What operating system do you use?

What operating system do you use?

  • Windows 8 / 8.1

    Votes: 7 17.9%
  • Windows 7

    Votes: 16 41.0%
  • Windows Vista

    Votes: 1 2.6%
  • Windows XP

    Votes: 9 23.1%
  • Linux (like Mint, Ubuntu, Suse etc.)

    Votes: 4 10.3%
  • BSD

    Votes: 1 2.6%
  • others

    Votes: 1 2.6%

  • Total voters
    39

Thread Starter

bertus

Joined Apr 5, 2008
22,270
Hello,

As XP is not supported anymore, I would like to start a poll about the used operating systems.

Bertus
 

Georacer

Joined Nov 25, 2009
5,182
I use Win7 at home, Win8.0 at my laptop, Win8.1 and Ubuntu 12.04 at work. I can't say any one of them is absolutely complete and caters to all of my needs, but Win7 is definitely the most stable of them all.
 

gerty

Joined Aug 30, 2007
1,305
I use several different OS. At work we use NIDA which is a Electronics training system, it is 32 bit and my newer Win 7 pc is 64 bit. The school decided a KVM switch was cheaper than buying the 64 bit software ($5k). Which means I use XP there also.

At home my everyday laptop is win 7, but, I also program 2 way radios and all my software is on a Win 2000 laptop, and a XP desktop. Most of my programming cables are for a serial port whach has gone by the wayside. Yes I have tried USB to serial adptors with a little success. Some older Motorola radios (1225) require a slow pc with a serial port, so I even have a Win 95 laptop for them.
Someone has even developed software to slow down your pc clock for Motorolas. It's called MOSLO..http://batboard.batlabs.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=49385
 

Thread Starter

bertus

Joined Apr 5, 2008
22,270
Hello,

I am using OpenSuse on my desktop , my wifes HP/Compaq NX7400 and my IBM Thinkpad T42.
On my office laptop there is Windows 7.

Bertus
 

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
WinXP is missed, but win7 is the next best thing. I wipe my crack with Win8. I have an old laptop with Ubuntu on it, but I never use it.

One thing that's been bugging the crap out of me lately about win7 is the way that it handles metadata ("tags"). I save every service & users manual/datasheet/cheat sheet/etc that I ever download into an organized collection of PDFs. Most of these downloads have non-descriptive file names like "1336e-um001_-en-p.pdf." My collection is >10GB and in XP I was able to set my folder view to "View details" and I set up columns like "Title" and I would see the metadata ("1336 IMPACT Adjustable Frequency AC Drive") and the column "Author" and I would see "Rockwell Automation," and I could sort by (and search for) files based on this data. But in Win7 they changed up the way this metadata is handled, and now if I want to view this info I have to purchase a 3rd party "explorer" or open the file in Acrobat (not reader) and go File>properties. Apparently pictures and videos were not affected by this wonderful and all-important change.
 

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
I use several different OS. At work we use NIDA which is a Electronics training system, it is 32 bit and my newer Win 7 pc is 64 bit. The school decided a KVM switch was cheaper than buying the 64 bit software ($5k). Which means I use XP there also.

At home my everyday laptop is win 7, but, I also program 2 way radios and all my software is on a Win 2000 laptop, and a XP desktop. Most of my programming cables are for a serial port whach has gone by the wayside. Yes I have tried USB to serial adptors with a little success. Some older Motorola radios (1225) require a slow pc with a serial port, so I even have a Win 95 laptop for them.
Someone has even developed software to slow down your pc clock for Motorolas. It's called MOSLO..http://batboard.batlabs.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=49385
I am in the same boat; Half of the work I do is on legacy gear, and therefore requires legacy software, which only runs happily on legacy computers. Thankfully I was able to find a brand new laptop that comes with a serial port (WHAT?! - Yeah) and a virtual machine handles all my XP needs.
 

gerty

Joined Aug 30, 2007
1,305
WinXP is missed, but win7 is the next best thing. I wipe my crack with Win8. I have an old laptop with Ubuntu on it, but I never use it.

One thing that's been bugging the crap out of me lately about win7 is the way that it handles metadata ("tags"). I save every service & users manual/datasheet/cheat sheet/etc that I ever download into an organized collection of PDFs. Most of these downloads have non-descriptive file names like "1336e-um001_-en-p.pdf." My collection is >10GB and in XP I was able to set my folder view to "View details" and I set up columns like "Title" and I would see the metadata ("1336 IMPACT Adjustable Frequency AC Drive") and the column "Author" and I would see "Rockwell Automation," and I could sort by (and search for) files based on this data. But in Win7 they changed up the way this metadata is handled, and now if I want to view this info I have to purchase a 3rd party "explorer" or open the file in Acrobat (not reader) and go File>properties. Apparently pictures and videos were not affected by this wonderful and all-important change.

I just rename the .pof what it's for : 123aef-3 becomes pic12f675.
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
I use Win7 for my desktop, and Linux Mint for my netbook.

I'll wait and see if they fix Win8 in Win9.
 

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
Two boxes of Vista.

Remember, I have never bought a computer. Both machines were abandoned to me because of the price of repairs. I didn't choose Vista, but it works well enough for my purposes, so I don't argue with free stuff that works.
 

Sparky49

Joined Jul 16, 2011
833
I read an article somewhere that the Game of Thrones writer still uses MSDOS to write up his books. :p

Anyway, I've been using 8.1 and not had any problems. :cool:

What is annoying is Office 2013 being incompatible with MPLAB. :mad:
 

Markd77

Joined Sep 7, 2009
2,806
Windows 8 at work (hate it) and Linux Mint at home (pretty good for free). I'd still be using XP if I could, but unfortunately modern drivers and software are not available for it, much more stable and easy to use than Windows Vista, 7 or 8.
 

atferrari

Joined Jan 6, 2004
4,764
I read an article somewhere that the Game of Thrones writer still uses MSDOS to write up his books. :p
Had he to serve the reports I have to, after every job, he will be using nothing less than me. Rest assured.

Anyway, his fees are MUCH better, certainly.

XP in 2 desktops and one laptop.
 

MaxHeadRoom

Joined Jul 18, 2013
28,617
The one thing that has always bugged me from the first with Windows is the lack of upward compatibility, once several thousand $$'s are invested in high end software, Windows comes out with a new system that is going to incur large upgrade costs if migrating to the their latest-greatest S/W.
XP is doing its job well for me, why change?
Max.
 

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
I quit XP because that computer couldn't keep up with streaming video, and I had 2 Vista computers laying around with nothing to do.
 

panic mode

Joined Oct 10, 2011
2,715
2x Win7
2x XP
1x Vista
2x Linux Mint
1x Server 2008 R2
1x Win8 (laptop of my youngest son, he instead on it and he says he likes it :eek:)
1x VM running Win8 (only for time to install it, never actually used it)
few VMs running XP,
one VM running Win2k
few VMs running Linux (used rarely)


at work everything is Win7 - as a host OS, but there is again tons of VMs running XP.

reason for XP is that our products (robots) only recently are moved to Win7, so 80% of units out there (which we still service and support) are still running XP and maybe 5-10% are Win95. they will never get an upgrade. occasionally one of recent ones (using latest hardware) do get upgraded to Win7 but that is rare.

Win7 looks ok (after few adjustments), so far I have never seen anyone using Win8 to actually do anything (I mean work/something productive, not facebook etc.) but i'm sure times will change.
 

Brownout

Joined Jan 10, 2012
2,390
Like most, I use a number of OS's

2 Win 7 laptops - one for me and one for the wife. I have most of my design software running on my laptop.

1 Win XP - for my old 32-bit applications, including my only copy of MS Office. Good that I kept this, because I have a consulting job for Access programming.

1 Linux Fedora - This is for testing PCIe development projects. Also, I'm gonna load the rest of the design packages I need and use Xceed or some other remote system to run from this machine. I also have plans for a web server for various reasons.

Also have 1 XP laptop as a store for a lot of programs I developed, and have not yet migrated to new OS's. Soon to be decommissioned.

Also have 1 Android tablet, which I don't do much with outside using it for navigation.
 
Last edited:
Top