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

Satisfying

[JWSmythe]

    This will be very satisfying. I've had so many people tell me they absolutely HATE Vista, but they're stuck with it when they bought their new computer. They frequently ask me to put XP on, no matter what it takes (buy it, hack it, put their mothers key on).

    Killing XP off finally, while I love the idea of killing Windows will really hurt Microsoft. Since people hate Vista so much, they'll start being more open to other options.

    Maybe it'll mean friends and family will be asking me to do more Linux installs. I like those better anyways, they go a lot faster and they don't involve 2 hours of install plus 2 days of Windows Updates.

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.

Re:Satisfying

[EdIII]

"disabling activation"

Are you serious?

You should think about that for a moment. Then think about a little bit more, and then you might realize how astronomically stupid of a statement that is. (Not you, just Microsoft attempting to do it).

Those stickers that are on the sides of computers, or in my case on a piece of paper, are worth 175$ approx. right now. The EULA forces Microsoft to provide activation FOREVER.

That's right. FOREVER. If they don't provide you with a activation key to accomplish an installation, they are in default of their contractual agreement. That's the problem with activation. A customer has purchased the right to use that software for an indefinite amount of time. It is the software developers responsibility to provide the activation service for as long as their customers EXIST.

Pain in the Ass huh? Well that's what they get for being Big Brother. Big Brother has to always be there to hold your hand and make sure you are doing the right thing. It's like kids. It's a lifelong job, with no end in sight, except DEATH. For any company that uses activation as a protection mechanism, there are costs associated with it. The only way out is to file bankruptcy to protect them from pissed off customers who cannot activate anymore.

Of course, there is always the option of running a pirated copy that bypasses activation. Nothing wrong with that, especially since you still possess the Certificate of Authenticity.

I have always felt there should be a congressional investigation into Microsoft's practices with bundling software. I feel it should be illegal to do so, without methods in place to obtain rebates through the mail. Why? That sticker.
 
 

4. TRANSFER--Internal. You may move the Product to a different Workstation Computer. After the transfer, you must completely remove the Product from the former Workstation Computer.

You have the right from the EULA agreement to transfer that product FOREVER. Without Limitations Even.

Furthermore, Microsoft made no provisions in the EULA, which "constitutes the entire agreement", to actually stop providing the activation services. If they did you would be well within your rights to sue them.

Check out this link: http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/default.aspx

Downgrade

[Jedi Binglebop]

I have Vista installed on my PC. When I bought a new hard drive, I found out that I could not simply activate Vista on my PC (with all the same hardware as before, except the drive itself). I reluctantly called Microsoft support, who asked me for a 25 character (from memory) code, and then read me out another 25 character code which I had to enter to activate Vista.

Wow. Just for changing my hard drive.

I fully intend to downgrade to XP in the near future.

-JB

Security Fixes until 2014

[Pausanias]

There's plenty of good reasons to bash microsoft; this isn't one of them.

---Dedicated Ubuntu user

Nature of an OS

[explosivejared]

This incipient consumer rebellion is a relatively new phenomenon, even in the short history of PCs. For most of the '90s, Microsoft couldn't bring out new products fast enough to satisfy customers.

This is sort of empirical proof, to me at least, for what I have long thought, and I'm sure a lot around here thought as well. The days of an OS revolutionizing or vastly enhancing the way someone, especially a consumer, computes are long behind us. The OS has suffered from feature bloat for forever, and for the most part, a successful new OS is one that just doesn't hinder the work to be done. For most people, their computing needs have been satisfied, but they are pushed into a perpetual cycle of upgrading for upgrades sake. This "rebellion" is a symptom of this. XP satisfied people, and some of them are starting to realize what the terms "lock-in" and "monopoly" actually mean.

We're coming to a point where freedom in software is gaining in market value. 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 don't know what iteration of "free" software will fill this void, but this mess with XP is not good for them. It won't be the downfall of Windows, they are far to crafty and firmly positioned for that to happen. However, the old business model of theirs is losing its effectiveness.

I hope I'm right, but even more so I hope I'm not turning into a linux nut that shouts "It's the year..." every time MS slips up.

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:Well...

[drydirt]

I doubt they know though if they would install XP or Linux on there the laptop would absolutely fly and that's why they don't seem to have problems with it, if they would install XP or Linux and compare it to Vista they would find Vista is a major slow down on their computer.

Probably, but I don't know that speed is everything to the average user. They'll put up with a bit of slowdown for an OS that feels powerful, looks pretty and has lots of neat little toys. And Linux has certainly had issues with looking pretty, which is understandable as talented designers aren't as generous as programmers,

And yes, I could be talking about OS X here too; only in the last few years has it not been an OS that's slow as molasses.

Re:Recognize the error and wait for Win7

[adminstring]

Since there have been a number of reports of people using Windows Server 2008 as a workstation and getting better performance than Vista, it's clear that Vista's days are numbered.

I've never cared for XP's eye candy or Vista's eye candy... all I want in a Windows-compatible OS is a Windows 2000-like GUI, support for the latest hardware, updated security patches, and a minimum of bloat. XP can do it, Server 2008 can do it, and any future OS (or OS emulation like WINE) that can do it will be fine with me, too.

I don't use a computer to look at pretty transparent windows. I use a computer to run applications. Any OS "feature" that steals CPU cycles away from my applications does not give me warm fuzzy feelings. Such "features" send me on a search for the method to turn them off and get back to the stripped-down, efficient GUI of Windows 2000. My hardware and my apps are where it's at for me. If the OS wants to be the star, it can take a hike. That is where MS went wrong with Vista.

Re:vista's not really that bad..

[robertjw]

Why not? Generally the reasons that people use Windows when they know there is Linux is because of legacy apps, if they don't work in Vista there is no need to move from XP and not move to Linux/OS X. On most other OSes unless there has been a major change (Like 9X to NT, major changes in scripting languages such as python, PPC to x86) you should expect backwards compatibility.

Absolutely. Backward compatibility is always blamed as the problem, but these legacy apps cost MONEY for new versions (if they are even available). This is one thing that always irritates me about Microsoft. Even on products they don't make any money on, like IE, they have to re-invent the wheel every time they release it.

With Linux you don't have that problem, most apps written 3 years ago for the first Ubuntu will work fine with 8.04 or any other distro. With OS X the OS had such a major change from PPC classic mac based to x86 Unix-based you can't make a claim of backwards compatibility but in general there's no reason to expect that NT X App shouldn't run on NT X+1. MS killing backwards compatibility is killing the entire MS monopoly and moving people to OS X or Linux.

Absolutely. The other great thing about Linux, if you are using FOSS, you can probably just download a version that works with your distro. A pain in terms of time, but at least it's not cash out of your pocket. If that doesn't work out for you, you next option is to modify the source code and recompile under the latest OS. Again, doesn't always work, and can be difficult for some apps, but in general a viable solution.

In general, Microsoft is an incredibly wasteful company. They spend millions of man-hours re-inventing products with minimal improvement. I have heard very little about Vista that is an improvement on XP, yet they spent a ton of work on it. Their whole business model is banking on the idea that software is continually obsolete, and that just isn't the case. A Word Processor is a Word Processor. An OS, as long as it's compatible with the hardware, is an OS. I can write a letter in Word 95 just as easily as I can in Word 2007, gets the same job done. Why would I spend thousands of dollars on all of the upgrades between now and then if Microsoft didn't periodically break all the backward compatibility.

Re:It's nice to share.

[decavolt]

I bow before your perversity. Where do you get drivers? Um... don't you mean, perseverance? Although that level of perseverance is still pretty perverse. Pedantic? Probably.

Re:It's nice to share.

[Gr8Apes]

Win2K drivers are more common than Vista drivers.

Unless, of course, you want to run shiny new things. I'll bet he's not running any games past D9 on it.

Re:Well...

[caitsith01]

Probably, but I don't know that speed is everything to the average user. They'll put up with a bit of slowdown for an OS that feels powerful, looks pretty and has lots of neat little toys. And Linux has certainly had issues with looking pretty, which is understandable as talented designers aren't as generous as programmers,

Agreed, but as someone who has just painstakingly managed to install Windows XP on a Dell XPS 1530 (which is officially Vista-only) I can attest to the fact that it's not "a bit of slowdown" - it's an imprecise measure but I'd say my laptop now "feels" at least two times faster/more responsive. We are talking about a pretty zippy dual core machine with 3 gigs of RAM and a powerful video card, too (256MB DDR3 nvidia 8600gt), which ran like treacle with Vista on it.

I have since played with another, similar Vista laptop trying to figure out what is doing all the damage. The worst individual offenders seem to be the (well documented) user account control bullshit which interferes with every aspect of the operation of the computer, and "supercache", which would have to be in the top 5 worst Microsoft innovations of all time.

For the uninitiated, supercache watches everything you do and records a log of what you cause to be loaded into memory and at what time/date it happens (this automatically introduces an overhead into every single memory related operation because Vista has to spend some resources on surveilling you). It then attempts to predict what you are going to use at a given point in time, and pre-caches as much of it as it considers to be reasonable. So for example, if I played Quake III every Wednesday night between 7-8pm, Vista would start grinding away at about 7pm on Wednesdays loading the texture files into RAM. Supercache apparently considers about 1.5 gigabytes on a system with 3 gigabytes of RAM to be a reasonable amount of physical memory to use for this process.

The net effect of all of the above is that Vista spends a hell of a lot of time sitting there churning away using your disks and RAM to load "stuff" into memory that you "might" need. All of this for the 1-2 seconds you are likely saving by not having to load Word or Quake III or whatever from disk should you happen to want to use it.

Turning UAC and Supercache off (both pretty straightforward once you know where to look) improves performance a lot - but not enough. Vista still has an offensively huge footprint and runs like a dog compared to XP.

Which returns me to the original point - XP is already a challenge to get running with some newer hardware. But if hardware manufacturers have the guts to stand up to Microsoft and keep producing XP versions of their hardware drivers (which should be trivial if they are doing 32 bit Vista drivers) then there's really very little we need from Microsoft.* XP is a stable, solid, mature OS which does what it does pretty well. I for one intend to keep using it into the foreseeable future.

* This is the main issue at the moment - most laptop manufacturers in particular have abandoned XP support on newer machines.

Tried it lately?

[symbolset]

And Linux has certainly had issues with looking pretty, which is understandable as talented designers aren't as generous as programmers,

When you post stuff like this people are just going to point out the youtube.com video WINDOWS VISTA AERO VS LINUX UBUNTU BERYL. 3 million people have seen it. Why haven't you? It's from February of last year. Compiz has improved some since.

Here is Compiz running on a seven year old 800 MHz PIII with 128 MB of RAM. It runs better than Vista did on the last dual core notebook with 1GB I tried it on, and it looks better too.

Here's Compiz running on an eee PC. Isn't that sweet? I hate lugging around 15 pounds of kit and the eee will be my next PC purchase. It weighs two pounds. Did you hear they're only 300 bucks (No, not the software. The whole thing!)?

They'll put up with a bit of slowdown for an OS that feels powerful, looks pretty and has lots of neat little toys.

I hear Vista comes with a few docklets or widgets or whatever they're calling them now. Ubuntu comes with this small collection of neat little toys. I didn't count them. I think there's thousands of them in there. People might find one or two interesting things in there.

Now what were you saying again? Oh, yeah,

talented designers aren't as generous as programmers,

Now you're projecting. In design are you? Apparently others are more giving. Perhaps that's because what they get back is "Progress" and that's good value.

DOS apps

[weighn]

my organisation got rid of its last DOS app last year (vehicle fuel logs, very important). We had to maintain an old Win 98 box (and source the occasional second-hand replacement 3.5" FDD drive).

VMs and emulating the A: drive doesn't help if the auditing office insists on receiving the data via snail-mail delivered floppy (no joke!)

Re:It's nice to share.

[Lost Race]

Ideally I would run the scan by unplugging the network cable and booting from directly the malware-scanner CD. Unfortunately nobody makes such a thing -- it's like the "antivirus" companies don't really care about reliability. Running the scan on the target system itself is pointless, since some system-level malware could be tampering with the results. That's why I take the hard drives out of the target systems and attach them to a known-clean system (fresh OS+scanner install, no network) to run the scan.

But really the elaborate malware scan is just window dressing so I can provide some tangible evidence that my systems aren't infected; I know they're clean because I keep them clean on a day-to-day basis by not installing tons of random crap I found in the net.toilet, keeping applications and plug-ins (and pointless upgrades!) to a bare minimum, and keeping an eye on the security bulletins. It's not rocket science, but it is kind of computer science.

Re:XP?

[Miseph]

Yes, most instances of Win98 are on POS machines.

Oh... wait... you meant "Point Of Sale"... well, yeah, I guess that it could run on those too.

Re:It's nice to share.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ideally I would run the scan by unplugging the network cable and booting from directly the malware-scanner CD. Unfortunately nobody makes such a thing -- it's like the "antivirus" companies don't really care about reliability. Symantec disagrees

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.

Re:It's nice to share.

[Hal_Porter]

Actually, that's not really true. WDM on Win98 is only supported for a few device classes. It doesn't support video cards, printers, scsi adapter, network cards or filesystems, or anything on a non plug and play bus. Video devices are completely different between Win98 and NT based OSs. Scsi and Network cards each have a minport architecture that was portable across 16 and 32 bit OSs backi in the Win98 days but Vista and XP have a very different version of NDIS than Win98. Mostly WDM was a way for people to write USB drivers that worked on Win98 and Win2K. But USB has changed a lot since then, and so has WDM. Finally, lots of modern USB drivers will use WDF in kernel mode or are user mode code that uses WinUSB.sys, and neither of those will work on Win98. In fact neither of them will work on Win2k either.

Other Win98 'drivers' are actually just hacks - code that must run in Ring 0. They are VxDs, a system that was originally designed to virtualise devices underneath multiple Dos boxes. Antivirus software and the like used this environment to hook filesystem access for example. Obviously this can't work on NT since there are no VxDs and the filesystem layer is completely different.

Even between successive releases of NT based OSs, there isn't any guarantee that drivers will work. Most people know this and write their inf files so the device will only install on one of the OS versions they tested.

Re:So there is still a reason?

[monsted]

You could change it to ihatewinXPslightlylessthanVista.

Re:XP?

[Jafar00]

I know what you mean. Last month I had a plane to catch and when I arrived at the local train station to travel to the airport at 5:30am, the ticket machine was displaying a blue screen running win2k. Needless to say I was forced to jump the barrier with my luggage and get a free 10 euro trip to the airport. The guard at the other end didn't believe my reason I had no ticket until I showed him the picture I took of the blue screen. Turns out he was an Ubuntu Linux fan and let me through with a laugh. :D