Most Netbooks Still Run on Windows XP

Don’t lay the wreath yet on Windows XP. While Microsoft has been constantly posting obituaries on its best-selling OS, PC makers are stubbornly reviving the respected program. At the forefront of the campaign to keep Redmond from euthanizing XP are Acer and HP.

Both PC makers are steadily flooding the market with netbooks. In case you have little or no idea what those contraptions are, netbooks are ultra-portable PCs that are rivaling laptops for space in people’s backpacks. They are fast becoming the mobile PC of choice because of their size, weight, and price tag.

Intel Atom

Most netbooks are powered by the Intel Atom processor. This chip was primarily designed to be the heart and soul of mobile devices, such as smart phones, and portable PCs that are smaller than laptops. It’s not as powerful as its multi-core counterparts, but the Atom can let you do your office chores without much hiccups.

So what do netbooks and its processor have to do with Windows XP’s survival? Pose this query to every computer geek or PC shop salesman and they’ll give you one unified answer – “a lot!”

Limited Specs

Netbooks mainly run on XP since Vista is too heavy for Atom to carry. Atom’s strength and capacity is only half of a Pentium M’s. Adding to the mini laptop’s disability is its limited specs. Most netbooks have only 1GB of RAM. Run Vista on that amount of memory and you’ll know what Alzheimer’s disease means.

As long as netbook specs don’t jump beyond the current bar, this mini PC will continue and remain to be powered by Windows XP because it’s the only viable OS for its limited capability. So don’t think that having a machine that’s bundled with XP will give you a Back-to-the-Future experience. As far as this family of computers is concerned, XP is still the way to the future.