I remember it like this. Windows XP and earlier was a horrible era for stability and security and the world was overall less connected. Phones were always on and always connected. The iPhone was honestly the first stable internet device, that didn't sleep or pause, and the first internet device many people had that wasn't infected by viruses.
No it wasn’t. XP was quite solid in terms of stability, miles beyond its predecessors. You have to remember that its mediate predecessor was Windows ME.
It was also far more secure, but it was still not nearly secure enough.
> ”Upon its release, Windows XP received critical acclaim, noting increased performance and stability (especially compared to Windows Me)…”
Weird that contemporary articles praised its stability then.
> That's one way to say "plagued by a decade of botnets."
No, it’s a way of saying that it introduced real identity-based security isolation to the OS. Prior to this every user had full access to the entire system incisions everyone else’s data who shared the system.
Unfortunately Windows XP was not hardened to the reality of the internet. (Nor were any of its predecessors.)
It was hailed for its improvements in stability from the time it was released. My recollection was that it was a massive improvement over 98/ME lineage. It was mostly a wash vs Windows 2000.
Yes, it became more stable with the service packs, but it was a significantly more stable OS out of the gates than anything consumer users had been getting.
Rampant malware was a separate (and very significant) issue.
I was a windows 2k user during that time because win xp was horribly unstable till sp3. It was rock solid after that, finally as good as windows 2k. Though I never liked the Fisher price color scheme.
> My recollection was that it was a massive improvement over 98/ME lineage.
That much is true.
> It was mostly a wash vs Windows 2000.
No, not really. They did some empirical testing at the university I went to and the conclusion was that they kept the Windows boxes on 2k almost until Vista.
My university switched pretty quickly. But I do not know how empirical that decision was. Anecdotally all of my friends made the switch from 2k and were fine with XP. But again, anecdote. Your university apparently found that 2k was meaningfully more stable for them.
Sure, but there were also multiple points in time (even after SP2) when you had to unplug the network to install it, because in a couple minutes of being online or in a large LAN it would get infected during the setup and shutdown. You also needed all updates and a third-party firewall on a CD. Win+R shutdown /a is still in my fingertips after all these years.
There were plenty of internet connected phones before the iphone. Nokia, Samsung all had phones with full internet access and browsers and other apps. I think there was even a Java mobile app standard called J2ME.
gizajob · · focus · HN ↗
Yeah because Apple has broken that idea over and over and over. The anti-unix unix.
someonebaggy · · focus · HN ↗
goalieca · · focus · HN ↗
dpark · · focus · HN ↗
Huh? Windows XP was the first NT-based release for home users. It was a milestone in stability.
sporadicism · · focus · HN ↗
bigstrat2003 · · focus · HN ↗
dpark · · focus · HN ↗
It was also far more secure, but it was still not nearly secure enough.
> ”Upon its release, Windows XP received critical acclaim, noting increased performance and stability (especially compared to Windows Me)…”
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP
sporadicism · · focus · HN ↗
> It was also far more secure, but it was still not nearly secure enough.
That's one way to say "plagued by a decade of botnets."
> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP
Now google XP blue screen of death. Still alive and well then.
If the bar is Microsoft's most loathed release, then I guess you could call it stable and secure.
dpark · · focus · HN ↗
Weird that contemporary articles praised its stability then.
> That's one way to say "plagued by a decade of botnets."
No, it’s a way of saying that it introduced real identity-based security isolation to the OS. Prior to this every user had full access to the entire system incisions everyone else’s data who shared the system.
Unfortunately Windows XP was not hardened to the reality of the internet. (Nor were any of its predecessors.)
anthk · · focus · HN ↗
kergonath · · focus · HN ↗
What most people remember of XP now is what it became after a couple of years of fixes and improvements, and the contrast with Vista.
dpark · · focus · HN ↗
Yes, it became more stable with the service packs, but it was a significantly more stable OS out of the gates than anything consumer users had been getting.
Rampant malware was a separate (and very significant) issue.
tehologist · · focus · HN ↗
kergonath · · focus · HN ↗
That much is true.
> It was mostly a wash vs Windows 2000.
No, not really. They did some empirical testing at the university I went to and the conclusion was that they kept the Windows boxes on 2k almost until Vista.
dpark · · focus · HN ↗
orbital-decay · · focus · HN ↗
creativeSlumber · · focus · HN ↗