Celebrating The Arrival Of Windows 7... By Reinstalling XP

It has been eight long years since the arrival of Windows XP. It was a dramatic improvement over Windows 95 and I vividly remember installing it within days of release. In fact, XP went on to become the most popular operating system in the world with 66.2% market share in August 2009 (despite the introduction of Windows Vista several years ago).

Fast forward to last weekend.

I found myself standing in my favorite independent computer store fondling a copy of Windows 7, but couldn't bring myself to take it home. $120 is a lot of money, especially when my office shelf is littered with countless abandoned versions of Windows dating back to the paleolithic era.

So I bought a shiny new 500 GB hard drive instead. It cost a mere $49 and offered much needed room for my ever-growing media collection.

To celebrate my sudden change of heart, I held a low key Windows XP relaunch party yesterday afternoon. Four hours and sixteen glorious reboots later, my new drive held a brand new install of Windows XP. My machine was snappier than it had been since 2007. Best of all, I still have $70 in my pocket to squander on something far cooler than an operating system.

Besides, this is Retro Thing. The occasional leaky boiler and stripped gear is to be expected around here.