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Microsoft Ending Mainstream Support For XP
Slatterz writes "Come next week, Microsoft will be in the unusual position of no longer offering mainstream support for its most widely used product. Windows XP will pass another milestone next week on the road to retirement when mainstream support ends on 14 April 2009, over seven years after the OS originally shipped. While the company said that it will continue to provide free security fixes for XP until 2014, any future bugs found in the platform will not be fixed unless customers pay. Windows XP accounts for about 63 percent of all Internet-connected computers, according to March 2009 statistics from Hitslink, while Windows Vista makes up about 24 percent."
Make one mistake and support it for the rest of your life.
Unless you are Microsoft, of course.
So nothing has really changed then, it's still being supported with security fixes. No one really cares about features at this point. How exactly is this suppose to move people to update?
So? If Microsoft doesn't want to support XP any more then fine, but that doesn't mean I have to switch from it.
At this stage in XPs life, I highly doubt any end user or consuming business will actually come across any non-security related bug that they need fixing, and if they do then their vendor will probably have several customers also with the same issue, and pony up themselves (think Oracle, Sun or Novell finding a bug which affects their products - they will be the ones to approach MS for a fix and offer payment).
It's not the computing world's fault MS dropped the ball on Vista but, as usual, they're making it your problem.
People are always bashing Vista at every opportunity, but it's never caused me any problems, never crashed, has support for all the devices I wish to use and pretty much checks all the boxes I want from an operating system. I'm speaking as a software developer, before I get mercilessly flamed as being some kind of computing retard.
/.? Surely not..."
Now XP, before I upgraded, would crash semi-regularly and had at least as many bugs as Vista does. I think at least some of the people critcising Vista are sheeple expressing a popular opinion without much foundation. "What's that?" you cry, "People regurgitating supposed facts without verification on
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
Will there still be activation support for resetting it or will activation be turned off / hardware check be turned off?
Will xp uses still get IE8 / IE7 updates / fixes?
windows media player 12?
Will there still WGA updates? .net framework updates?
daylight saving time updates till 2014?
Because people are generally not satisfied with Vista. The parent is right, Vista is the current Windows version whether you like it or not and since you don't like it retailers keep selling PCs with XP installed. The important thing here is that while Microsoft has an agenda for future revenue, retailers on the other hand are on their own. Profit for them is profit, no matter the product, but for Microsoft it's a step back if it's XP. The majority of revenue generated through XP has already been collected, thus Microsoft needs a new platform to sell to all of it's customer base. This is how business works.
I am the lawn!
If they did this, their old XP codebase would be competing with new Vista / Vista 2 sales. Given full options, most companies wouldn't open them to the community. Most companies would erase all previous installs, burn all install disks, and sell upgrades left and right.
Also, I severely doubt any commercial project as large as XP has the rights to open all of their code.
The ______ Agenda
That does raise an interesting discussion... if a company is officially going to stop supporting a product that is still heavily in use, should they have an obligation to open up the source? I think so.
No. No such obligation should ever exist.
Oh... wait, it is Microsoft.
And is Apple going to open source OS X 10.4 now that 10.5 is out? Can we criticise them for not doing so?[*]
Don't get me wrong, I agree with the general principle of opening old products that are abandoned by the company. But it would be complete madness for any company to open source one of their major products, one that is still widely used. Working out how to encourage people to upgrade is bad enough of a problem as it is - but open sourcing a discontinued product would create a major new competitor for them.
Yes, we know how the source code for Doom was released just 4 years after Doom's release, but the computer games industry moves much faster, such that in 1997, Doom was no competition for ID's new releases, nor would it provide much of a boost to anyone wanting to update it to be a competing engine. The OS market, by contrast, is fairly mature now - indeed, this is why Microsoft have so much trouble getting people to upgrade, because XP is good enough for most people.
(Are there any examples of application software that get open sourced, OOI?)
[*] For the pedants - yes, I know Darwin is open source, but that's not OS X.
Not only is what you say 100% true but is there actually going to be any reason to upgrade even a decade from now? XP is far from perfect but I feel it marks the point at which computers became "good enough" and changes became mostly minor bug fixing and moving things around. Barring a major revolution which I don't think anyone expects any time soon (e.g. hard AI) XP will continue to do everything people want for a very long time.
What will be interesting is to see how / if Mac and Linux eat into Windows market share over time. Since Windows has essentially stopped changing it gives other players a chance to become highly compatible. I don't suppose they will knock Windows off the top spot any time soon but I could imagine it getting to a point where it doesn't really matter what OS you run.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Seriously, they've shipped a near-infinite number of Windows XP licenses, and there are millions and millions of users exercising the code, so really, what is left to "debug"? But let's be clear - you may want Windows XP to function differently, but that is not a bug, that's a preference. By now, Windows XP is a tested code base, and it has value as demonstrated by the steady stream of stories discussing the end of support for Windows XP, downgrade rights from Vista to Windows XP, etc.
Ken
How about: Because the XP Source code is private property and obligating any company to give away their private property is basically theft via laws.
I'm as much of a fan of Open Source as the next guy, but Open Sourcing something MUST be a voluntary thing that a company is Free to do if they think it best. Obligating via the law is nothing short of legalized looting of IP. YOU wouldn't want to be forced, would you? Neither should Microsoft or any other company be forced. Open Source must remain VOLUNTARY if it is to continue to represent Freedom.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Me too just a few months ago. I really don't like Linux. It has the same flaw as Macintosh OS (tends to be ignored by software vendors), but far far worse. Example: I couldn't get my Netscape Dialup to work, so I called for help and they said "We only support Windows and Mac," and then hung-up on me. Nice.
I did eventually get my Linux to connect to the ISP, but the compression engine/accelerator refuses to run, which makes everything extremely slow (50k versus ~500k). Another problem happened when I changed my resolution to 1024x800 - when I tried to change it back to 1280x1024 the dialog box was too big, and I couldn't access the OK button since it was offscreen. I'm still stuck at the wrong resolution. (With Windows pressing the enter button auto-selects OK, but not with Linux.)
So I think I'm going to use the WinXP Restore CD to wipe Linux off my laptop. From what I can see, XP and Mac OS are both more user-friendly than Ubuntu.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Hard to believe, but an 8 year old OS with life support turned off is still overwhelmingly preferred to Linux, OS X and so on...
Compare that to the support lifecycles of most linux distros and see who comes out ahead.
Alright. Windows: Pony up $199 for Vista now and Win7 next year, or pay for each separate XP hotfix.
Linux: Free upgrade to either a cutting-edge new distro or a year-old stable distro, free updates of each component from apache to KDE via the package manager of your choice (or you can pay for development of hotfixes as well if that floats your boat).
I think it is pretty clear who comes out ahead.
Compare that to the support lifecycles of most linux distros and see who comes out ahead.
When MS gives me the successor of a system I use for free (or at least at a discount) we can start talking.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If Microsoft are stopping supporting XP on 14 April 2009 as reported, is it moral to sell netbooks with an unsupported (after that date) XP pre-installed? Yes they will do security fixes but will they insist on sales staff telling customers they are buying an unsupported system before they hand over cash? They like to hide the cost of the Windows license in the total purchase so the customer thinks it's free, so I don't hold much hope for their honesty.
At that point Linux (either official like RedHat or Novell, or a community Ubuntu / Feodra / Debian / Mandriva) becomes better supported than the XP version by default. Is it legal to sell an unsupported PC? Or will Microsoft be responsible and withdraw all XP netbooks from the market on April 15th? Will they be forced to?
It does show a company in desperation to make money, regardless of their customers wishes. When the carrot (advertising and shill PR) won't work use the stick. Any company behaving like this does not deserve any customers, and will eventually bring that to pass by it's own actions.
MS don't seem to show prices on thier website but I doubt it is cheap.
If you have to ask you can't afford it
I can very well understand why people feel that Microsoft should open source ( at least older ) Windows.
I think the reason why is because what they do with their code affects *everyone* ( if not everyone, very close ) with a computer. Even ones not connected to any other computer! For example, the BIOS re-ordering of drives to work-around the fact Windows can only boot from the "first" drive can cause issues when installing Linux.
I do agree that open source should be voluntary because it undermines the core concept if it is forced.
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
No, the policy is not unreasonable in general. However, XP is the OS that works, and they have nothing that is better to replace it. And doesn't it take less money to support a solid, familiar OS than it does to support a new, flaky one?
I don't get it. Isn't XP a cash cow?
Does this mean MSFT engineers will no longer "talk users through" the downgrade process.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9040318
I boot vista when I want to play a game. At that point the boot time is relevant.
There should be a way for me, as administrator and owner, to tell it to allow things to start that aren't signed by MS. It's that simple.
Last time it was 19 updates. Came out somewhere around 32MB. I have a 24Mb connection, it took a long, long time to download them. It then sat and took the rest of the hour applying them, shutting down, applying some more during shutdown, booting and applying more during startup. And then it found more. It's slow and a bit of a shambles.
19 updates totalling around that size on debian linux would take a matter of seconds.
Yes, eventually I found out it could be disabled. I switched it off and some of the annoyances went away. Great, I have to switch off the new security system to get anything much done.
FUD. Right. User experience and me explaining my annoyances, despite already having said I don't think it's awful, just wrong in a few places, that's FUD?
And you've already decided I'm some sort of Linux zealot despite my saying I use vista adequately well for what I need it for and I'm surprised by the hatred it gets from non-technical people.
Fuck off.
Actually, I have a suspicion that with Microsoft's way of viewing their internal accounting, XP is no longer a "cash cow" at all.
I have no proof of this, since I'm not privy to any of their internal workings or memos - but I do see a lot of evidence to back it up.
For example, when you call in to Microsoft to activate a copy of Windows XP by telephone, you usually just reach an automated system with voice recognition capabilities, vs. a live human. You can go through the entire process without ever speaking to a real person. (It actually asks you the famous "questions", like "How many computers is this product installed on?" and "Have there been any major hardware changes to your platform since the last time Windows was installed?", and decides if it will re-activate an existing key based on your responses.)
Microsoft doesn't shuttle off these "anti piracy" measures to automated systems unless they feel it's only to support a "legacy product" that's no longer considered important enough to protect with the "higher level" of protection of interacting with a real customer service person.
I could easily see where their viewpoint might be; We already recouped our costs many times over for the XP product, and most new XP buyers are only buying heavily discounted licenses intended for refurbished machines, OEMs, etc. The money spent on manpower to keep supporting it is now just a net "negative" for us, vs. focusing on Vista and Windows 7, which will command higher retail prices on many licenses sold, and which still need to recoup their development costs ASAP.
Seriously you buy a volume license and then buy the extended hotfix agreement through your volume license account. You also have to pay for the individual fixes on top of that. MS don't seem to show prices on thier website but I doubt it is cheap.
The most interesting comparison, of course, would be how it compares to hiring J. Random Linux Hacker to work on $OLD_DISTRO.
Linux is only free if you know how to use/maintain it.
Let me put it differently: I didn't have to pay for my OS, but I did spend countless hours learning how to make it work for me. For Windows, most people have already spent that time, and only need a step-up to the new features and annoyances. For Linux, a far larger number are starting from scratch, and let's be honest: Linux help is rare, good help is virtually impossible to find. Google anything and you will find a million forum posts and mailing list aggregators, all repeating the same question with zero answers.
I like my Linux desktop, as a coder it works well for me, but with so many cooks in the kitchen, a lot of stuff can and does go wrong, and the general attitude is "Well, you have the source. FIX IT YOURSELF, LUSER!".
The motivation simply isn't there for the developers and project maintainers, because Linux won't feed your kid or put fuel in your Honda. The free software model has very real limitations, it's amazing that things have gotten this far and continue to evolve, but we're still struggling on some aspects that cannot be solved via technological means.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Linux is only free if you know how to use/maintain it.
And Windows is only $STICKER_PRICE if you know how to use/maintain it. Otherwise, it's much more expensive. So? Whatcherpoint?
the general attitude is "Well, you have the source. FIX IT YOURSELF, LUSER!".
As opposed to the oh-so-helpful Microsoft Support. :)
Granted, the MS "support" may be more polite. Aside from that, I don't see much benefit.
(As a side note, you might want to check out Ubuntu support rather than Gentoo!) :)
The motivation simply isn't there for the developers and project maintainers, because Linux won't feed your kid or put fuel in your Honda.
Except, of course, for the many many many many MANY people for whom it does.
Actually, while I'm picking on some of the more egregious parts of your post, you do raise some valid issues. Support really isn't there for a lot of people yet (although the same can be said for MS). But just like MS, Linux can develop more of its own homegrown support infrastructure--the reason MS isn't a total disaster isn't an 800- phone number that directs to India. The reason is the number of people who more-or-less understand it and help each other. Linux hasn't grown to that point yet, but it's silly to think that it can't or won't. It is, in fact, getting there.