Windows 7 is simply superior to Windows XP. XP was a good solid OS but it is now very long in the tooth. No reason not to upgrade unless your computer is as old as XP IMO.

2TB+ HDDs wave hello. SSDs also wish for their trim.
And if I need 15 mins to compile JA2 with my current hardware but only 5 if I upgrade, that's not "Chasing the rainbow", that is a performance increase. You know, like turning off an antivirus.

Edit: Oh, and turning off the AV isn't the same as turning of the AC in the car. It's more like punching holes in the chassis to make the car lighter. Can be done if you know what you are doing, can cause troubles if you don't (or if you are overconfident). And if you surf the web as super user all the time (aka UAC off), you are overconfident.

I think that the argument is regarding upgrading old hardware from XP. For new hardware, especially state of the art, it really doesn't make much sense to install an old OS on it.

For old PC's I agree that staying with XP is okay, if it's a conscious choice. If you can't spare the money for a hardware upgrade then buying a new Windows version might be too much too, especially if you have old programs which need a new version to run on a newer OS. That said, in my experience Windows 7 with ReadyBoost runs better than XP in memory limited situations, and I imagine Windows 8 is even better in this respect.

If the argument is that a working machine will keep working, the counter argument is time needed to do tasks.
If the argument is that you don't need to upgrade to newer OS to take advantage of hardware, because the old one will continue to function, the ?DDs wave hello.

Other than that I agree that for a new machine XP shouldn't be used and that if you are going to get a new OS, both 7 and 8 are solid choices. If you have a choice, pick whatever suits you better. If the OS comes pre-installed, keep the one you are given.

That was the argument, but you're ignoring the rest of that paragraph. Yes, you can upgrade everything and it will speed up "tasks", but if you don't have a lot of money and these tasks aren't making you money, then the enjoyment you get out of saving time on tasks (or other benefits of new hardware / OS) should be balanced against other uses of that money.

Edit: Even if talking just about entertainment, the $100 you spend on a new OS can buy you a pretty decently specced tablet these days like this one.

True, coffee hasn't kicked in yet. Apologies then.

The easiest way is taking the HDD away, sweep a magnet several times and voilá. When you put the HDD back in place, you will have a flawless XP.

Well, UAC is useless crap. "Do you want to do what you told me you wanted to do?" *YES* "Are you sure?" *YES* "100%?" *YES* "I don't think you know what you're doing. Access denied, insufficient permissions."

You can get free protection that's as good/better than paid protection, but no matter what you use common sense or the lack thereof will determine if you get constant infections or not. In my case it's mostly ad/tracking cookies that I had to block from news sites, or behaviors from safe programs that could be construed as dangerous. No serious bugs though. :)

you do realize that there is only one prompt for action with uac? It doesn't behave the way you described. I share the sentiment that Microsoft is a crap company but let's not overdo, ok? ;)
Also, with new methods and vectors of infection unfortunately you can't rely only on common sense. I agree that the free protection like AVG or similar is enough for the common user but as soon as you start sticking usb sticks and visiting sites you can be sure free variant won't detect everything :)

sudo just went in a corner to cry. I wonder why?

Of course, but it's not as intuitive as something like Comodo's Defense+ where you can set behaviors and allowed programs. That got annoying fast too though, particularly when forgetting to set it to training mode. :P

Yeah, I have no need for USB sticks really so haven't come across other people's mistakes. But I can see how that would effect families, friends, etc.

I just don't like Microsoft's implementation of it. Don't cry little ones. ;>

You mean the "Click yes to continue" instead of the "Type password to continue" one? Ok...

Intuitive as in "you can understand how to use it quickly" or "good user inteface"? I don't see a problem with OS asking you to give permission to an application to make changes to it. I'd call that more intuitive than a complex behavior list :)

That's a major problem, not all users are able to protect themselves and some businesses rely on people bringing their own USB sticks with projects and material. Combine that with users that don't want to think about risk and how to protect themselves and you have a winning combo :D

so you'd like to do everything in terminal? :)

This shouldn't be much of a concern these days; Windows XP and Vista received an update in 2011 to ignore USB autorun entries (Windows 7 onwards have this built in), so any adequately updated system should be inherently immune unless you manually run the malware (which is often marked as hidden or system anyway).