Talk:Windows XP

Very much lopsided article.

I cannot find the word "successful" anywhere in the article? You see, when you need to issue a hotfix just because the software product is running out of available individual installation keys spaces, that IS an undeniable sign of success! So there should be an XP veneration section in the article, not just a criticism section! 82.131.210.162 14:47, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I very much agree. Windows XP is the most successful and most used OS in the world, yet there is no such section. 69.216.17.251 03:38, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

When your POV is from personal desktop Operating Systems, as of 2007, Windows does have a large market share. But when you take into account the Business sector, and the vast amount of Unix and other OS types used in the workplace, successful is a debatable description of Windows XP. --Unixguy 19:49, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Says a user named "Unix guy"... yeah, no bias there... sheesh. -/- Warren 22:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Language list

Okay, look people. It's ugly, and it serves no particularily useful purpose given that it lists just about every language in use on the planet today.

Take a step back from your undo buttons and THINK ABOUT IT for a minute. Consider: Why don't we have a list of countries in which Windows XP is sold? Why don't we have a list of every computer company that preinstalls Windows XP? Why don't we have a list of the price of Windows XP in every country? Why don't we have a list of every patch released for Windows XP? By some extremely broad definition of the word "useful", all of those details might be interesting, but in terms of creating a concise and informative encyclopedia article that provides a decent overviwew of the major aspects of Windows XP, it's far too much detail. Remember, Wikipedia does not replace the internet. Microsoft has a web site that provides an accurate list of all the available localizations of Windows XP, and it is quite fine to link to it and say "Windows XP is available in ___ languages". We don't need the full list here, though... it takes up far too much space. We don't have such lists in any other major operating system article. Also, bear in mind that we can very easily lose Featured Article status if the balance between prose and lists gets thrown too far in the latter direction. -/- Warren 22:11, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

To answer your questions: no reason whatsoever. Such non-existent lists would hurt nothing at all. That's beside the point, though, because those aren't in the article. To answer your point about being useless, I actually had a hard time finding information about what languages XP is available in. It is made in some languages and offers add-ons for others. It wasn't as easy finding it as you claim. That's why the list would come in handy. Further, despite your assertion, there are over 5,000 known human languages, so that list was by no means complete.

...but in terms of creating a concise and informative encyclopedia article that provides a decent overviwew [sic] of the major aspects of Windows XP, it's far too much detail.

Who said (besides you) that it has to be concise? And how do you define "decent"? The only reason why Wikipedia is popular is because it's so comprehensive. It's not popular because it's concise. This isn't a trivial topic. People have written huge books about Windows XP. Because we provide an article about XP that is a little-too long for your taste does not mean that it contains trivial information. Maybe if we were debating on the talk page of "List of Family Guy episodes" I would be less reluctant.

As for your remark about me getting my "head wrapped around the idea that an arbitrary list of countries is not that important," you need to be more respectful to people who are obviously older and more educated than you.--Gnfgb2 (talk) 00:33, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree with Warren, the language list is really not a useful information to this article. Microsoft has the information about Windows XP in many different languages. So, just make a brief sentence about Windows XP is available in many languages with a reference link to it. --BWCNY (talk) 07:09, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

But this is a multilingual project. One reason I liked the list was that there is a note in the Mac OS X article about how few languages it supports. Perhaps I could add a note to the list mentioning that Microsoft is making its product accessible to more people.--Gnfgb2 (talk) 10:43, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

GUI

I've included some more info about XP's compatibility with Windows 9X/Me deskop themes. Pictures included. Nice design of XP, but... In 2001?! If only Microsoft released such a GUI in 1999. For me, Windows 9X and 2000 looked pretty old when they were released. They were gray and the 1990s were colorful, more like XP. Anyway, vista is better generaly. 83.228.121.186 (talk) 16:46, 28 November 2007 (UTC)