PC Mechanic, New Article

Posted: 08 Jan 2011 03:00 AM PST

XP went RTM in August 2001, meaning in 8 months it will be 10 years old. Granted, XP today is significantly different compared how it was in ’01 (as in three service packs, introduction of WGA, changeover/makeover of wireless setup, etc.), but how it looks and acts hasn’t changed.

My desktop runs Windows 7 and has been since the OS was in open beta. My netbook on the other hand runs XP, although it has gone through its fair share of OSes itself. At first it was XP, then Win7 beta, then a very brief stint with Linux which I dumped because the touchpad wouldn’t work properly at all with it, then back to XP.

These days when I use XP on my netbook, I’m no longer annoyed with it as I once was. In fact, I actually get feelings of nostalgia when using this dinosaur-era OS. There is no other software I use that’s almost a decade old. Everything else from the browser to instant messaging to office suite and so on are all modern.

I officially classify XP as a retro operating system; it’s really old and quirky but in an endearing way. This is the same OS that was introduced to market back at the time Intel’s Pentium 4, AMD’s Athlon XP and NVIDIA’s GeForce 3 were brand new. This is the same OS that was around years before social networking or YouTube existed. This is the same OS that when new, 40GB was considered a "big" hard drive.

And then there’s you. Yes, you. What was your digital life like 10 years ago? If you use XP, look at that Start button and ask yourself, "What was I using in XP back then, and why?" Were you still on dial-up in ’01? A lot of you were. Was your AIM or ICQ buddy list full of friends you chatted with back then? It probably was. Were you marveled at how cool Outlook Express 6 was and how well it worked? Maybe you were.

When you start thinking of what you were doing in ’01 (like laughing your ass off at trading around an email of an MPEG of Wassup Superfriends), that’s when you realize XP is modern retro computing…

…but don’t go back to using CRTs or ridiculously-sized computer speakers (they used to be huge), that’s a little too retro.