Goodbye Windows 7, Welcome Back Windows XP.

Apart from being the day of 200th post, yesterday was also the day I switched back from Windows 7 RC to Windows XP. So September 01 also marks the day I first use XP on my laptop. It's also Teacher's Day, but who cares.

Windows 7 was a piece of lard. Incompatible drivers and software, bloated and slow, an interface that looks better than it works, all the advanced settings are almost the same as XP but hidden behind flashy menus meant to either make life easy for beginners or make life hard for both noobs and pros alike. Some functions of XP gone in exchange for features better to be not get used to.

And the most spectacular of all (deserves to be on the front page), it screws the internet connection.

Very interestingly, when I was using the M1 Mobile Broadband, it is very unresponsive and unstable and I cannot download any file without the connection breaking at the 28MB mark. Modem works fine, internet stays connected, but it's just goddamn unstable. And unresponsive - I spend more time waiting for the servers to respond than actually surfing the net. By a factor of a few times.

It's not the modem - as I swapped the modem with my brother. It's not the infrastructure - as his modem is right beside mine.

So, it must be the f*cking OS.

And yes it's true, after returning to XP, my internet is fast again.

Screw u Win 7 RC.

I did lose out on the hardware-accelerated H.264 playback available from Vista and up, but it's a small price to pay for using XP. Although this means that the money I paid for the GL40 chipset is wasted.

And the reason I got Windows 7 in the first place? I mistakenly thought that the SPDIF-out of Acer laptops can only be used with Windows Vista and up. Due to the lack of documentation and the lack of training of the service centre staff.

There's really no need to upgrade your OS unless there's really a need to, like if you have some software that does not run on the previous versions, or there are better functionalities. or if it supports your newer hardware.

Else, you'd be better off sticking to your current OS. I stayed with Windows 98 until around 2005 I think. Furthermore, unless you need the OS to use your hardware effectively, you better don't upgrade unless you have good hardware - 256MB was overkill for Win98 (unless you're playing C&C: Generals, which 512MB is best), but the bare minimum for XP; 1GB is enough for good speed in XP, but barely in Win7.

Now I have a dual-core that requires XP. But nothing else that requires Vista/Win7. So XP's gonna stay for a looong time.

Speaking of which, Microsoft seems to have a 'Tick-Tock' model like Intel, but their Tick-Tock is between products that work and products that don't -

("works" is defined as widespread and prolonged use of the particular product, without being complained too much of bloatedness, incompatibility, and any other complaint that you can throw at Microsoft. Even if a product did not work well at the start, if towards its end of life it gets widely used, then it's still a success. "fail" is the direct opposite: basically nobody would care if this product wasn't released; rather, everybody would be happier if this product wasn't released)

Windows 3.1 - works
Windows 95 - fail (late release + lots of incompatibility + 98 came out)
Windows 98 - works
Windows ME - fail
Windows XP - works
Windows Vista - fail
Windows 7 - *should* work