12-19-2007, 04:24 AM

I've been running Windows XP for over 5 years now. I leave my computer running 24 hours a day, every day, often for weeks at a time. The only time I ever really need to have it off is if some install or update requires a restart. I have never seen a Blue Screen of Death, nor have I had any issues with viruses or spyware. There's also virtually no system slowdown over time, unless I've done something like keep a browser window open for a week and its got that entire history and temp files in the cache. Close the window, and its all gone. What's the deal? Why does everyone say its so unstable? It's been nothing but solid as a rock for me for 5 years.

12-19-2007, 04:42 AM

Windows is not unstable.... it's much more vulnerable than Linux or MAC. There are justified reasons for it being the target. Also it's agreed that you can make windows more secure. But the point of difference is the level of security out of box. It's much less in XP. Yet to find out about vista. But so far not impressed.

Viruses and trojans come to your system without your knowledge, you can't get peace of mind without anti-virus and anti-spyware.

XP GUI is a big showdown.... You need 3rd party softwares to get some cool GUI + animations

So in a nutshell.... windows may not be unstable but it

12-19-2007, 05:12 AM

Originally Posted by smartyMAC

Viruses and trojans come to your system without your knowledge, you can't get peace of mind without anti-virus and anti-spyware.

As long as you don't click every flashing banner ad for "free stuff" or open endless spam emails about "meeting singles" or "penis enlargement" niether of these things should be an issue. I have anti-spyware programs, but I stopped running them months ago after coming up clean every time. They only come on to your system under your own doing. Either clicking something or opening something you shouldnt. It's not like they just magically appear on your computer one day. Unless maybe someone you know happens to know your IP and has a grudge against you or something...

12-19-2007, 05:15 AM

All I know is our tech person at schools tells us not to leave our Dell's on overnight, due to the network.

12-19-2007, 05:27 AM

I not infrequently get error messages using my WinXP PC, and have to force a shutdown/restart. It often occurs when I have multiple memory-intensive programs going at the same time. It's disruptive and problematic if I am in the middle of doing something and don't save the file frequently.

My understanding is that the Mac is much less prone to those types of problems. I hope that is the case, because the last Mac I had back in 1995 was not much better from a stability standpoint.

The other key advantage I find with the Mac OS is that unlike WinXP, if the OS becomes corrupt and requires a reinstall, it doesn't necessitate a complete reinstall (i.e., overwrite) of the system software.

So from that standpoint, I would still prefer the Mac OS to the WinXP.

12-19-2007, 05:41 AM

Originally Posted by cfusionpm

As long as you don't click every flashing banner ad for "free stuff" or open endless spam emails about "meeting singles" or "penis enlargement" niether of these things should be an issue. I have anti-spyware programs, but I stopped running them months ago after coming up clean every time. They only come on to your system under your own doing. Either clicking something or opening something you shouldnt. It's not like they just magically appear on your computer one day. Unless maybe someone you know happens to know your IP and has a grudge against you or something...

Dont have to click on these.... even genuine sites are under XSS attack... you access these sites and they whack you

12-19-2007, 10:36 AM

The current version of XP is stable but very vulnerable. I myself leave my PC on 24/7 and never shut it down until an update does it for me. One of the reasons I want to switch is the fact that XP is a resource hog. When I first load up a PC it works very fast then after the security updates, driver updates, and patches I'm left with a computer that lacks the performance that is expected from a computer. I have a P4 2.0 Ghz with 1Gb of ram and a 250Gb hd. I have trouble running Itunes and surfing the net using any type web browser. I am data systems analyst with a background in hardware engineering and build and repair PCs all the time. I also have several Linux boxes running on my network. My girlfriends PC is running an AMD chip and gets the BSD just about every day. Not to mention our work laptops running XP used to be screamers but after 2 1/2 years and who knows how many updates, patches etc, they are nothing more than 15" bricks. I am looking forward to switching after using my friends MAC for a few days.

12-19-2007, 11:45 AM

Originally Posted by cfusionpm

As long as you don't click every flashing banner ad for "free stuff" or open endless spam emails about "meeting singles" or "penis enlargement" niether of these things should be an issue. ... They only come on to your system under your own doing. Either clicking something or opening something you shouldnt. It's not like they just magically appear on your computer one day. ...

Originally Posted by smartyMAC

Dont have to click on these.... even genuine sites are under XSS attack... you access these sites and they whack you

My PC was infected a while back and would restart itself every few minutes with some weird error message and, like smarty said, I had not clicked anything I shouldn't!

12-19-2007, 12:43 PM

Originally Posted by iKitten

My PC was infected a while back and would restart itself every few minutes with some weird error message and, like smarty said, I had not clicked anything I shouldn't!

I had the same thing happen to me ... twice...

Made me too nervous on my MBP to run XP. Twice I've had to reinstall windows but once I found out from my college that I could us my mac... I got rid of XP.

12-19-2007, 01:15 PM

I would agree with the original poster, but also with several of the follow on posts. Windows XP is not unstable. In fact I have to grudgingly admit that it is a pretty good OS. I run it at work and still have a PC here at home with XP on it. It is solid as a rock.

Like several posters have said however, Windows is under constant attack from the outside world, and you have to be careful what you view, what you click and so on. However, having used Windows for so long, that is second nature now, and I have never gotten infected. In fact, at this point, I have completely removed Norton from my machine. I rely on the firewall in my DSL router and that is it. It is amazing how much faster and nicer the Windows experience is when you get rid of something as intrusive as Norton.

My Mac is equally stable - I see no real "stability" difference between the two, but the Mac is more impervious to attack, and of course, it is just a lot more fun and a lot more capable than my Windows box. Clearly I prefer my Mac, but I do have to admit that XP at least is not as bad as some people might make it out to be. Now Vista, on the other hand...

12-19-2007, 01:22 PM

because it is unstable...

12-19-2007, 01:29 PM

Originally Posted by cfusionpm

Why does everyone say its so unstable?

They don't.

The problem is Window's legacy... Win 1.0 - 3.0 were unstable, 3.1 was a little better. 95 was oretty shakey, 98 was better but not much and ME was truly horrible. I used 'em all.

XP was different. The NT kernel has always been pretty solid, it had to be, and when XP finally made it to consumers, it really made a huge difference to stability.

However, XP still needs rebooting, it is vulnerable to attack and unfortunately the enourmous number of drivers and numerous API possibilities do mean that problems will occur more often that you'd like.

I have used XP since 2001, never had a blue-screen other than when doing extreme overclocking.

12-19-2007, 01:30 PM

XP is very stable on good hardware and with a smart user who knows what they are doing. I have gone 2 years 24 a day without one crash on a P4 system of mine.

12-19-2007, 02:26 PM

I've never had many problems with stability.

I did notice a dramatic slowdown, particularly with regards to login time, on my XP system [P4 3.4, HT, 2GB memory] at work. (I often had to install various bits of software for testing, and despite my attempts to clean it up afterward, it was never the same.) After only six months, it was dramatically slower to come up than my two-year-old PowerBook [G4/1.5, 1.25GB memory] was.

I've since begun using Windows in a virtualized environment, so I can blow it away easily.

12-19-2007, 02:36 PM

My main problem with Windows is having Internet Explorer closing because it encountered an error. Not only does it have to close that window, but it has to close all open IE windows. I frequently have over five IE windows open and sometimes more.

Ok so someone told me I could avoid that by switching to alternate browsers so I did, I tried Firefox. Turns out Firefox encounters errors and needs to close to.

I can't tell you how many times since early July (when I got my MBP) that I have IE or Firefox close on me But I do know how man times I have had Safari close on me in that time, three. I'll keep my MBP just for that reason alone.