Re: Error handling is hard - let's not do it!
> XP was so insecure, it was downright dangerous.
That is downright incorrect when talking about the consumer space.
Window XP was, literally, Windows NT 5.1 (where Windows 2000 was NT5.0). In the consumer space it replaced the aforementioned Windows 95 and children variants (98, ME, etc.)
It was heads and shoulders above the previous consumer-oriented OSes available at the time.
Sure, there were other OSes that had better security, UNIXes, Linux, Mainframe OSes and so on, but in the consumer space it was a vast, vast improvement on what came before it.
The typical consumer O/S prior to XP didn't have any file security at all. All different accounts on them did was allow different configuration values, backgrounds, menu items, and so on. Login to an account on the earlier consumer windows and you could access any other accounts files.
Did XP have issues? Absolutely. Name any OS that doesn't.
But compared to what came before it in the consumer space, it was a huge improvement. Everything else in Windowsland since XP has been mostly just iterative improvements.
In the professional workstation market was XP an improvement? No, because it was just windows 2k with a few extra visual bells and whistles to make it more consumer friendly. And there were - and are -
more competitors in the workstation market where people are willing to spend money on the OS, That was what Windows XP was, Microsoft merging their consumer and professional base-OS (ditching the Windows 3.x and 95 line) into one OS code-base for them to maintain.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
