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The Death of Windows XP
bsk_cw writes "Although many Windows users intend to hold onto their copies of XP until it is pried from their cold, dead fingers, Microsoft fully intends to phase out the OS in favor of Vista. If you're unwilling to move to one of the alternatives, and really don't like Vista, the least you can do is be aware of what's in store. David DeJean offers a rundown on Microsoft's timeline for Windows XP, why the company does things that way, and what you can do about it."
I think Vista will be fine for most people once powerful hardware becomes more common. People I know who have it pre-loaded on their new laptops seem to be okay with it.
At least I can generate cryptographically secure pseudorandom numbers.. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/12/1528211
Unless MS is really going to *sell* users on Vista, trying to force them off XP is going to represent an opportunity for someone else, among them:
(1) Microsoft Systems shops that have the ability to provide support or
(2) Competition that's open source ("Don't like being moved off your platform when your *vendor* decides it's time, not when you decide it's time? When you have the source, you can maintain or hire someone to maintain it as long as the cost is worth it to you.")
Tweet, tweet.
By the time it's available everyone will have switch to a Linux based OS. Welcome to the community windows users. You'll find the dark side a lot more friendly than Microsoft makes it seem.
Oddly enough, quite a few people still have Windows 98 running (I have a Win98 machine in my basement doing my CDEX ripping).
When Microsoft turns off the activation servers, that basically REALLY means the end of WinXP... or is there a chance, any chance, that Microsoft will release a super-secret "unlock all" patch in 2014 that will allow XP to be activated. I am pretty sure the answer is NO, but I can still hope.
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
I was at Borders the other day and saw their computers booting up Windows 98 ;-)
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Nope, Windows 2000 native on Opterons and Athlon64s, with a variety of Nvidia video cards, works fine and runs plenty fast. There is no malware of any kind. Seriously, I've audited the crap out of everything, it's clean. (Auditing in this case means: Hard drives physically removed and attached to non-networked machines with fresh OS installs, run the latest malware scanners from the CDs. Always comes up clean.) The Windows machines are behind Linux firewalls and basically get nothing installed beyond a few commercial 2000-era applications, plus the latest Firefox.
I'm still running Windows 2000 professional and have no desire whatsoever to migrate to anything. I'm 25 and hardly ever play games anymore and mainly use my system for fairly mundane things like email, finances, sound recording, porn lol, and burning cds/dvds. With a gig of ram and a 2.2ghz amd processor my system is very fast when running a minimalist windows 2000 setup as my system only uses 128megs of ram for base processes. My system never freezes or locks up unless I'm playing some buggy game like Half Life 2: episode 1 or 2. In terms of security I use truecrypt to encrypt a partition with all my sensitive data. It's annoying that truecrypt does not support system partition encryption for windows 2000 but I found a workaround by placing all of my sensitive data on a non-system partition including my firefox and thunderbird profiles. I have a fast backup routine using ghost that only takes me 15 minutes to back up my system. I don't really need anything else as long as programs like firefox and thunderbird continue to be updated for win2k systems which I don't see why they won't. I went through a linux phase where I ran red hat, then slackware, then debian. It was interesting and fun as a kid but my career does not really involve computers so the time consuming tinkering that came with running a linux system had to go. So far it seems only games utilizing the newest version of directx are out of reach by running windows 2000. As long as I can run the newest versions of popular programs like skype, firebird, thunderbird, open office, I don't see myself changing until my hardware dies and I can't purchase equivalent hardware to replace it but I don't foresee that happening for at least another 5 years.
You know who benefits from this? Apple. Expect Apple to really crank up the "move to the Mac" ads.
Vista's reputation is justifiably bad, and I'm never buying a copy. If I suddenly need a new Wintel machine, there's always someone like tigerdirect that has overstocked machines with XP pre-installed, and they'll probably be selling them for a year after XP is pulled from the shelves. But I think MS is only going to cause customers to truly hate their guts for this. They'd be smarter to allow XP sales until Windows 7 is ready (assuming they don't fuck that up.... a big if).
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I'm not sure the issue is that people with XP are unwilling to fund Microsoft. The issue from where I'm standing is two-fold: first, XP works. It's a fairly stable system, and one that people have been using for the past *seven* years. Second, everybody has "heard" that Vista is terrible. My dad, not a techie by any stretch of the imagination, simply refuses to use it. Why? Well, it's not because of first-hand experience -- it's because a few of his co-workers "heard" that it was a terrible OS. More tech-oriented people are more resistant because we don't really see the advantage of switching over to a new OS when the old one works just fine. The general populace is not as savvy as you might think. They're not as concerned about Microsoft's monopoly as they are about spending an extra couple of hundred dollars to upgrade to a new OS that they've "heard" is not so great.
Besides, their business model is just fine. The product that they're selling, on the other hand, has a terrible reputation - deserved or not. I've used Vista, but I haven't put any real time into it, and I'm completely unwilling to do so until... well, I suppose until I have a final-patched Windows XP SP3 system that's been hacked because of an unfixed security hole. Let's see what happens in two years.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
It's really about that easy. Remember Office 07? I repair comps privately and here's a common conversation I have with people:
"Can I get Microsoft Office on the new computer?"
"Well yet but it's like $300 extra or something and it's pretty awful. It's not very reverse compatible with any other versions either"
"Oh, that stinks."
"I could put Open Office on it. It's pretty much identical but without all the stupid new features and it's free and compatible with Office."
"Okay!"
And now a LOT of people have Open Office and like it. Same with Vista. If they try and force it on everyone, they'll replace an OS that most people actually like with one they don't. That's super idiotic when it comes to business practices. That's like McDonalds saying from now on, they're only going to serve food that tastes like crap. But Microsoft thinks they can do whatever they want cuz they still think they won the OS wars permanently like 10 years ago and could shoot puppies in a superbowl ad and still be the leading OS maker. And the worst part is, they won't learn their lesson. They'll just take even worse, more idiotic steps to force Windows on people as they start losing their market share to Linux (cuz nobody in their right mind would buy a mac with no Windows install as a main comp to do everything).
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
I started working with Ubuntu pretty seriously a couple of years ago, and at this point I can say that Ubuntu is my OS of first choice, and I have no plans to adopt Vista. Ever.
I may get forced in the Vista direction at some point, and I'm pretty sure that at some point I'll be forced to at least support it, but so far I've been able to pretend it isn't there and just hope for it to go away. My company is the main locus of such possible force, but they are so far mostly avoiding Vista. Unfortunately the in-house Linux that they prefer is Red Hat... It might be more secure, but I feel Ubuntu is much closer to being ready for the masses to work with.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
First I'd like to preface by saying if you LOVE Vista and you truly believe it's better than WindowsXP, then good for you. You are a minority according to everything I've heard and seen. (Does anyone have any studies, polls or surveys backing up either position?)
This is no classic example of market demand guiding any invisible hand to deliver. People want it, Microsoft says "too bad!"
Would anyone care to speculate for logical reasons why Microsoft would take this approach? I'm really out of ideas on this matter. Most people can agree that they dislike the idea... even people who LOVE Vista can't actually approve of Microsoft forcing people out of something they like can they? (Don't answer that, I know they can...)
So why are they doing this?
This is already happening at my (tech) company. Our "LAN" department knows that XP's support with expire, and if they don't start replacing them now they will have a large userbase with no code-support.
Developers and sysadmins were always allowed to run linux. Now anyone else can via a supported corporate image.
if you don't want linux (Sales, Product Managers, etc) you now get a MacOSX laptop or desktop.
This has impacted other Software vendors, Our ticketing system with a windows client (dev/sysadmins rdesktopped in to use) got replaced with a cross platform solution.
I think in 2 years we will be windows free, previously 60-75% of the employees were windows users. The reasons for this was the LAN department hates MacOSX less than Vista, and people heard all the buzz about Macs and were willing to give it a shot.
You know, your OpenOffice example is pretty valid.
Several times, people have asked me "Can you get me Office?" I tell them they have a few choices. Pay for it (nope). Get a hacked copy (maybe). Download the perfectly free version that does just about everything you want (yes).
A few people have been bent on "I HAVE TO HAVE MICROSOFT OFFICE", but they're the exception. On shared machines, a few didn't even realize the difference until I pointed it out.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
The key is to install FireFox, never use Internet Explorer or any of the apps that use it (like Outlook), and don't ever expose it directly to the Internet. (The one time I did, it only took an hour or so to get clobbered by the Welchia worm.)
My wife runs XP, but mainly because that's what came on her laptop. The only real advantage I see to XP is the fast user switching. But she's never going to be a Vista user: she just bought an iMac, to run Final Cut on for her video artwork.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Wonder how many tons of green house gas will be emitted as a result of this decision? Minimal hardware configs:
Vista - 1 GHz CPU, 1 GB RAM, DirectX9 graphics ~ 300 Watts
XP - 233 MHz CPU, 128 MB RAM, SuperVGA graphics ~ 100 Watts
W2K - 133 MHz CPU, 64 MB RAM, VGA graphics ~ 60 Watts
Linux - 386 CPU, 16 MB RAM, VGA graphics ~ 30 Watts
Balmer claims Windows will hit and installed base of 1 billion this year. Assuming half the Windows PC are turned on at any given moment, this means that XP => Vista will consume an additional 0.5 * 1e9 * 200 Watts => 100 gigawatts of power. By comparison, the Three Gorges Dam in China is expected to produce 12 gigawatts, the largest nuclear plant (Kashiwazaki-Kariwa in Japan) produces 8.2 gigawatts and the sum of all window power worldwide is estimated to be 94 gigawatts. So Microsoft phasing our XP is going to consume as much energy as all of the wind power generated worldwide.
Statesman
You don't need use the same version of linux distro for five years. You just upgrade it as new versions are released into stable. It works for most distroes. Security fixes are issued once a month for the common user. But for the scumbags at RIAA/MPAA they fix flaws right away.
Microsoft isn't about the user, it is about the profit.
One could say we in the free software business are our own enemies. We shoot ourselves in the feet all the time. Imagine...after all this time, with the [free] availability of specs of every kind, there is no decent ODF application beyond OpenOffice.org...which at version 2.4, still sucks bigtime by the way! Do not think I blindly support KDE because KDE's KOffice is a joke!
By the way, some author outlines ways for that other environment to improve.
This will be a great opportunity for Apple IF they stop requiring consumers to purchase a very expensive dongle in order to run their OS.
The latest version of OS-X can be had for approximately $100. This OS is, by most accounts, far superior to Vista. But in order to run it, you have to purchase a dongle from Apple.
Apple's cheapest dongle is close to $1000. How can it be so expensive? Because they won't sell you a dongle by itself you see. They'll only sell you a dongle when it is attached to their branded hardware. This hardware is not substantially different from that of any other standard PC, but it is the only hardware that includes the magic dongle. This gives Apple a monopoly...though not the kind they derive any actual benefit from. This monopoly doesn't help them dominate the market, but instead only serves to exclude them from it.
The result? Microsoft continues to win and Apple continues to lose.
No other outcome is possible when Apple forfeits the game.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I completely agree. Thank You!
I ran Windows 2000 Advanced Sever as a workstation until sometime between XP SP1 and XP SP2. At least until I was certain that all the "crap" could be made to nearly exactly look and function like Windows 2000 before the move to XP (and it was a downgrade then). I intend on looking into 'properly obtaining' a copy of Server 2008 to set up a workstation. Good idea.
As much fun as it is to bash Vista for being the absolute bastard child of 10,000+ programmer fathers over at mother Microsoft, I have one serious question.
WHY is there no Windows 2000 clone GUI capability for Vista built in? It makes NO sense.
I cannot believe Microsoft is this stupid, this has to be ON PURPOSE? What's the quote? : "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice."
Make a downloadable Win2k for Vista GUI theme kit. Hell, I'd keep it on a pen drive in my pocket (with everything else).
How do they expect to build on something that has been in development since Win95, the 2000 style GUI, and then make Vista as alien as it is?
Even OSX is more consistent to OS9 then Vista to its predecessor.
Not seeking any flame war here, but the crappy performance on otherwise modern fast hardware, OCD level DRM schemes, and the fundamental inability to copy files properly without a service pack aside, WHY NOT INCLUDE THE WIN2000 THEME? (I'd better not get started on what Microsoft did killing hardware level access for sound hopefully Open AL will mature soon...)
I would consider using Vista, despite its sloth, gluttony, and inferiority, more if I could make it look like Win2k. I deal with thousands of files in folders, I want a list view WITH file extensions. NOTHING MORE. Just like Win2k gave (when set to list view). I want a list view for control panel. Stop making up learn terms like Device Manager and then rename it to some thing even more meaningless. It's almost as bad, no actually it's worse, then the difference between the UT2k4 menus and the UT3 menus (for you FPS gamers out there).
Does someone know of a GUI replacement application for Vista which will transform Windows Vista versions (any of them) into something at least 95% the look and snappy minimalist feel of Windows 2000?
I would consider OSX if I could build my own Intel-Based PC with HARDWARE I CHOOSE, not the Steve Jobs approved Mork from Ort chair-matching look/feel of Macs. Disclaimer: Yes, I have used both Vista and OSX. (Work)
When Microsoft moved from 2000 to the spyware platform (online registration first, then what?) of XP, I decided not to move with it. I never found a reason that really forced me to upgrade. Because I decided to move to Linux, and put the W2K box in a closet running a VNC server. I hardly ever need to fire up the W2K machine at all.
These Microsoft "up"-grades pushed me to using Linux full time. I bet that I'm far from alone.
--
make install -not war
EQ is the only thing holding me to Windows now.
Openoffice 2.4 has added the features I wanted and seems to mangle my existing huge documents very little so that I can patch them in a few hours (these are 150 page documents with hundreds of pictures). The smaller documents I only need to change the table of contents and indices column count.
P2P- Azureus.
Sound- Audacity.
Graphics-- still an issue- but Draw looks decent. I need a good pixel editor tho.
Browsing-- Firefox.
Just do not see the point in upgrading again and paying money again. I guess I'll get some $399 PC with Vista or Windows7 but no more $1899 (heck last XP pc was only $1199).
Focusing my dollars on retirement, boardgames, my house--- do not see putting out $3k for a computer each year like I used to.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
As someone who has had Linux fantasies I would agree. I started out on OS9 then it lost support. I considered OSX but the slow down and the cost put me off. I ended up with a bargain XP SP2 machine and when I got a new Vista Laptop I downgraded to XP. One of the main reasons was the need for Photoshop. The most unfortunate fact of the monopolies is CMYK support. If not for that one thing...
But, my need for Photoshop will not probably continue much longer. Most of the stuff that I really want has support on Linux.
So, stopping XP support will have the effect of pushing me to take the step that I hesitated to take in the past. It's really the only alternative for people, like myself, who are not wealthy, well... okay. just barely middle class and unfortunately idealistic, somewhat over-educated and a little bit under-employed.
So, yes, I agree. When XP ends I think it will create an incentive for working class people to look at Linux as an alternative. I was already looking at Linux because of my personal beliefs and the fact that I don't find it difficult to change OSs. I also used Linux in internet cafes in europe and for normal day to day use it was just as transparent and intuitive as Windows of or Mac.
In the end I hope that if XP support ends that the Entertainment/Communcications Industry will be forced to look at Open Source Alternatives.
XP will live forever . It may not be supported with service packs, but you will still be able to use it, and purchase it.
:)
http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/default.aspx
XP licenses can be transferred indefinitely. You don't have to ever buy another XP license as long as you are getting rid of the older machine. As for drivers, there will be drivers for XP for at least another 10 years. I can still download Windows 2000 drivers; it's a safe bet there will be Windows XP drivers for quite a long time.
I also find it ironic that XP is about to be "dead" and certain manufacturers still don't have XP 64-bit driver support.
Activation has to be provided by Microsoft for as long as their are stickers out in the "wild". There are no contractual provisions for Microsoft to NOT provide activation. At some point, Microsoft may elect to just allow any request to be activated. Those service centers which run 24/7 giving out activation codes when too many activations have been performed on the license don't run cheap. There is no alternative however. To not provide activation denies a customer the ability to run the operating system that they paid for.
Unless I am really clueless, which is possible since I do have some pretty spectacular "DUH" moments, the EULA does not provide a time frame or conditions for them to discontinue activation.
It will be even worse in corporations, since there is a pretty good rebellion going against Vista right now in the workplaces. That is just what I can see, I am not trying to start a war here
My point though is that corporations are even more aware, and more sophisticated about licenses, COA's , CALS, TS CALS, etc. and are far more likely to transfer a XP license from an older machine to a newer machine rather then purchase a newer OS like Vista.
So no, XP is not going to die. Far from it. This is just another article stirring up blogs like rocks hitting a wasp's nest.
The only guy left that's Windows only is about to get transferred. Windows only geeks aren't looking attractive when there are so many flexible people in the labor pool. It turns out the Linux geeks make better Windows geeks because they can think clearly, remember stuff and in general have better process.
I imagine in the next few years committed Windows only geeks might get hard to find, outside of the "fries with that?" subset at least.
Anyway, I see this happen with Windows 98SE quite a bit. Some old machines run perfectly well; for example, a 233MMX system with 128MB RAM with plenty of longevity cannot run Vista, let alone XP SP2. When this machine is relegated to nothing more than print server, POS, or work which would not take it onto the Internet, I will see Windows 98SE installed with a hacked or "borrowed" key, and it runs perfectly and does everything the user needs. And no body gives it a second look because Windows 98SE is perceived as perfectly functional in the context of what the user wants out of it. More staunch security advocates would prefer to pirate Windows 2000 on a such a box, and again the perception of the situation is dead-on. But whichever gets used, updates are no problem since the unofficial Windows 98SE Service Pack is available, as well as several similar post-SP4 Roll-up cluster updates for 2000.
Just a thought, my first Windows XP machine back at release was a 233MMX with 192MB RAM, and it ran surprisingly well. Those specs would not cut it today.
The same will happen with Windows XP once it leaves the market place. Although then it will not be as easy to "borrow" a Windows XP key since it requires online activation. Then an installer will have to hack the activation but, from what I understand, this is a trivial process. SP3 might change the game a little, but negligibly.
And talking about old operating systems, I took a moment this weekend to have a laugh while I was working on my internal network server upgrading the tape drive. It is an AMD K6-III/400 with 128MB RAM and 20GB IDE drive, and provides DNS, DHCP, and outbound SMTP for my home network. I built this as a study in small network management and it became permanent after I just could not kill the bugger, even with the now defunct experimentation installs of Apache and MySQL. Here is the startup banner:
Sun Microsystems Inc. SunOS 5.8 Generic February 2000
Eight years later and still rockin' strong. And I can still get cluster patches from Sun. Had I invested money in this box, I would definitely feel I saw a return on the investment over the past eight years, and I certainly would not feel like I am getting monkey-fondled to have to retire the hardware in favor of a new operating system (I drool over Solaris 10 x64.)
Not like a machine which is only two to three years old and have to be massively over-hauled or replaced just to run Vista.
I think I have said this before on
Vista feels like Microsoft just told us to go phuq ourselves.
I am in the process of completing my migration to Windows XP x64 now that I have a 64-bit capable dual-core machine. I love it. Every piece of hardware has a driver and it is peppy and responsive, seemingly more so than XP 32-bit. I believe we should have been at 64-bit computing a decade ago, but Intel has kept beating the 25 year-old 32-bit horse well beyond death. Given both, I take a moment to ponder on how Vista x64 performance compares to Vista 32-bit, and think that perhaps I can give it a try sometime.
Of course, all things considered, Vista is still the desktop equivalent of the phone tree, and still frustrating to navigate and get things done. I hope for better from Windows 7.
PITA. PAIN in THE ASS. You read me. First I wanted to install an application. I tryed to fudge with the network things to get it work with my german t-online dsl. Did not work. After roughly 10-12 hours of googling, trying, rebooting, I gave up. So I used my XP PC tzo download .tar and / or .deb files. Then with an USB transmit it to the Ubuntu PC. First application was cdemu. I tryed the .deb did not work. Googled. Oh so the vhsa whatever is not working has to enter cryptic command to restart it, then restart a daemon. Did nbot work. Then somebody commented in a CDEMU forum to just do a freaking mount -o whatever with the ISO. THAT did work. Then I tryed to install the application on the ISO. Spent hours. Did not work. Then finally found some post hinting that the app is not supported in any new kernel stuff (I guess I can give that in being my fault for not googling first to see if the app I got was supported or not). So I started installing an alternative instead. Have to compile it... Right now I am trying to find out why there seems to be some problem with it, some dependency with libgcc whatever. I left it for next week end. I thought, of playing a few of my oldies. I have on my XP box DOSBOX. Installed it worked like a charm without fudging anything. But with ubuntu .... Could not get-apt (remember : no network, meaning I am screwed). Turn out after installing a few app, that i have NO FREAKING MIDI SOUND! WTF ! I am now in the process of downloading timidity and some freepats.
I might be a rare bird to install some of those app, but plain freaking dosbox was runnning out of the box in windows, and I have to install and download third party stuff in ubuntu. Argue as much as you wish, but I am nowhere to recommend ubuntu to anybody without a lot of time and knowledge.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Oh yea? I'm still running Windows 3.0 using Lynx to surf the web so take THAT!
Horns are really just a broken halo.
So they disable the internet activation, and make the telephone activation an expensive call, thus recouping the costs.
There's their privilege to disable the Internet-based registration. Heck, there is their privilege to disable _your_ Internet connection. Maybe in 2014, the Windows IP stack stops working (hmm, that's one way to stop the botnets...)
"Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
Company I used to work for is STILL shipping product based on DOS 6.1x! Granted this is an embedded use of the OS in a turnkey system. I think they bought the rights to ship as many copies as they wanted. (From IBM not M$).
Mcafee disagrees.
AVG disagrees.
Or... if you don't want those, you can just make a "live cd" using any of the countless utilities out there for it.
Or if you're feeling crazy, toss vmware onto a knoppix dvd and boot windows from either an image on the dvd or boot it straight from the drive, isolated in vmware. I really don't mean to nitpick. I fully agree running an Antivirus on a compromised system is definitely not to be trusted. Even if the virus doesn't interfere or play with the results, Windows probably won't let you clean it if it is in memory. Symantec disagrees Says it doesn't support NTFS. Mcafee disagrees. Says it doesn't support NTFS. AVG disagrees. Runs Windows PE (Pre-installation Environment?). I assume this means it'll do NTFS, but I can't say anything here.
I remember a few years back (pre-Windows 98) a bunch of friends and I had a boot sector virus. I don't recall what it was called, but it transmitted itself by floppy disk. If you simply accessed the disk you became infected. We all had AV software, even if it wasn't 100% up to date, it was harder to do since none of us had the internet at the time.
We knew about the virus, but we couldn't do a damn thing about it because when we had AV software to clean it, it would not go away since it was already in memory!
The fix was when one went out an bought a new copy of McAfee which included a system boot floppy to scan at boot time. Cleaned it up in a jiffy. Passed this around (with the write protect tab switched to On) to clean up. Once we had it off the hard disk, cleaning the infected floppies was done by the resident scanner whenever it encountered one.
Check out
http://thedailywtf.com/
They have a whole section on screen captures.