Having so very many donated machines pass through my hands over the past decade, I have had a chance to install various Windows releases on a wide array of hardware. I’ve noticed something odd, though. Regardless of the condition of the hardware, regardless of its age and how well it matches the version of Windows I tested, it seems Windows releases die when MS says they should.
Not in the sense it won’t run at all, but suddenly runs very poorly. Yes, I know that’s the nature of Windows in one sense, but this seems consistent. For example, let’s say today I get a nice Dell Optiplex with a 400Mhz CPU and matching hardware from that market period. It will run many different types of Linux and BSD just fine. It may even run Haiku really well. I can surely run Win2K on it, but XP would be dreadfully slow. If I were to try installing ME, it would run until I get it all updated, then it would break. Win98 probably would fight hard not to install (again, nothing new), but probably not work well even with all the drivers.
I’m sure there are several factors involved. Perhaps the hardware manufacturer doesn’t update the drivers to match the latest update to Windows-whatever. Maybe my CD is scratched? No, I have fresh ISOs from an archive of OEM stuff. Maybe it chokes on calendar dates, or some other little thing we can never determine. At any rate, I’m just wondering if something in the updates is designed to kill the older versions. That has been alleged before, and it would not surprise me. I note not a single ancient version of Linux does that, all the way back to my RedHat 5.2 disk, and FreeBSD 4.3.
One more reason to prefer Open Source when you get a chance.
