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There really haven't been many major changes to the x86 architecture since the 386, with the notable exception of 64-bit recently. Pretty much everything else s

There really haven't been many major changes to the x86 architecture since the 386, with the notable exception of 64-bit recently. Pretty much everything else should be handled with driver updates or at worst a service pack. I wouldn't even object to paying for those kinds of upgrades, if I needed them, if I could take them without getting a bunch of unwanted tinkering with the UI and toolset. I eventually gave up on Windows as my primary OS because of many small, incremental breakages like changes to the batch language (without really fixing any of its serious shortcomings), it becoming impossible to do a simple file search from Explorer, then it becoming impossible to change file associations without a 3rd-party tool. But hey, if you want an animated dog for no reason, that's no problem! I still need Windows 7 for some things (3D software is still almost exclusively Windows-only) and I still find certain things about OS X a bit clunky, but overall I'm rather happy that I no longer have to care about what Microsoft might mess up in Windows 9.

sliverstorm 13y ago
There really haven't been many major changes to the x86 architecture since the 386 CPU architecture is hardly all that matters to the core OS Pretty much everything else should be handled with driver updates or at worst a service pack. Driver updates work fine for adding support for a new model of graphics card, but when you introduce a whole new kind of device (e.g. WiFi, SSD) the implications reach into the OS itself. They managed WiFi in a service pack for XP, but it was both a pretty unprecedented level of change for a service pack, and always felt kind of tacked-on.
sliverstorm 13y ago
Oh, I forgot to mention threading in my other comment. Windows 7 was the first time the OS seemed to do a good job of both scheduling userspace AND core OS functions across N cores. I'm guessing that would be outside of the scope of a service pack.

sliverstorm 13y ago

There really haven't been many major changes to the x86 architecture since the 386 CPU architecture is hardly all that matters to the core OS Pretty much everything else should be handled with driver updates or at worst a service pack. Driver updates work fine for adding support for a new model of graphics card, but when you introduce a whole new kind of device (e.g. WiFi, SSD) the implications reach into the OS itself. They managed WiFi in a service pack for XP, but it was both a pretty unprecedented level of change for a service pack, and always felt kind of tacked-on.

sliverstorm 13y ago

Oh, I forgot to mention threading in my other comment. Windows 7 was the first time the OS seemed to do a good job of both scheduling userspace AND core OS functions across N cores. I'm guessing that would be outside of the scope of a service pack.