Windows XP turns 20!

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Sorry, I'm a few days late because this week has been crazy. Anyway, on October 25th, 2001, Windows XP was officially fully released for all use. Do you remember using the operating system? Did you dislike it, even? Just let me know!
Windows Error GIF
 
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Kolph

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Don't a lot of government computers still run it in fears of errors from updating?
 
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1980Miami

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Windows XP was my childhood OS and looking back at it, it really has so much character and charm. Obviously everyone knows the space pinball game, but I loved the preset custom cursors, especially the dinosaur ones. To me it represents a time before minimalism took over where things were fun for the sake of being fun
 
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vaporwavemaster1

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それはうまく設計されたオペレーティングシステムです、私はそれを言うでしょう。それは本当にユーザーフレンドリーなレイアウトを持った最初の1つでした
 
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Jade

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Sorry, I'm a few days late because this week has been crazy. Anyway, on October 25th, 2001, Windows XP was officially fully released for all use. Do you remember using the operating system? Did you dislike it, even? Just let me know!
Windows Error GIF
I'm not tech-savvy enough to really give a detailed review, but I LOVED this OS and still do just for the aesthetic. That default wallpaper is amazing of course, but more than that, the sound design was great too. The booting up sound, etc. are all really memorable. Plus it had all those built-in games, esp. Space Pinball. Man, Space Pinball.

Fun fact btw, the name of the XP wallpaper is "Bliss" and it's of some field in southern california at noon. It's likely the single most famous photograph in history - and honestly I think it deserves the position. It's a good photo.
 
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rootsudo

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Windows XP helped me become who I am today. I spent hours on it, just tinkering with random things and it helped me delve into coding.

Prior I had a Win95 PC that wasn't the most reliable, cause I kept finding ways to do things it shouldn't be doing. Cliche "This computer did an illegal operation" message.

I wonder how my ADHD would be like w/o computers. I was so bored as a kid. I still am.

Trivia!
Windows XP is just called NT 5.1, it was just a skin re-wrap from Windows 2000, one of the most stable operating systems in the past decade. Windows 2000 is NT 5.0. If you ran dxdiag in Windows XP, it would just say 5.1. Vista was 6.1. That's why windows 7 is 7. And then Windows 8.

NT also just means "New Technology" Another random fact for today, is that you could run it on a Pentium processor at just 133mhz, but you could get it to run at 33mhz. Insane compared with the computing speeds we have today, and how distracted we are.
 
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kultra

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Lots of manufacturing equipment still runs XP and Vista (ok I saw only one machine on that piece of shit)

XP will never die. Or at least it will die when all the world's hardware running it finally dies. Maybe in 2 more decades?

it was a great os when you were 10 and finally got to have your own account and customize shitty wallpapers and themes to your hearts content without the parents changing it back. My dad then went back to win 2000 to either spy on me, gamer reasons, or both
 
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pedral

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I've been using it from pretty much when it came out (when I was a toddler) up to 2014~15. Then I switched to Linux (for my CS school) and Windows 10. It felt really weird to touch the sanitized and soulless Windows 10 after spending my whole life on XP. I miss the good old days where I felt like the greatest hacker downloading youtube music videos as mp3 on my IPod :')

I felt a bit left out from my friends at school who had the latest Windows version at the time when I was still on XP. I've never felt the need to change though, XP was comfy and all I knew back then.

I owe all of this to my dad, who has been using XP up until 2020. He's that kind of ermite who doesn't like change at all. He made me use XP and it got stuck with me for like 15 years. All of my toddler and teenager Internet/computer memories are framed in that good old XP vibe. I love it.
I've never told him this before, but thank you for this, dad.
 
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s0ren

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Don't a lot of government computers still run it in fears of errors from updating?
I think they had to move on because Microsoft stopped providing support. If someone developed a major exploit, it wouldn't get protection patched in which would be very very bad. Some private sector stuff, like electronic billboards, still run it though. The risks just aren't comparable though.
 
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selfKaiHarness

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I used windows XP ever since (up until 2012/2013) we got that HP desktop tower (now it's at the junkyard rip). I used to watch GMod videos on it as well as playing flash/shockwave games, I also played some obscure games on it. Here's the list of hidden gems and obscure shit I used to play.

Ricochet Xtreme (I only played the demo one hour timed on it, in fact most of these PC games I play are 60 min timed. Watch a long play of it, seriously, it's a stylized version of Arkanoid.),

Blasterball 2 Revolution (Another arkanoid game that came out in like 1999/2000. I'll give you a YT link to its music by the way. Horribly bitcrushed and low quality warning ahead.),

Tornado Jockey (God that was a fun game, I can recall a certain moment there is a Godzilla reference in here.),

some hit and run racing game where you shoot cars and drive in an endless road doing objectives (I can't remember the name for the life of me.)

Orbz (It's a bit fuzzy from what I can recall but I remember playing this game a lot when I was young. It's a game where you launch your orb into stars to rack up points. Yellow stars give you 100, orange gives you 200, red gives you 300, and purple stars which they appear and disappear randomly and gives you 400 points. I also remember you can do tricks to rack up a score multiplier as well. Oh and it has multiplayer. Online multiplayer. Also this game came out on the original Xbox which it's super rare to find nowadays. Is anyone recalled this game from their memory, please do tell me. I hate being the only user here who played this game a lot. RIP Trymegames dot com, I miss you so so much.)


Overball (You're a ball rolling around an obstacle course, with monsters! Also your ball goes to heaven when you die by the way.)

And a couple other games that it's not worth mention such as several hidden gem space shooter games (Clash N' Slash is super fun though.), some racing games, and a few others.

God I miss the XP era of hidden gem video games. I deeply miss it. Most of these games are archived, but a few like Orbz are still out there, it's just that they're so rare to find a PC copy floating around the internet nowadays.




 
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Jade

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I used windows XP ever since (up until 2012/2013) we got that HP desktop tower (now it's at the junkyard rip). I used to watch GMod videos on it as well as playing flash/shockwave games, I also played some obscure games on it. Here's the list of hidden gems and obscure shit I used to play.

Ricochet Xtreme (I only played the demo one hour timed on it, in fact most of these PC games I play are 60 min timed. Watch a long play of it, seriously, it's a stylized version of Arkanoid.),

Blasterball 2 Revolution (Another arkanoid game that came out in like 1999/2000. I'll give you a YT link to its music by the way. Horribly bitcrushed and low quality warning ahead.),

Tornado Jockey (God that was a fun game, I can recall a certain moment there is a Godzilla reference in here.),

some hit and run racing game where you shoot cars and drive in an endless road doing objectives (I can't remember the name for the life of me.)

Orbz (It's a bit fuzzy from what I can recall but I remember playing this game a lot when I was young. It's a game where you launch your orb into stars to rack up points. Yellow stars give you 100, orange gives you 200, red gives you 300, and purple stars which they appear and disappear randomly and gives you 400 points. I also remember you can do tricks to rack up a score multiplier as well. Oh and it has multiplayer. Online multiplayer. Also this game came out on the original Xbox which it's super rare to find nowadays. Is anyone recalled this game from their memory, please do tell me. I hate being the only user here who played this game a lot. RIP Trymegames dot com, I miss you so so much.)


Overball (You're a ball rolling around an obstacle course, with monsters! Also your ball goes to heaven when you die by the way.)

And a couple other games that it's not worth mention such as several hidden gem space shooter games (Clash N' Slash is super fun though.), some racing games, and a few others.

God I miss the XP era of hidden gem video games. I deeply miss it. Most of these games are archived, but a few like Orbz are still out there, it's just that they're so rare to find a PC copy floating around the internet nowadays.






I remember Clash N' Slash, it wasn't much more than a minigame but damn the soundtrack was awesome

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HWBVIZAdo0


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uukndtl3mpo


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCxAkh8Gy5Q
 
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XP was the first Windows OS with activation, making it kind of the beginning of the end. I remember being really pissed about that, even with the various cracks of the time. Activation of course wasn't so much about piracy (you were literally stealing from the world's richest man back then) but about tracking users. After Windows 7 it got super grotesque, which is why I will be running 7 until it is infeasible to do so.
 
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