So for some odd reason there seems to be a huge stink over people not being able to use XP mode on their out dated hardware or low-end hardware. Why does this surprise people? Virtualization technology on the CPU is not really that old yet and normally only on those CPUs that are above “Budget”. Of course most people buy the budget computers which come with budget CPUs but then why does this matter? XP Mode was created for business users not for the consumer. So really why does this all matter? Well I’m pretty sure its because they cannot find anything else to complain about right now.
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It’s not an odd reason at all…
XP mode was created for “consumers” some of whome happen to be business users. Who ends up using it more is or less to be seen when Win7 goes retail.
The majority of PC users in the world, including business users, are still using legacy equipment. So it’s no surprise that XP mode was anticipated by those still running it. XP, with all its faults, is still the premier Windows platform and could be the case even after 2010 when support goes silent.
And especially in this economy, people are more willing to keep the technology they have. Developing new apps or adapting old ones to Win7 and WPF is still pretty expensive. Especially for startups and small businesses.
We need to be tolerant of these markets to still stay in business.
I would say the real money for programmers in the next 2 – 3 years would be making do with older hardware. Really “Doing more with less” as the latest Microsoft ad campaign would say. Whether they will do so with Microsoft software is really up to Microsoft. I.E. How it wants to handle legacy hardware.