otherwise it worked fine, and of course being XP it's exactly the same as your parents would be used to, apart from maybe working in a slightly smaller screen (the extra toolbar thingy takes up some space at the top). Running in virtual mode uses more resources, as you'd expect. Any programmes you want to use in XP mode must be installed into it, so certain non-native programmes could be installed twice if you had them in Win7 as well. It has to be updated with Windows Update as usual and as it would if you were running XP alone.

If you don't go down that route and stick with Win7, but one of your parents' main difficulties/dislikes is with how Windows Explorer looks and works in Win7, the free Classic Shell programme will address a lot of these and make it very like the XP Explorer folders/files structure and toolbar buttons they're used to.
http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/

I must admit I didn't much take to what I've seen of the Win7 Explorer so far, considering I practically "live there" on my present system -- the folder structure didn't feel intuitive at all and was frustrating, though in fairness this could be as I've only used it briefly.

What I found from limited trying-out of Win7 was it wasn't Win7 itself or in general that was particularly hard to adjust to, it was very small things which I'm able to do in XP and can no longer do in Win7 which were extremely irritating -- tiny little tweaks and ways of setting things up which many would think inconsequential or never used themselves. But when you've absolutely relied on these day in and day out for years and they work really well for you, from a productivity and speed/ease of working point of view it was very annoying to find they can no longer be used/replicated.

I'll have my own slightly different XP/Win7 questions for changing over a bit further down the line

demystified

Windows 7 took me a little time to get used to it but I stuck at it and it's fine now, although I will admit the libraries thing still puzzles me I still scrabble around to get to pictures or videos or documents... never did quite figure that one out. The other thing that bugs me is the dumbing down of the search function but I installed 3rd party software to get that working satisfactorily again.

Other than that it's been ok, I must admit when I use XP again as I do on occasion it does look and feel shockingly primitive and it takes me a while to get used to it!

Anyway Windows 7 is old hat now, everyone is talking about whether they're going to upgrade to Windows 8 or not! For myself, no, Windows 7 is enough for now...

Mr_Toad

demystified wrote: »

Windows 7 took me a little time to get used to it but I stuck at it and it's fine now, although I will admit the libraries thing still puzzles me I still scrabble around to get to pictures or videos or documents... never did quite figure that one out. The other thing that bugs me is the dumbing down of the search function but I installed 3rd party software to get that working satisfactorily again.

Libraries are just shortcuts that appear in Explorer. It just means that you can click on Documents in Explorer instead of having to navigate to

C:/Users/<username>/My Documents

ChiefGrasscutter

cottager wrote: »

It has to be updated with Windows Update as usual and as it would if you were running XP alone.

Now that is a VERY interesting point.
If Win XP can be accessed from inside win7 pro in virtual mode, and you have to keep updating it......then surely MS will have to keep on supplying security updates for XP after their currently stated cut off date of 2014.....................?

PS you also need a PC capable of hardware visualisation to enable you to run XP virtual mode within Win 7 pro.

Mr_Toad

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

Now that is a VERY interesting point.
If Win XP can be accessed from inside win7 pro in virtual mode, and you have to keep updating it......then surely MS will have to keep on supplying security updates for XP after their currently stated cut off date of 2014.....................?

No they do won't.

As far as MS is concerned they don't care if you're running XP natively or as a virtual machine from inside Windows 7, support will end.

All that will happen is that people will be running it with no further updates.