Giving Linux That 'XP' Factor

Keir Thomas, PC World | Wednesday, March 25, 2009 11:22 AM PDT

Everybody has a version of Windows that's their favorite. What version it is depends a lot on your age. Some of my older colleagues swore blind thatWindows 95 was the pinnacle of computer science, at least when it was released. I remember hearing a certain phrase over and over again in the late 90s: "Microsoft have got it just right with 95."

For others, Windows 98 is their favorite. This was effectively Windows 95 Mark II, of course. For some desperately misguided souls, Windows Me tops their list.

(Have you noticed a curious feature about Microsoft is that they take two or three attempts to get things right? We see this playing out right now withWindows 7, which is effectively Windows Vista Mark II. Xbox 360 is Xbox Mark II, and nobody really used Windows until it reached version 3.1 back in 1992.)

For most people, XP is their favorite Windows. If asked to express a preference, I'll probably agree, despite the fact I'm an open-source guy. It's a solid and functional operating system.

Somehow Microsoft got everything just right with XP, but it's extremely hard to quantify exactly what. The gut reaction is to say that it's easy to use, but I don't think that's true. Many people I've worked with fail to grasp even XP's basic concepts, despite years of use. Often I'll explain something as simple as the search function of file browsing windows, and their eyes will widen as if I've just revealed the location of the Holy Grail. Unlike, say, OS X, Windows has never gone out of its way to be easy to use.

Does XP come with all the features we need, then? Far from it. It's shocking how basic a fresh installation of XP is. It's almost useless. Few media file formats are supported by Windows Media Player, for example. XP doesn't read PDF files. Practically none of your hardware will be supported. But, of course, all of these vital features are just a free download away, and this is perhaps a key point: it's easy to mould XP into how you like it. There's a whole industry devoted to just that purpose.

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