1. You will not have to buy additional hardware or software, saving potentially hundreds or thousands of dollars.
2. You will not contribute to pollution by dumping your old hardware before its time. Many commentators believe Microsoft made some kind of mistake by rendering so much legacy hardware obsolete with their Windows Vista. I do not think it was a mistake, but intentional, in order to generate more unnecessary consumer spending worldwide. Microsoft has a partnership with many hardware vendors and cares less about the end user than about those lucrative partnerships. The main new "feature" in Windows Vista was Digital Rights Management. Of course, this was not the feature that Microsoft chose to advertise.
3. You will not experience the many hidden problems that Windows Vista users have reported.
4. You will not experience any learning curve as you would with Vista.
5. After so many years of using XP, you have probably adjusted to its foibles, downloading third party applications to overcome certain of its limitations. A good anti-virus package such as Avast!, which is free, makes Windows XP secure enough.
6. Most of your newer applications are now delivered via your web browser, which is independent of Windows anyway. Firefox remains fully compatible with Windows XP and due to its add-ons, is superior to Internet Explorer. Vista quite simply has nothing to offer the end user other than fancier games, which I don’t care about. Microsoft does not understand the Internet and probably never will.
7. Vista is a step in the wrong direction, towards a fatter and less efficient OS demanding more and more electricity, memory, and resources. This in a time when energy costs are at a premium. This is quite unnecessary and simply the result of Microsoft adding bloat to enhance their own and their partners’ profit margins. It is self-evident that Microsoft does not develop with the end user in mind, but with their shareholders in mind.
Personally, when Vista came out, I used that moment as an excuse to try out the latest version of Ubuntu. Unfortunately, it did not install successfully on my computer, which was optimized for Windows. After several hours of trying to get Ubuntu to work, I gave up. Besides, I was reluctant to leave the world of Windows compatibility. I returned to Windows XP, which I am satisfied with. I am not concerned about Microsoft dropping support for Windows XP as long as Avast antivirus and Mozilla Firefox continue to support Windows XP.
What about Windows 7? After the Vista fiasco, I'm skeptical, but I may upgrade at a very late stage if 90% of the world does so. But I certainly won't be waiting in line at Wal-Mart to buy the first copy. I'm far more excited about new versions of Firefox than I am about overpriced bloatware like Windows.
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