Originally Posted by
kanebear
XP is MUCH more stable on the device than 98. 98 would simply blow up at random and quit printing labels, etc. The vendor wants to sell us new hardware which absolutely isn't necessary. Mind you, it works decently well. It's simply that WinFLP works MUCH better. It completely solves the minor-yet-persistent issues we've been having. So, this is more frustration that I can't perfect things only due to MS licensing BS.
It's not available via MSDN *or* TechNet. We have MSDN Universal and TechNet subscriptions. Even at that, those licenses aren't legal to use in production.
So, this is a case where we're at fault as we don't want to replace the equipment in order to get something that'll run XP better. Yet, given that this is fully functional and doesn't NEED to be replaced, I fault MS for not realizing that *many* out in this great wide world have legacy PCs that are perfectly operable save access to a smaller-footprint OS.
In that case, to help deal with your frustration, can I reccomend reading
US vs Microsoft: The Inside Story of the Landmark Case by Joel Brinkley and Steve Lohr, which might make you feel a bit better. It shows Microsoft 'in an interesting light' in the courtroom, and whilst reading it I was laughing out loud at times. It is basically loads of articles that the pair wrote about the case (Netscape) for the NYT and is good reading.