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."

Comments

Re:XP?

[Brian Gordon]

At least I can generate cryptographically secure pseudorandom numbers.. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/12/1528211

Re:Well...

[AdamReyher]

My laptop actually is slower with a standard Ubuntu install than with Vista...

What about activation servers?

[thomasdz]

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.

Re:XP?

[Joe the Lesser]

I was at Borders the other day and saw their computers booting up Windows 98 ;-)

Re:It's nice to share.

[Lost Race]

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.

Unexpected Benefits

[DesScorp]

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).

Re:Nature of an OS

[Txiasaeia]

I know it's cliche, and people have been spouting it for a over a decade, but I suspect that the general populace has come to a point where they can see that dollars and cents are in favor of not being tied to a corporation that makes money by selling solutions for the same problems over and over again.

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.

Re:Satisfying

[Rev. DeFiLEZ]

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.

I am too - seriously!

[MichaelCrawford]

I was very slow to move from NT4, because Win2k was kinda half baked in its first release (though not as bad as Vista). But I've always had good results starting with Service Pack 2.

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.

Put all your efforts behind KDE

[bogaboga]

This is one more reason why all those that know how to code should put all their efforts behind KDE and its latest flagship product based on QT4. I have nothing against the other desktop environment but its association with Mono and Microsoft's .NET platform makes me very nervous. We already have voices of descent and a timeline on this issue.

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.

Re:Satisfying

[RodgerDodger]

You are kidding, right?

1.2 Mandatory Activation. The license rights granted under this EULA are
limited to the first thirty (30) days after you first install the Software unless you
supply information required to activate your licensed copy in the manner described
during the setup sequence of the Software. You can activate the Software through the
use of the Internet or telephone; toll charges may apply.

So they disable the internet activation, and make the telephone activation an expensive call, thus recouping the costs.

7. ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE/SERVICES. This EULA applies to updates, supplements,
add-on components, product support services, or Internet-based services components, of the
Software that you may obtain from Microsoft after the date you obtain your initial copy of the
Software, unless you accept updated terms or another agreement governs. Microsoft reserves
the right to discontinue any Internet-based services provided to you or made available to you
through the use of the Software.

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...)