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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
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
> 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.
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).
"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
> 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.