Eight Years of Windows XP

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Once upon a time, computer users lived on a rhythm of upgrading their operating systems every three years or so (five years on the long side). Then along came Windows XP in 2001 (eight years ago and counting) and then along came Vista (do I hear crickets?), which made us want to stick with Windows XP.

Vista, or as I like to call it on second reference; the Edsel of operating systems, forced a lot of Windows users to just sit out this upgrade and wait for the next go-round. We're still waiting. Windows 7 is due out in the Fall, however we've learned something Microsoft.

That operating system cycle you created and imposed on us to accomodate your bottom line and less our needs is about as relevant to us as a typewriter now.

1. We've learned that if isn't broken, don't fix it. We can limp by with what we already have a lot longer than perhaps we realized eight years ago.

2. There are other fish in the sea. For those of us that have grown weary of XP, we've tried other operating systems like open source solutions or jumped over to Macs.

3. Thin clients make for thin solutions. We're more into our mobile devices now and some of us are pouncing on netbooks. When we talk about operating systems now; names like Ubuntu, Symbian, Android, Blackberry, Palm OS and, of course, the iPhone OS are more likely to be the topic of conversation than Windows.

4. We've gone Amish. We don't want more features and bling that bloats our hard drive. We want simplicity. We are storing less on our own devices and more on the web. Less is more. The only new features we are interested in are speed and stability.

Renee Oricchio is a technology writer and former supervising news producer for CNN Financial News. She has been covering the computer industry since 1987. @oricchio