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XP Deathwatch, T Minus 2 Weeks
CWmike writes "June 30 is Microsoft's deadline for mainstream computer makers to stop selling new PCs with the old operating system, and the date that it will stop shipping boxed copies to retailers. That's just two weeks away. Computerworld offers a FAQ about XP's approaching retirement after Microsoft's most recent relaxation of the retirement rules, with some details about which machines big-brand computer makers will be selling with XP after June 30. First FAQ: Any sign that Microsoft will reprieve Windows XP's retirement? Sort of."
Now all you pirates will have an excuse for downloading your Windows XP disc image.
Property is theft.
I have over 200 machines in my domain. I tend to replace one or two a month and they can pry my corporate copy of XP from my cold dead hands. For folks like me that don't necessarily have the latest and greatest hardware Vista isn't even an option (the majority are single-core P4's with less than 1GB RAM). I use Linux on all of my servers and my personal workstation but until I can run AutoCAD, Rhino, and Photoshop without glitching and at full-speed I can't make a complete switch. The way Microsoft is alienating their lower-end customers like this is so tragic it's funny. I have to believe that there are other admins out there with the same problem.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
And the fact that our few boxen with it run like dogs even with dual core high end processors.
Even with the effects turned off it's dog slow.
If they kill the ability for us to buy XP we're going to an all Linux/Unix shop.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You would be surprised. It depends on the market, but it sure is still out there and active in a none to small number of routers and closed blackboxes.
NO SIG
yeah I know but its still a market that Linux is very competitive in. XP cant be in that market segment for that long (they say 2011). What will Microsoft's new product for this market be?
Like many on here, I support computers for family, friends, etc... I have flatly told people that I will do nothing on their computers if they run vista. I've only used Vista for a few days, and the experience of using it myself and attempting to work with it on other people's computers has been so unpleasant that I won't do anything for it.
Thus, I'm basically using MS's decision to quit XP to push OS upgrades of my own choosing. People can either stick with XP - which I'm more than happy to support - or, if they want to upgrade to something new, I suggest they install Ubuntu - which I have also recently started using and will support for them. I have had several people make that switch and find the experience palatable. The point is that, at least for the home user, those of us who are unhappy with Microsoft's decision at least have a chance to not only vote with our wallets, but also bring others along for the ride.
So if you won't be able to buy a new copy of XP any more, how long until one could reasonably consider it abandonware?
If I needed to build a new PC tomorrow, I'll want to install XP on it. But if Microsoft won't sell it to me, what can I do about it?
Computers are useless: they can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso
Sure, you can get support from independent companies and individuals for a price. I'm sure that you can do the same for Windows XP, for a price. GNU/Linux makes it much easier because of source code availability. But that doesn't change the fact that there aren't any Linux distros out there that will support each released version for 12 years like MS is doing with XP.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
> There's an explicit exception for the mini-notebook market, for the very reason that Microsoft is afraid that Linux will sweep it.
True. I wonder if that'll help. My daughter (13) last Saturday bought an EEE (with her own money!) and specifically requested Linux because the XP versions were comparatively sluggish. Was soon frustrated with easy mode, but after we got the full Xandros desktop loaded, she's been very happy with it, and hasn't looked back. (I think Asus should just default to the full Xandros desktop -- it's pretty, and even Windows users would be comfortable with it.)
Point is, she chose Linux over XP on the EEE for the same reason we've been choosing XP over Vista on desktops -- less complicated, fewer issues, faster on the same hardware. Put simply, the lighter weight OS provides a better user experience on the same hardware.
Moreover, considering the use to which these sub-subnotebooks are being put, there's very little reason to run XP, any more than a PDA or phone needs to run Windows. (They can, but they don't *have* to.)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
we do have certified Windows engineers who will do any version of windows or MS-DOS too (I only do VMS, Unix(tm), BSD and Linux). The usual model is that we sell a block of time and then the client can use the hours as they want.
> yeah I know but its still a market that Linux is very competitive in. XP cant be in that market segment for that long (they say 2011). What will Microsoft's new product for this market be?
After XP is gone, all they'll have in that space is Windows Mobile. I can't imagine Microsoft coming up with a *new*, lighter-weight OS. It's not how they work. They're stuck with Vista, and the next version will be even more hardware-intensive.
Idle thought -- how does Microsoft's business model work in today's "green" market, where running white-hot hardware and upgrading every two weeks is no longer the norm? Will it be global warming that finally kills Microsoft? :-)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
By the time XP is really gone or starts smelling too bad, most ultra-portables will probably be able to run Vista anyway.
I suspect that they will indeed "be able" to run Vista as performance is likely to improve a bit, but it wouldn't surprise me to see the tech (and money) go to lighter, thinner, more storage, and more battery life.
So long as these things can play video and render webpages in a reasonable amount of time, people aren't going to really need more power.
So then we're right back where we are today... they can spend the extra money on Windows or they can get a machine with more space running Linux for the same coin. So long as these machines are under $300, MS (or any OS maker) is going to have a very hard time getting rich off of them.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
No, Linux people should want XP withdrawn, the sooner the better. That's because there are a lot of corporate buyers who have nightmares about the support problems Vista-based machine represent. If MS pulls XP as planned, I predict that major PC vendors will start offering Linux/Wine/Microsoft Office bundles very soon. I wouldn't be surprised if they're already QAing that setup, and are ready to announce it next month.
But here's another prediction: MS will give XP another stay of execution. They don't want to — it must be damned humiliating to spend a 5 years developing an OS upgrade, only to have everybody reject it — but they must know that killing XP will give Linux a unique opportunity to break their monopoly on desktop systems. Pride will make them wait until the last minute, but dollars and cents will keep them from pulling the plug. Until Windows 7 appears, I think XP is safe.
The cost of Vista itself bars it from UMPC market. Not just it's h/w requirements. With PC price under 400USD, who wants to pay even $20 for Vista? That's a significant portion of the margin that h/w maker can't afford to give away.
Low price of h/w is a new reality that MS failed to grasp when they worked on pricing for Vista.
Interestingly, most normal suppliers that I deal with, when they want to obsolete a product introduce new one, with better specs, providing full compatibility with the old one, and costing LESS. (I'm talking about semiconductors here.) Then everybody have a good reason to migrate.
MS did exactly the opposite -- worse performance, no compatibility, and higher price.
XP automatically patches XP so that it goes from an outdated OS that's near its end of life to an outdated OS that's near its end of life. They do not upgrade to the CURRENT version of the Windows operating system whereas Linux updates DO. The entire comparison is invalid and illogical.
In order to follow the series of updates to get Windows CURRENT, you have to PAY, and PAY, and PAY. That's the differentiator I was talking about.
I'm sorry none of you picked up on this. I will hold your hands next time. My bad.
Camping on quad since 1996.
UltraVNC will work just fine on WinXP Home. Though it is not suggested, but Apache will work on WinXP Home. WinXP Home is limited by the number of connections: 5. At least you will be able to do some dev testing (think the 15 year-old trying out his skills at web-dev).
Where is the Vista advantage? Each previous version was just MUCH better by default of how computers were changing so rapidly. But now, I can stick with XP. It runs office apps and most work related stuff (for typical office) well on old and really good on new hardware.
And while I realize there are still things that XP could be better at, for the most part it works. Did MS finally put out a decent OS and kill itself like people joke about?
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
"This is a clear case of a large company making what they want and totally ignoring consumer demand."
Let me clarify that this applies to big-ticket consumers as well.
I work for a large multinational corporation in the Emerging Technology group. We're on the same floor as the IT team that has to deploy Vista across 50,000 computers or so. The company as a whole employs more people than Microsoft. (according to the all-knowing Wikipedia)
None of the IT squad are happy about the prospect of company wide Vista default install. Their XP deployment is quite honestly one of the tightest managed environments I've seen. I don't know if they've even set a date for it. They'll just install XP on new machines from HD images as always.
So the individual consumer becomes beta tester for the big company consumer... wacky.
Now, I get IMs from a friend saying "Vista just keeps rebooting, at random." And I see that all consumers, whether Giant Co. or joe schmoe have the same issue with Vista.
Cool new features are cool, but... stability is all anyone has ever wanted from a PC.
All of which makes me wonder the following Q, when is Microsoft rolling out Vista in house?
-Rich
Instead, it's a fait accompli for them, or people will leave in droves, IMO.
To what? Apple would be making OSes, not phones and MP3 players if selling their OS on beige intel boxes didn't constitute corporate suicide. People talk about Linux, but its just not viable. Its an awesome OS but it will *never* be the dominant OS for the same reason that perfectly awesome products which are cheap rarely outsell the well marketed corperate 'pass the buck' options. Linux is much much more friendly to anybody that lifts the hood. It took me 4 hours today to crawl through the hundreds of thousands of registry keys *on a new installation of windows* to figure out some super ultra obscure python file association bug. But nothing can beat taking a portion of your budget, paying a company, and when things go wrong, being able to point out that you're spending support money on the same corporate behemoth that wrote the thing. It is just too important in business for people to be able to say you've got a support contract with the folks who wrote the damn thing. I'm ignoring the fact that it is not sound logic - its just how business works, and a great deal of end users too.
I really don't get why people aren't beating down the doors to the government to ask why an OS as super ultra fucking pleasurable as OS X is unable to compete in the marketplace requires such a price point premium on hardware and is locked down. Man, I am not going to pay for an Apple machine, but I would absolutely kill to hand over my money to buy OS X. BSD under the hood, the best GUI front-end ever - there is something seriously wrong that both unix nerds and end users aren't wondering why the market has apparently decided it's so boutique and special. It's not the market - Microsoft is just really untouchable. They're in such a powerful position in the computer world that its basically unfathomable that they lose massive market share. It'd be too painful for everyone.
"Old man yells at systemd"
> The cost of Vista itself bars it from UMPC market.
No. The price of an additional license of Vista is 400USD, of course. But the cost of an additional license of Vista is essentially zero. If MS want to bar Linux from entry and Vista does the job, it can start offering 10USD sub-laptop only licenses to OEM. The problem is, Vista doesn't do the job. It would run too slow. It would eat battery too fast.
As for performance - my G4 has half the horsepower than the abovementioned MacBooks, and it runs 10.5 just fine, without any noticeable delays or slowdowns, even with all thumbnail-generating, background-indexing etc. turned on, *and* Time Machine running in the background.
Spaces and Time Machine alone would be reason enough to run 10.5. Spaces really boost productivity, and Spaces + Exposé make people want to cry when I show it to them. We're mainly on Macs, and everybody who has seen 10.5 wanted to upgrade immediately. So either the people you quote are imaginary (which is what I guess), or they're boneheads.
Anyway, I would advise not listening to them (or me, actually) and instead having a look at 10.5 yourself. It's pretty amazing, even on old hardware.
(Oh, and of course there were problems with the migration from 10.4 to 10.5 - as usual, Adobe didn't get their shit together and even after several updates (from Adobe, mind you!) some things don't work correctly (such as the Adobe PDF printers), but that's hardly Apple's fault.)
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?