Wednesday was a slow day for me at the store location I was working. Rather than sit around twiddling my thumbs I decided to sort through the dozen or two USB drives and see if I could repurpose any of them. I figured at least one of them was dedicated to Windows XP, but none were.
That’s when I sat back and realized this is the first time in my history working on computers that Microsoft has five concurrently supported operating systems. Currently supported Microsoft operating systems are Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10. Not only is that a lot of maintenance utilities I have to keep active, but I can’t imagine the amount of support Microsoft has to bolster.
Historically Microsoft has had two operating systems at any given time. Windows ME and 2000 are two that come to mind. Each operating system served a specific need: one was designed for personal use and the other for business. When XP joined the ranks both ME and 2000 were quickly phased out.
Of course XP’s successor was Vista which was daunting to even experienced users. Rather than XP which came in three flavors, Vista came in four. If you factor in 64 or 32 bit choices then Vista had eight choices of which to choose.
Vista’s introduction seems like such a long time ago, when in actuality it was introduced to the home PC market in 2007. Shortly after, Windows 7 started making its way onto machines in 2009 followed by 8, 8.1 and in 2015, Windows 10. Talk about a confusing progression of similar but different operating systems.
As of right now there’s 36 different versions of Microsoft Windows still being supported. That number is only the majority of what my company services and does not include Enterprise and Educational versions. Apparently this is why each of my stores has dozens of USB drives dangling on the walls.
About midday Wednesday it occurred to me why there are so many operating systems. Microsoft keeps introducing new systems to appease customers. Although Vista was fine technically, it felt sluggish so 7 was introduced which looked like XP but functioned identically to Vista. 8 was released with criticism because it lacked a start button, so 8.1 evolved with a start button that really didn’t do anything.
Human nature and perception are funny things. Lately we’ve had a lot of customers asking us to recycle their old Vista computers because they’re perceived to be outdated technology. Vista will be supported by Microsoft until April 2017 which means it’s still viable to use for online banking and other secure operations.
For years I’ve heard customers complain about the version of Windows they purchased. Some like the start menu, some don’t. Others like tiles while others don’t. Most have no idea whether their system is 64 or 32 bit and probably don’t care. With all the gripes I hear, none of them complain their system doesn’t do what it’s intended.
I believe Windows 10 will be the last operating system Microsoft introduces for a long time. From what I’ve seen 10 seems to have all the features of Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 all rolled into a very complex wrapper that lets the user decide how it looks and functions. I’m not sure whether it’s more confusing to have choices in operating system layout and functionality or sorting through dozens of USB drives with hundreds of repair utilities.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can call him at (978) 919-8059 or visit www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)