Come back XP... all is forgiven

Stewart Meagher | Jul 1, 2008 9:23 AM

Aged OS shuffles off clutching P45

It's the end of an era. Windows XP has left the building. Today is the last day the Redmond Massive will be sending out its veteran operating system to OEMs around the world. Unless you're the likes of Dell or HP, that is.

Upstaged by the flashy upstart in a Versace three-piece that is Vista, the old workhorse is collecting its gold watch and clearing its desk for the last time today. And there will be nary a dry eye in the house.

Its true that XP's birth was difficult, and that teenage tantrums and incompatibility ishoos made each and every one of us set up a forehead/monitor interface at one point or another. But we got over its little foibles and quirks. We upgraded, patched and tinkered. We installed and uninstalled driver after driver, after driver. We cowered in horror as every security flaw was unearthed, and hastily fixed... and then waited for the next fatal leak to spring.

We laughed, we cried, we threw our USB devices against the wall, but like all difficult relationships, in the end we grew to love the cause of our torment and anguish.

And now, although some of us have moved on to pastures new, have found a new, younger, brighter, prettier distraction, we can't help thinking that we are leaving a better time. A simpler time. A time when things actually worked.

Farewell then XP. It is better to have loved and lost all of your data to a malicious virus, than to never have been able to create any data at all.