A parallel port zip drive is not "perfectly good."
Tell us WHY? it sounds like you are trolling at this point (no I am not trying to make anyone mad here- it's just frustrating to see points like this with nothing to back them up). Please tell us why you think that a parallel ZIP (or any Parallel port device is "bad). I am open, but to throw out hardware, just because a USB version is available is just plain waistful-especially in this day and age. When it finally dies, I will get (if I decide to) get a USB one. BTW- if anyone is compelled to throw away perfectly working hardware, just send it to me instead of putting it into a landfill.- the only caveat is printers you cant get ink or ribbons for. The only thing I can do with those is pull chips if any.
Any printer worth a damn will have a network port, and if it doesn't and you're that attached to it, you stick a parallel to network print server on it.
I argee to a point with that statement, but some of the best (non-network) printers ever made were parallel, for example, the HP laserjet 4 and most Okidata dot matrix. 30 years later and being used daily, these printers are still going at 100% in a ton of corperations, banks and such, if you need network the HP Lj 5 is still king.But I wasn't talking about networked printers back then.
I read that as "I don't like learning new things, and Microsoft is making me look stupid in front of people by hiding all my icons! Nothing should ever change!" Not the attitude that'll get you anywhere in IT, dude, you're on your way to being one of the useless users who can't find the internet without starting up AOL.
Nope, its all about efficentcy. When a customer is paying by the hour and you can't find something, it is pretty bad. I don't know about you, but I certainly don't have another 20 grand to spend on anothet MCSE course from MS -did that back in the NT4 days (I still say NT 4 was a better OS then XP, but thats a whole other thread for another day)
It's true, Microsoft has already even refused to patch certain issues in XP, and no longer provides licensing information via the Microsoft Partner website for enterprise versions of XP. I imagine downloads will get pulled sooner or later.
Remember, we have been down this same road just 2 years ago with VISTA and we will be down it again as the Corporate customers refuse (again) to upgrade. I am sure if you look back at the threads on VISTA, they will mirror the exact same thing said here today.
BUT, OTOH, I have not, and can not comment on a 64 bit machine (my comments have been solely based on my 32 bit machine). I don't know how Win7 runs on an 4 or 8 core system with 16 gigs of ram. That XP can't do (and I don't think XP-64 was ever truely "finnished"). For that, you need to go to server 2003 for that was the last major upgrade to XP's kernal.