It seems likely that large numbers of users will stick by it for much of that time, thanks to the stability and simplicity of use for which it has acquired such a strong reputation. It is now, in a manner of speaking, a grandparent – succeeded by two newer generations of the Windows operating system – and is a full year into the ‘extended support’ phase, with the plug finally due to be pulled in four years. If you have a day or two to spare to read through this report, we hope you’ll find some of our findings informative.ĭespite its now venerable age, the XP platform remains the most popular operating system on the planet, with most estimates agreeing that it runs on more than 50% of all computers worldwide. As soon as circumstances allowed, we buried ourselves in the lab with plenty of hot drinks and notepaper, preparing for the long haul. With just a month to plough through all these products, it was clearly going to be a busy time, and after some trial runs in recent tests we had plans to add yet further to the selection of performance data being gathered.
In the end, a monster 60 products were accepted into the test, although we made it clear to vendors who submitted multiple entries that we would only be able to test them all if time allowed.
All test systems were in constant use as the less flexible solutions were installed, activated, updated and snapshots taken for testing. Network connections slowed to a crawl thanks to the multiple large downloads, and our storage capacity began to fill ominously. With new arrangements made to allow the participation of products that require Internet access to install and acquire updates, even the simple task of acquiring the products for the test became a serious test of our time and resources.
As we came around to XP once more, we expected to see yet another new record set, but when the test deadline came, all expectations were exceeded by a seemingly endless flood of submissions arriving in the lab team’s inboxes. This record was broken late last year with our first look at the gleaming new Windows 7 platform when 43 products took part. Our last comparative on Windows XP (see VB, April 2009, p.15) saw a record number of entries, with what seemed like an enormous 39 products taking part.
0 kommentar(er)
