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Windows XP SP1 Support Ends Tuesday
tophee writes "ZDNet reports that support for Windows XP SP1 and SP1a will be ending this coming Tuesday. From the article: 'Microsoft will end support for Windows XP Service Pack 1 and SP1a on Tuesday, leaving people no option but to upgrade to Service Pack 2 if they wish to continue to receive crucial components, including security software.' Colin Barker of ZDNet notes, 'There's little reason for anyone to still be running SP1; SP2 contained a range of improvements to XP's security.'"
around "security".
Dog is my co-pilot.
The problem with Microsoft is that they never separate bug fixes from feature additions. So either you stay vulnerable or you eat more and more of their junk.
They should be forced to strictly separate the two.
Not having to install WGA seems like a good reason...
Of course...gov't agencies and other large entities will get whatever support they pay for...which means they can get SP1 support if SP2 screws up their software.
You can tell I'm an aries because of my ram.
I always figure that end of support meant Microsoft determined they finally got it right, and why mess with perfection? SP2 otoh is still a work in progress...and does it need more work...
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Well, Windows 98 had a much longer life! ... ehm ... operating system?
Was it a better
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
M$ didn't do this to shut down pirates... they know that people will easily get around any protection they can muster. Its so they can work less and concentrate on other things - and to not worry about the people who havn't bothered installing SP2 yet for some reason.
Debian Stable - release cycle on about 18 months and support for up to a year after that. Debian repositories and archives have versions back about ten years - so you should always be able to upgrade. Debian testing and unstable are updated at least daily - stable only when there are security fixes. If you mean "paid for" enterprise Linux then Red Hat is now at 7 years or so support - but stuff changes with the interim updates as far as I can see.
It makes sense as people have had a long time to test their apps against XP SP2 and report bugs to MS. Of course if SP2 breaks anything and you're a paying customer then I can understand why you'd want to stay on SP1 otherwise SP2 offers some advanages.
I think things like WGA are being forced on people whatever version they're running so that's no reason not to upgrade.
When the upgrade is included in the initial purchase cost then this is fine. If they dropped support for XP altogether then that would have been bad but just think of SP2 as an update.
Anyway I hate MS versioning schemes, why service pack why not call it a point release? They also love weird names for their beta software I remember the IE7 beta 2 preview refresh (which was the second pre-release before beta 2)
I gave up on linux when the device drivers for one device needed a version of the kernel no later than X and the device drivers for a different device needed a version of the kernel at least as new as Y, where X was less than Y.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
The support you pay for for Red Hat is only good on their LATEST released version. They do NOT support versions that are 7 years old. Not even close!
Why don't you look for yourself?
The latest 2.4 version of the Linux kernel is: 2.4.33.3 2006-08-31 20:20 UTC
The latest prepatch for the 2.4 Linux kernel tree is: 2.4.34-pre4 2006-10-02 20:45 UTC
Seems pretty recent to me.
http://www.kernel.org/
--
BMO
'There's little reason for anyone to still be running SP1
Except for those people who bought and paid for SP1 and do not have a good fast internet connection to download the hundgreds of MBs of patches released to bring SP1 up to the current 'standard'.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
You can slipstream service packs into the Windows CD.
2 _slipstream.asp shows you how.
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp
They forget of course that not everyone in the world has broadband access. Those on dial-up cannot update to SP2 easily. Here, regional WA, has patchy broadband at the best of times, let alone those who use the internet "just for emails" and don't want to spend a lot to do it.
Common sense is not so common
Ubuntu Dapper was released nigh on ... four months ago. How many distros that were flying high five years ago exist now, in the same state of 'repair'? Yggdrasil? Slackware? Etc? Anyone can 'commit' to anything. I can commit to providing "security updates for Achromatix for the next century!", but it doesn't really count for a lot only four months after release. They're hardly bound to it, even remotely.
However, lots of people are still using W98, so their obsolecence program is not necessarily working all that well in personal user space. I'm sure that in corporate space (where they make their money) it works a treat.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
May the Maths Be with you!
What, are you living in a castle? :-p
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
You have to understand that is not me. But it does describe something like 30% of home PC users (if you consider that a recent news report said DSL/CABLE has a market penetration of fourty-some percent of home PC users, and a good majority of home PC users will be using windows XP.) People like that will not be aware of the existance of 'service packs.' They will not know the value of such things and will not know that microsoft offers to send you SP2 on a disk. They most likely will not be knowledgeabl enough to navigate the MS knowledge base to learn any of those facts. These are the people who can not support them selves(IE: they aren't slashdot readers.)
Jebsis, the world is not slashdot. Every third person in the real world does not contribute to OSS projects. They do not know what the hell Linux is, and they are not even likely to know what Vista is.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
The difference being that your laser printer is of a model no newer than 1998 and your camera is no older than 1999. You chose to buy that camera at a later date, and the fact that it requires a newer OS is simply a matter of course.
The joy of Linux is that two hardware pieces, both from 2005, can have mutually exclusive kernel requirements. And God help you if you want to change your video/network card after initial configuration...drivers for one might require you to upgrade and the other may well fail to install because the version you just installed is too new. Try undoing those changes for a REAL treat.
Maybe it's a forced upgrade plan, but SP2 completely broke Windows Update on my computer. It just cycles through the looping progress bar or the tray icon sits at 33% perpetually. It's a totally legitimate copy of XP, dotted with other minor annoyances that worked perfectly under SP1.
That computer now has Vista on it, so I guess Microsoft won after all.
Vista isn't NT 5.3, it's NT 6 and the designation is deserved. It is not a minor update. Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windo ws_Vista if you don't believe me there's, oh I don't know 50-100 things listed. The ones I find of particular interest are the new DirectX and shader model it brings with it, new audio subsystem, desktop composting engine, volume shadow copy, image based installs, and ReadyBoost/ReadyDrive (flash cache support).
I know that many MS haters would like to believe Vista offers nothing but a shiny UI, but in reality it is a major OS update. You can argue till you are blue in the face if any of those things are going to be useful, but you can't deny that it's big changes.
XP SP2 crippled itself in the name of "Security", by removing access to raw sockets. They caved into Steven Gibson's ranting and raving about how raw socket support was going to kill the internet... too bad there's still 3rd party packet drivers that reenable the functionality.
My karma makes buddha cry.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
A lot. Twice. MS makes a profit on Windows, somewhere about 70%-80% profit in fact. Then you pay again when you have to re-tool your whole shop for the differences found in XP SP2. That is, if you are still running out-dated architectures like MS Windows. Many of us don't pay a thing.
So, dude, just lay off with the faboi stuff and get over it: XP SP2 breaks a lot of software that worked under XP SP1 -- even today, in October of 2006.
I realize some of the MS fabois just don't know better (or don't want to), but many simply get paid to cruise blogs and websites and put in the good word for their masters and throw out the same canards again and again. However, because there are many more among those that read and don't post that haven't figured that tactic out it's necessary address them again and again:
The places that notice little or no effect between XP SP1 and XP SP2 are few. Even the reviews compared the effort of deploying SP2 to more like an OS upgrade than to anything else, let alone a "patch". Several sites I witnessed, could not deploy SP2 because it broke several of their mission critical apps, even on the desktop. In those cases, none of the vendors were quick about getting their over-priced cruft to work with SP2 for MS' over-priced cruft. One even tried to demand payment for development work.
In contrast, look how Debian (and some other systems) still does it. Patches address only specific problems and do not change the functionality of the software. In a production environment, it is essential that nothing changes until you yourself make it change. People pay the money for getting a known item. It will have advantages and disadvantages, but since they are known they can be planned around. Changing the specs means a lot of readjustment, which translates into lower return on investment.
Look at it this way. What if the gear ratio on your car changed occasionally and without advanced warning? Or if, after two years of using it daily, it suddenly turns into a diesel while the tank is full of gasoline? Or if the tires changed from summer, winter, or all-weather while driving? You get the idea. If you buy something to perform in a certain way, you expect it to continue performing that way for the life cycle of the product. It used to be that way even in IT. I guess it still is, with the exeception of MS and its products. I guess that's because so much of the MS business model is based on keeping customers on the treadmill and too busy to look around, let alone hop off.
Businesses like stability and predictability. Debian has those in spades and is attracting more users that way. As a result, the visibility of Debian is increasing and as that happens, an re-awakening of the knowledge that even IT can be reliable and predictable. Reliable and predictable == money.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Microsoft announced the cutoff date for SP1 a long, long, long time ago. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was known before SP2 was even released.
Have fun rushing out SP2. You only have yourself to blame.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
When did it ever start?
I am?
That depends on what the original poster means by Linux. Linux is, and has always been a kernel. If the OP meant distribution and support from a retail vendor, I know Novell still supports SLES 8 and SuSE 8 which were 2.4 based. Redhat still supports their enterprise 2.4 based releases. So, in other words, if you're still on 2.4, you can _still get support_. If you're on a free distribution, you support yourself anyway, which is no big deal.
2.4 is just a kernel. All the rest are applications and they can be mixed and matched at will. Windows people simply can't wrap their brains around that concept, but that doesn't surprise me in the least, because of the way Microsoft ties what should be userland to kernel space.
So I don't know what the big deal is. You windows fanboys amaze me, spouting the FUD "hey, maybe 2.4 isn't as supported as Windows is supported." Bullshit. If I wanted to, I could go grab one of the 1.1 kernels and build something around it. You can't even _buy_ Windows 95, but if I have an application that requires a kernel as small as 1.1.13 was, I can _still use it_.
Doing that is almost the equivalent of going back to DOS (but without the bogosity), but hey, you can't even _buy_ a retail box of MS-DOS these days, can you?
--
BMO
Not really... mainstream support was retired in 2005. They're on extended support - which mean paid support vital security updates only.
If you call MS with a problem with Windows 2000 you're out of luck, unless you have a good credit card.
That's not true. We still receive support on an old version. But you shouldn't just take my word for it - they say themselves "The Red Hat Enterprise Linux product lifecycle provides seven years of support for every release."
What can I say. It works, it works well and most drivers (I've yet to find a broken one) work well thanks to WDM.
I shove a decent firewall on the thing, ditch IE and install my apps of choice and I'm away.
The only thing missing is Cleartype fonts.
Best version of Windows ever.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
I'm an a large site that's running XP SP1 on all of quite a few thousand machines and I'd just like to say that one week notice of termination of support is ridiculous.
p ort.mspx
You're right, one week is totally ridiculous and unnacceptable.
Of course, ehm... they announced this a long time ago -- January, to be precise.
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifean19
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/support/endofsup
Correct second link: Windows XP Service Pack 2: Install With Care
And you won't. What those locations do, and what's wrong with them, is between them and their vendors, not for your leader in Redmond to interfere with. If they worked with XP SP1, why change? A security patch, if that's what it really is, shouldn't affect functionality. If it's not a security patch, but a functionality upgrade, then it's fraudulent to call it a security patch. If undesireable changes in configuration and functionality are pushed out by bundling them with security patches deemd essential, then that's illegal and unethical, though you'll have to ask a lawyer what that's actually called.
However, a quick check of any non-MSN search engine will bring up lots of articles about the troubles caused by XP SP2.
Given the problems SP2 has had with third party (and even MS' own) apps as well as falling on its face security-wise, it would appear that SP2 is more about rolling out unpopular configuration and functionality changes under the guise of "security". After most customers, politicians and even courts will simply roll over and close their eyes when the magic word, "security", is mentioned.
Like I said, get over it. And while you're at it, get out of the way. Like one of the reviewers says, "Unfortunately, Windows remains a quite dangerous system to connect to the Internet, and users are still very much on their own in terms of security solutions."
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Sure those articles are from two years ago. So, what? The apps are already bought and paid for. They're older than two years. They didn't change. They don't need to change. Why should businesses and everyone else keep chasing MS' moving goals posts?
I'm glad you pointed out that Linux distros are a secure option and now easy to use. However, you miss the point that these organiszations and businesses are locked into NT 5 and 5.1 (pre SP2). If they can't make the transition easily to SP2, it'll be more of a transition to move to BSD, Linux or whatever else. However, in the medium and long term it may be very well worth it.
Again, so what? The fact that no system is perfect doesn't not mean that all systems are equal. The heart of the issue there is about mitigating risks. Some architectures are designed with a multi-user, networked environment in mind, others are designed for no network and one app/user at a time.
I've done that before -- in 2002, since you mention the year. It was free of critical security flaws for over six months. Just to re-iterate, patches are not the same as updates. Yes, updating to a different version will cause trouble and if you do that in a production environment without first testing, you can end up having you ass handed to you. However, patches are not updates. Patches fix a problem with an existing version. Period. Who knows? That's irrelevant. The posts above are about patching not updating. Don't get confused about the two. If you want to start a new thread about updating, go ahead. But the original point is that instead of issuing a clean patch that fixes a specific problem, MS lumps several together and then piggybacks unrelated changes in functionality to essential patches in order to force the acceptance of the changes to functionality. That makes hell for MS' customers.Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.