Is XP getting worse?

[gbhall]

I've been reguarly contributing to the OS forum for some time, and my subjective impression is XP is getting worse ! There seem to be more and more people suffering a complete failure of XP, such as continual blue screens, spontaneous rebooting, or unable to boot at all.

Now this is worrying indeed, but it could just be that more and more people who stress their machines too much are finding this site because it has an increasingly good reputation for knowledgable assistance. So crashing Windows could be a symptom of success, not a failure of Windows.

But I'm worried about the simpler explaination - that XP cannot keep up with the things people throw at it, like highly mixed hardware types on one machine. Or more sophisticated virus writers.

Either way, it would mean Windows XP is cruelly vulnerable to problems it ought not suffer from. What do my fellow experts think ???

 

[l33t_tek]

On some levels, I agree XP is not able to fix complex problems like it did back in 2001. However, I think this is just due to the fact that people do stupid things to their computers or buy shotty hardware and expect people on this forum to fix it for them so they don't have to pay people to do it. I maintain a Pentium 3 1000MHz, a Pentium 4 2.66GHz and an Athlon 64 3200+ and I've never had any of these major problems that others have on this site. I know XP doesn't just crash by itself because it's the most reliable OS I've used in my life. I don't think XP is totally vulnerable. By installing the ongoing Windows Update, updating Anti-Virus software and constantly scanning for SpyWare, XP is quite secure. In terms of hardware, I think you get what you pay for. If you're buying reliable brands, XP will have no problems with compatibility. If you're buying non-reliable brands, don't expect XP to magically wave all the problems away with it's arrow cursor.

XP will keep up with the things people throw at it, it's whether the people throwing the things at XP are ready for it.

 

[Nodsu]

XP is just plain old.. It has two service packs (read: two piles of dirty hacks to fix stuff) and people are running new software and hardware combinations that didn't even exist when the OS was designed.

Not to mention that with the increasing takeup of broadband, there is more and more dirt being installed by more and more clueless people (that's what you get with an expanding userbase).