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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."
I went to microsoft.com and looked around- I did not find the "donate now" button anywhere
how exactly are we supposed to pay?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Make one mistake and support it for the rest of your life.
Unless you are Microsoft, of course.
I wish more companies would start opening up their software once it has run out of life. If Microsoft really thought that XP was no longer going to be good enough for pc's, open it up to the community and let people learn from it and tinker with it.
Oh... wait, it is Microsoft.
"I don't have to think. I only have to do it. The results are always perfect, but that's old news." - Meat Puppets
any future bugs found in the platform will not be fixed unless customers pay
Does that mean they will fix all the bugs that have been found in the past? No.
Can someone else fix them? No.
+1 for open source
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
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?
Even then, it's scary proposition to move everything. I have this nagging feeling that I'm going to miss something very important! Dual boot? I don't know. I have had issues in the past with GRUB locking up machines and no being able to rescue my system. I had to reinstall everything.
wait - stop - just kidding...
innovation (read adoption of what the surveyed herd wants and whoever we could purchase a look from, or failing that, what apple did last quarter, visually) in windows sucks.
The next step is to divorce the windows graphic interface from the underlying operating system, and make it a desktop for linux. Like apple. But with Linux.
The majority of Windows XP users are using an OEM license anyway, which are supported by the respective OEMs. The only difference between a product in mainstream and extended support, is that products in extended support don't get free PID support. Considering that OEM licenses also don't get free support from Microsoft, this change is very minor.
There are few companies that work as hard at making poor decisions as MSFT. They fielded a loser OS at a time in computing history that they really needed a home run. To placate enterprise users and stop the bleeding in the netbook space they turned to XP at a time they should have been phasing it out.
So now they rush Windows 7 out the door with many of the capabilities Vista should have had and they're chopping off support for XP before Windows 7 is established.
It's not the computing world's fault MS dropped the ball on Vista but, as usual, they're making it your problem. Instead of owning up to the mistake and supporting XP until it's clear Windows 7 is an adequate replacement.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Funny. I just bought a laptop and it came with Windwos XP installed. If Vista is the "current version of Windows" why are they still shipping new PC's with XP?
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).
I switched to Linux on my home desktop computers back in 2000... haven't looked back. Sorry MS.
Isn't the 360 actually tracking well against the PS3? (debt from Zune and the original Xbox aside)
But for small shops, this is a win! Since MS won't support it any more, people will have to turn to small local shops instead. It should be quite a boon to them.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
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!
I like Vista, Its just so dam slow!
I like Windows 7. I run them both. 7 is better in every way (except media playing. Beta has bugs)
I'm liking 7's ui and library features. Its performance is better than vista... but honestly not by much.
I would run linux if the applications were there. But as we all know... thats not the case.
I'm honestly looking at Apple for my next laptop. Honeslty i wont replace my PC workstations with MACs, but... I wouldnt mind testing the waters.
I would try linux again if they applications were there but they just arent. You can browse, IM etc... but I do more than that.
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!
What are you talking about? That is why they are releasing Windows 7 this year because no one wants to or should switch to vista.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Really? You do realise that in about 4-5 years XP will be as old as Win98 is today, right?
I am the lawn!
Vista is slow to boot.
Vista helpfully stops me running programs I want to run at startup.
Vista takes absolutely hours to update itself.
Vista is always telling me no, I don't have permission to do that, or to look there.
Vista is generally annoying.
Vista also has a couple of more geeky irritations to me as a software engineer and a linux user. But still, it runs my games OK and that's all I ask of it these days. I don't hate it, I just don't think it's that good.
That said, you should here the vitriol and emotional reactions that come out of my none-geek family and friends. This vista hatred may have started here with us, but it's been taken to a whole new level by the general computer-using-but-not-understanding public. I don't know if that's a reflection of them buying all the media hype or if it's a genuinbe reaction to the product, but it seems that it's no longer us penguin-loving kernel botherers that are the main source of the anti-MS vitriol.
I used to work as an IT consultant, and I can't begin to tell you how many small customers I went to that were using Windows 2000, or older, Server 2000, Office 2000. I would have loved if they'd wanted to even switch to XP both OS and Office wise. Lots of people don't really look at their computers as something that ever needs to change or be upgraded. People who have hung on to XP this long probably won't be jumping off the bandwagon just because mainstream support is stopping.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
I would try linux again if they applications were there but they just arent. You can browse, IM etc... but I do more than that.
I have pretty good experience at running Windows as VM guest on Linux. Linux as host for VMs is quite good. But of course it depends for what purposes you use your Windows...
Value of Linux becomes apparent only after you are once forced to buy batch of Windows licenses. But as private buyer concerned - who generally get "Windows [whatever]" from OEMs - there are not much reasons to even try.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
You might want to take a look at Wine. It does not support all applications 100% (Adobe products being notorious for not working as they should), but it's getting there. Take a look through their appdb page, maybe your applications and all you need is already quite Linux-Ready.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Vista is slow to boot.
Vista helpfully stops me running programs I want to run at startup.
Vista takes absolutely hours to update itself.
Vista is always telling me no, I don't have permission to do that, or to look there.
Vista is generally annoying.
If it wasn't for the delay I have set in GRUB, Vista would be loaded before my monitor comes on. It loads faster than my SuSE or Fedora installs do.
I've never had a problem with any startup programs.
I don't run automatic updates (except for Defender checking for definitions before it's 3:00 AM daily scan), but when I run updates myself it's generally fairly quick, depending on what's out there. It's much, much better than Windows Update on XP.
The only time I see anything about access is when I, out of habit, click on one of those "junctions" (or whatever Vista calls them) instead of a real folder. [Junctions = the old paths, like the Application Data directory. You get an "access denied" if you try to click on one.] Those are hidden files anyway, so I can't see that being a problem for everyday users.
So i take it that this will mean the corporations will have to finally upgrade. the testing cost for all those crappy crm's that are only supported on ie6 is going to be astromomical. if they were programmed correctly in the first place, any browser would be able to use them and companies could have switched to thin client to save massive amounts on energy.
nah, win98 started bad and got worse as the time passed, xp sp3 is so good that is slowing adoption of vista (which was expected at first, but not on this scale). that said, in about 4-5 years you'll not be able to find out xp drivers for new hardware; also, directx 10 will sooner than later be a requirement for most games.
What do you mean "nah"? It will be as old.
I am the lawn!
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.
Does this mean linux mirrors and repos just got many new downloads :-( ?
Is it time to adopt?
*** Don't be dull.***
Make that more like 3 years time, XP came out in '01
Most vendors are shipping vista by default. XP is only being offered because large numbers of customers demanded it.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
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
While I recognize that I am far from using my computer to do everything it is capable of, I really can't understand all the Vista bashing and I suspect that a large amount of the bashing I do see is from those who have either already made up their mind that they hate Vista, or those that haven't really given it a fair chance.
I run Vista on a powerful machine -- it's a Quad Core with 4GB of RAM and a decent video card. I knew when Vista came out that, if I wanted to run it, my 2001 P4 2GHz wasn't going to cut it. Was I upset about that? No. Try running Mac OS 10.5 on a 800 MHz PPC from that same era. Yeah, it'll work, but it won't be a fun experience. So I bought a new machine for less than $1000, the first major PC purchase I made since I purchased the previous machine in 2001. I expect to buy a new computer every 4 or 5 years.
While my experience with Vista hasn't been flawless, I fail to see any of these things that make Vista a "horrible mistake". In fact, it runs great for me. It's very fast, and I can multitask quite well. I have a Media Center PC that records HD video frequently, often when I'm using the machine, and aside from a Systray icon telling me it's recording, I never notice. I also run Linux via VMWare in the background all the time as a test bed for web development, and again this has never caused me problems or slowdowns. Nearly all of the applications that worked on my old XP box transferred over fine. I've never seen a Blue Screen of Death in Vista, and I've been running it now for over a year and a half.
I'd say I use my computer to do more than the average user, and I've had nothing but good experiences with Vista. I'm sorry to hear that others haven't had the same experience, but please, can we stop calling it a "horrible failure"?
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.
You are defining "current" along the lines of Microsoft's development. However, consumers define "current" along the lines of "what can I buy new in the store today"? If XP is installed, and the computer is not marked "used," then how is it not current?
Liberal? Conservative? Compare perspectives at Left-Right
We also have the option to skip Vista entirely. This wouldn't be the first time I did that:
- Used an MS-DOS in high school, hated it, and instead upgraded from C=64 to Amiga 500.
- Used Windows 3 at college, discovered what crap it was, and upgraded from Amiga OS to a Macintosh Quadra (an excellent machine).
- Bought a Win 95 PC after college for cheap; reminded me of a Mac knockoff; wondered if MS would get sued by Apple.
- Skipped Win 98
- Skipped Win ME
- Got XP.
- Skipped Vista but my unfortunate brother ended-up with it. It runs slower then a C=64 sometimes! Yuck.
- Plan to get Win 7.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I really don't think they are doing this to try and make more money. I really think they are just trying to kill XP. So they can make more money selling windows 7. Although, it's kind of stupid to do it now in my opinion, if they drive people off of XP before 7 is out those people will buy Vista, and then I really doubt they will buy 7 when it launches 6 months later.
When XP first came out, much the same thing was said. "It's a warmed over version of 2K, why bother?" "It breaks things, why bother?"
Eventually those problems went away and today I'm typing this on an XP system. I have no doubt that the same will happen in future, if not with Windows Vista then with Windows 7 (codename: It doesn't suck this time, honest!)
I've heard (but haven't verified) that they moved their mac business unit (which generates profit like tim geithner generates failure) to the xbox division to hide those losses.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
God forbid a company from making money. They must not be allowed to sell ANYTHING!.
I wonder if this makes Windows Vista the only generation not to outsell the previous one.
-m-
Then you're lucky and I'm not. It takes much, much longer than debian on my VAIO. I'm not ruling out that Sony set it up badly, but quick it is not.
You've never tried installing an ext2 filesystem driver then. Every boot I'd get this nice helpful message telling me windows had prevented programs from running at startup, with no visible way to change things.
I never run them automatically. I only boot it about once a month and it never fails to take at least an hour to update. There's even an inexplicable delay of at least a couple of minutes between selecting the updates to apply and it even starting to download them.
As a UNIX weenie, that confuses and annoys me!
Well exactly, which is why I find it so surprising that it's my dad and various non-savvy friends that get most upset with the whole thing.
I can see a good reason to announce the termination of XP support before Win7 is ready for the market. It gives people an incentive to switch immediately instead of waiting and looking whether it is finally a worthy replacement.
When people know XP will not be supported any longer, they will not wait and see. They will get Win7 because, well, they will have to anyway.
From a marketing point of view, it certainly was a good idea. From the perspective of an IT engineer, it is about the worst thing that you could face. Try to convince your boss now that you should postpone Win7 until the kinks are ironed out.
I forsee a lot of overtime in the near future...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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...
What is so bad about Vista on decent hardware?
I have to use both. Vista isn't "bad". It's not a "Win ME 2.0", but it offers nothing of value while requiring more resources than it warrants. That's basically the whole problem I have with it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I think the big difference is that being a developer and a poster on /. you probably have a pretty beefy machine. Vista w/ sp1 on a quad-core or a high end dual-core with plenty of memory it runs well. Especially since you can have 4gb or more of memory (without doing the 64 bit xp thing).
We have faculty that purchase really nice machines with Vista. We don't have any complaints on that front other than the culture shock of having to learn something new. Staff & students on the other hand get hand me downs or the cheapest machines that can be bought when it is replacement time. We keep XP on those because they get frustrated with the lag that Vista has on low end boxes.
I've very thankful for the netbook market which I think was a major factor in thinning down Windows 7.
Don't anthropomorphize computers. They *hate* that.
I would try linux again if they applications were there but they just arent. You can browse, IM etc... but I do more than that.
I felt this way until a year or so ago when i switched to Ubuntu and started using linux full-time. Turns out I've been able to find an app for almost everything I do, in the standard repositories, no less. The sole application I use that doesn't run on linux runs just fine under Wine. In my experience, Linux is there.
Their real problem is that many people are satisfied with XP. There's no "killer app" or compelling reason to upgrade. If new computer purchases didn't foist Vista (or soon...Windows 7) on consumers, nobody would bat an eye if the machines came with XP instead. As long as XP continues to get security patches, I can't imagine bothering with "upgrading" in the foreseeable future.
I'd just like to take this opportunity once again to promote ReactOS (an open-source, binary-compatible NT). I encourage anyone looking for an open source project to contribute to to check out how far they've progressed in the past few years. At the rate they're going, they should have a 1.0 release by the time MS is "through" with XP in 2014.
I thought, (as much discussed here), that Ms's 'strategy' for netbook OS was XP, (since Windows Mobile seems pretty much DOA, now having a smaller market share than Symbian, Blackberry and even iPhone - even before you add Linux and increasingly Android).
So, whilst XP is perfectly functional today, and they'll be doing security updates, it's still not a great message to OEMs and end-uers, is it?
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.
Who the hell is going to run out and buy Vista just because XP left mainstream support?!? The only time the fact that 2000 left mainstream has mattered to any company I know is when the governments of the world got cute and changed DST, and that was solved through a fairly simple if somewhat time intensive process of automating the manual workaround that Microsoft provided. Most of the time the reason you aren't running the OS that's in mainstream support is you want stability and consistency, new features and non-security fixes generally fly in the face of that concept anyways. I think most smart businesses will be waiting for Win 7 XP1/2008 R2 to perform wholesale upgrades which should mean it starts happening about the same time the economy is recovering and budgets start to loosen and allow for the upgraded hardware and manpower to do the upgrades.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Microsoft has stopped to support XP, That's their main advantage over Linux. Now they have none.
Vista is a failure, Windows 7 seem to be more of the same, so go with something you can buy support for after that the vendor no longer is interested in you.
Comparing XP to Win98 is like ... well ...
comparing a TI89 to an abacus in pieces
Who cares how old it is, if it works without crashing every 5 minutes
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
I'm sure Vista would have a share greater than 24% of Internet-connected if people could actually manage to connect to the Internet. Seriously, I've worked with many OSs and Vista is the only one where my wireless network didn't just work. It seems to work on every other reboot. Thankfully the cable works (once I managed to dig it out).
I'm not defining anything. The supplier defines the current product, with or without regards to the demandee.
I am the lawn!
So will MS continue to require XP to phone home to activate after initial install?
They fielded a loser OS at a time in computing history that they really needed a home run.
You don't get it. Vista shipped as a good operating system. Where Vista got its bad rep was driver support. In overhauling the driver model from XP->Vista, many Vista drivers were immature and unstable. This reflected poorly on Vista, fair or not. Since then, drivers in Vista have improved significantly, however, the negative stigma persists. Windows 7 isn't so much a new operating system as it is a re-branding of Vista. The driver model is the same, therefore Windows 7 will be perceived from the start as a good OS, just as Microsoft intends.
Similes are like metaphors
You identify the problem yourself however. It does not support all applications 100%. Windows, however, has full native support for Windows applications. To Joe user, it is a no brainer.
Honestly, it is the same reason I have never fully made the switch to Linux. Every time I try (since Slackware 6 was new) there is something that does not work. I already spend 9-10 hours a day making computers work, I don't want to spend all of my free time making my home system work.
You say you want a revolution....
You went from 95 to XP without passing through Win2k? I have only one question for you: why would you do that to yourself!?
I am the lawn!
Umm. Netbooks are shipping with XP and only XP right now. Not downgraded...
Microsoft is still selling XP as a current OS for that class of machine.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Security. XP was built in ancient times as far as Internet security is concerned. Not to mention taking some idiotic approaches (blacklisting via antivirus software and such).
Will you dare run XP connected directly to the Internet when you won't have up-to-date antimalware software on it? Or when that "security" model finally breaks for good under the assault of modern malware?
Plus, XP shouldn't be able to run natively on 2020 PC's. Which OS is still able to do run 15-20 years unmodified on constantly-evolving hardware? And then there's my personal hope that we won't still be using i386-compatible PC's a decade from now.
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
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"?
There's probably still quite a lot they could do to XP to try to drive you to Vista. An indexed search that actually works for example; they gave us a search system for XP that actually won't search any unindexed files, so you have to make an extra click every time you want to search a network share. Meanwhile XPSP3 makes XP way the fuck slower. Maybe they are still debugging their next set of XP delay-loop patches to make a Vista "upgrade" more palatable.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You don't have to, but sticking with XP at this point is like staying in an abusive relationship where you get a black eye every time you overcook the green beans. It's just not fucking worth it. What will it take to get people to switch to Linux? (Apple is just as abusive, but so cute!)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I thought the same, but I thought I'd look up the figures anyway. The 360 leads in total sales, but surprisingly, they seem to be doing almost identically in terms of sales rate. As far as I can tell the 360 only leads because it was released earlier.
The figures:
PS3: 21 million units sold in 30 months = 700,000 per month.
360: 29 million units sold in 42 months = 690,000 per month.
Still, they're both loss leaders so I wouldn't call either one a resounding success. That accolade goes to the Wii, which is sold for a profit and has sales amounting to the PS3 and 360 combined.
This is crazy... I mean here at my workplace (a hospital) we just rolled out Windows XP this past September. We dumped Win2k & Novell Netware for XP and Active Directory. We won't be upgrading for a long time yet.
Your experience differs to mine where Vista would lock up regularly on startup with no way of determining why. I eventually gave up trying to find out and reinstalled the beast and yes it now works about as well as XP - so no particular advantage apart from not having to piss about with CACLS anymore when I want to grant a poorly written app write access to its own directory in Program Files.
daylight saving time updates till 2014?
Doesn't it just ask an NTP server for the time? I don't think that'll be an issue.
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.
What programs linux applications are you missing? Please be specific. I could recommend some alternatives.
Service packs are supposed to fix things.
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
Which windows applications do you rely on?
Is it that old classic, Photoshop? Can I ask how much you paid for the license?
Same with word?
Oh wait, you probably pirated them.
This is what annoys me about the whole "I can't move, there's no compatibility" crowd, they're usually crowing about software they have no rights to use in the first place.
"But GIMP just isn't the same"
Sure, but at least you're not commiting a crime (or is it a civil offence?) to obtain/use it.
Nothing ... except "decent" hardware to vista is "Blazingly fast" hardware to XP.
My reason for not upgrading to Vista: Why would I? It offers exactly zero features that I need over XP, and runs slower on the same hardware.
I don't hear too many people these days who actually use Vista grumbling about it any more than the average XP (or any other MS product) user, so I'm assuming it's reached the usual level of "doesn't suck that much" people expect from MS.
Historically though, I've found that if you simply follow the "upgrade to every other" method with MS, you're ok. 95 -> 98SE -> XP was a good path, which means I might look at Windows 7 when it comes out.
I am really thinking about buying a new PC. Why should I buy Vista when it will become obsolete a year after Windows 7 comes out? Why should I buy a "Windows 7 capable" PC when it won't really support the real Windows 7? Congrats Windows and mainstream manufactures. You leave me no choice but to build my own.
Microsoft says that Windows 7 will be small enough to run on the current generation of underpowered laptops that are pretending to be netbooks. I think we can count on this being just one more feature that Microsoft ends up overpromising and underdelivering on. Frankly, I just don't believe that they can do it. They probably don't, either. When they say "Windows 7 will be small footprint enough to run on a netbook" they really mean "We're counting on our ability to strongarm the netbook vendors into fattening up their hardware so it'll run Windows 7 by the time it's released."
... get a bare desktop up and running and get out of the way. Something not larded up with stupid extras. But that's not a sustainable business model for a company that still thinks that software is something that has to be bought and sold.
Meanwhile, Linux will keep showing up in places where Windows XP can fit but Windows 7 can't. And if it's a big enough market then Microsoft will be forced to keep Windows XP running even longer.
Microsoft just doesn't get it. There is a huge market for operating systems that just give you the brass tacks
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
You don't have to, but sticking with XP at this point is like staying in an abusive relationship where you get a black eye every time you overcook the green beans.
Actually, Ms. "Hit you over green beens" is threatening to leave and replace herself with her ugly sister.. y'know, the 450-lb Jack-Daniels-swilling redneck that'll put you in the hospital for 3 weeks because you wouldn't shave her toe hair.
I may not like a black eye, but it sure as hell beats the alternative.
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
Probably difference between Win2K->WinXP and WinXP->Vista transitions is that in Win2K->WinXP, Microsoft early announced that they would improve backward compatibility (and SP2 for WinXP contained bunch of backward compatibility improvements).
With Vista story is completely different: Microsoft officially announced that Vista would break and that they have no plans on improving backward compatibility.
While in Win2K->WinXP times nothing held you back from migrating, story isn't that rosy for most enterprises and their load of internal Windows-only business specific tools. They ran on WinNT, Win2K with SPs/hotfixes and WinXP with SP2. But for Vista (and Win7) businesses now have to rewrite many of their internal tools.
Actually many businesses are now wising up and rewrite their internal tools from Windows-only applications to Web applications.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Your question makes no logical sense. Windows 2000 was aimed at businesses, not consumers, so naturally I did not use it, just as I did not use Windows NT 3 or NT 4.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
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.
What is so bad about Vista on decent hardware?
Vista
I use Vista every single day, what problems should I be seeing, why aren't I seeing them and how do I recreate said problems?
Windows 2000 received SP4 and then after that an Update Rollup. So I'm betting that XP SP3 is the final SP for XP. Which will of course make updating new XP installs more difficult, but isn't that the point?
After my limited experience with Vista, I simply will not buy another Microsoft OS. I'm saddened to see the end of XP support, but will gladly migrate rather than give my money to the greatest source of software bloat...
Anything you say will be held against you.
Who the hell is going to run out and buy Vista just because XP left mainstream support?!?
Pointy Haired Bosses?
No sig for the moment.
As I said in another post, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Sony had b0rked it in some way, but I did try to strip out most of the cruft when I first got the machine.
Define "aren't properly configured"?
If you mean "aren't on the appropriate MS whitelist with no way to override or set up your own whitelist, then sure, it's badly configured. After the first time I should be able to add an exception, even if it requires digging through a few menus. You can't without just disabling UAC.
No, but I'd rather it didn't stop me doing things in situations where I know what I'm doing. It's my computer, not microsoft's.
Sorry, but that prompt is the least of the annoyances. I don't give a crap about that prompt or the user escalation, I care about actually having the ability to control the machine without being overruled with no way to change it short of disabling the whole of the new security subsystem.
Hey, I don't think Vista is "a failure" (except perhaps when compared against expected revenue), or teh w0rst OS evar! or anything like that, it just has some annoying features.
What is it with all the people on this site that jump on me for my legitimate problems with this OS?
I already said I'm surprised that it's the non-geeks that seem to have the worst reaction to it and I don't think it's all that bad.
Microsoft will still be providing XP to OEMs AFTER mainstream support ends, too, though.
Meaning it'll still be current.
It's been a long time since I've seen Windows forcibly reboot a machine for updates.
I haven't seen force reboots either, but the WU pop-up reminding you to restart can be very annoying. And it comes up automatically, as by default Windows is set to download and install updated automatically.
In some enterprises I have seen force reboots though. But that is a deliberate decision of the IT to force people to update their office systems.
Not to mention that if you have a lot of pending updates on Ubuntu, my experience has been that the update procedure will invariably fail and destroy the system. For example, it will ruin the network support, which is cannot be fixed because Ubuntu NEEDS network support for everything. This never happens on Windows.
Never seen the effect on recent - 8.x - *buntus.
On my 8.04, updates generally improve things. Pretty much all what people complained about in the beginning about 8.04 is long fixed by now. 8.10 in VirtualBox also had little to no problems (can't recall single one, but do not exclude that there were some) with updates.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
funny I went the other path from you.
I went from CP/M to DOS and cried.
then got WFW3.11 and it was crap, upgraded to NT3.51 and it was awesome. Encountered NT4.0 at work and stayed away until SP6a, then finally upgraded.
My employer provided a PC with Win2KPro thus I upgraded to that, finally encountered the "consumer" line OS with XPSP2 and have been entirely happy with it. I have Vista machines at work and aside from the eye-candy I have no reason to upgrade at home. Ditto on the Win7 releases I've seen so far.
On the flip side I grab new linux distros and play with them whenever they come out, and I've been running on Ubuntu LTS versions for all my non windows centric tasks. Couldn't be happier.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
The problem is that Oracle couldn't redistribute the fix even if they paid for it to be developed, the end users would have to pay per patch and the rates are scary expensive. The DST patch was available for Win2k but it cost several times what it did for us to automate the workaround and verify the results.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
any future bugs found in the platform will not be fixed unless customers pay
What the hell, man? People have been paying for XP more readily than Vista until they forcefully yanked it out of the market!! And they would have continued paying for it!
/* No Comment */
Interesting points but I don't think any of them are XP killers for a lot of users. Security is important to businesses but it's still a complete unknown for a lot of home users and they seem generally fairly happy with their machines.
As for us upgrading to 64 bit (which is what I presume you mean) I don't see a big driver for that in the home or general business areas. In the server room I'd love to see 64 bit machines (would make my job easier) but what would home users get from the move? Even speed has stopped being an issue, only gamers a a few intensive users need faster machines now.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
How about the fact that some of us really did pay for the CS3 that we're using?
I was on Premeire 6 and PS5 for a long time because I couldn't justify paying to upgrade to the latest release. Finally ponied up and bought CS3 and yes it is vastly better, and worth the money, but by the time I upgrade they'll likely be on CS12 because it's so damn expensive. Adobe is one of three apps that I keep windows around for. As to Office, I got that for $10 through a HomeWare program, so why pirate it?
Point is, I use Ubuntu LTS for most of my development work, except Win32 C++, where I use VS2003, video editing where I use CS3, and image manipulation, where I again use CS3. None of those behave all that well under Wine.
In my case pirating would cost me more than buying, given that if I got called on it it would ruin my business.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
"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."
I wonder if that counts downgrades? Either way, it's interesting, soon the majority of users will be using an unsupported operating system. And if Vista adoption is so low, when it's impossible to get XP on anything that isn't a netbook, also, this means that Microsoft won't be officially supporting an operating system suitable for a netbook anymore, and that seems like a pretty risky move right now, unless they're planning to release Windows 7 on April 14 ... and it really will run well on a netbook.
My 2 cents on netbooks:
The way people using computers is changing, and the growing popularity of netbooks is just the tip of the iceberg, I see a lot of people from my generation who only use computers as a platform to launch a browser and connect to the internet, and for that kind of computing, not only is an intel atom more than sufficient power-wise, but it really doesn't matter what OS you run the browser on top of. So I think you'll see a big divide in the market, with high-powered laptops and desktops still being available, but an increasingly large percentage of low-cost, light weight, and comparitively underpowered laptops in non-professional/business computer sales. And this is the one place that linux really has a shot at ending up in the hands of the mainstream consumer, becuase when all your applications are on the web, it doesn;t matter anymore what you're operating system is to the end user, and I think linux provides a lot of potentially desirable qualities to an OEM (although there are downsides as well) and particularly so since Apple apparently has no interest in the market, and it looks like Microsoft isn't giving it the attention it needs, either.
This is the health care industry - much like the military we don't go with OSes that are as new as Vista. Many of our industry specific apps have not been properly tested on Vista, and we even have a webapp still in use that is not supported under IE7.
Junctions = the old paths, like the Application Data directory
Unless they completely reworked junctions into something completely different on Vista, that's incorrect. Junctions are basically soft symlinks.
Hard Links and Junctions
NTP just provides the time in UMT (GMT). It's up to the local machine to translate that into local time using the relevant offsets for geography and daylight savings time (I think).
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
A lot of people get the software from their work. Many people have a computer that their work let them take home. So no crime committed.
The real argument should be: Why are software vendors not crating a versions for windows, apple, AND linux?
People will say cost. People will say the market is too small. But if companies do not create software for the platform, the market will remain small.
IIRC the 360 is managing to keep second place in the current console generation but only by being sold at an extreme knockdown price (they are selling it cheaper than the wii!).
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Extended support != unsupported.
MS will still be releasing security updates free and bugfixes and support calls will still be availible to those prepared to pay for them.
And at this stage in XPs lifecycle the chances of a non-security bug being critical are pretty low.
What is far more significant is that (unless MS give another stay of execution) it is soon going to get a lot harder for home users and small buisnesses to get XP as OEM supplied downgrade media dissapears (afaict you will still be able to downgrade using existing media but unless you have vlk media or OEM media of the right brand this will mean a telephone activation for every machine).
Also if microsofts past behaviour is indicative of the future OEM windows 7 will probablly only allow downgrading to vista. This will basically force anyone who wants new XP machines to go the volume license route.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
THAT doesn't fix the DST problem.
I had to integrate the DST Patch into my RIS image because MS didn't include it in SP3. Not having the DST patch integrated played havoc with OUTLOOK Calendars.
With DST, I only partially blame Microsoft. Yes, DST programming should have been more flexible. However, the real blame for DST issues lies with the morons running our country.
This is why our country is going to the crapper in a racecar. Some special interest group gets to screw over everyone else.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Windows, however, has full native support for Windows applications.
Thanks for the chuckle.
That's the funniest thing I've read all day.
*sigh* back to work...
Hey, in that case my snark wasn't aimed at you, I just don't believe that half as many people that use PS as a "why linux sucks" talking point actually have a license.
I'm not saying "OMG vista suxs! Use linux!", I just think that some of the barriers people erect to giving linux a decent try are artificial.
I thought that NTP servers gave you the UTC time and it was up to the OS to determine your relative time from your locale settings.
If your state government decides to change DST then you will find that your clock changes by an hour a week early/late on your unsupported XP system.
Unicode in Slashdot
Oh sure, and I have a feeling that adobe even encouraged this by having a license provision specifically allowing people who use it at work to take it home and install a single instance on a machine there too. Helps keep it in its leadership position.
That said, I don't know many people that actually use it in a professional capacity either, and those that did were working in design/presentation/web stuff.
The platform thing is chicken and egg really. Which comes first, greater OS market share or porting of popular software?
I guess we'll just have to keep watching.
I dual boot Ubuntu and XP, and yes I downloaded Photoshop CS3 for free if that is what you mean by 'pirate'.
If adobe stops being so uncooperative towards the linux community with their flash player monopoly then I'll be quite happy to pay for their product, but until then they can kiss my arse.
This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
You know people bashed the hell out of WinME as well but I had a P3 Dell that ran like a champ. It probably did help Dell supported the hardware drivers really well and I never bothered to make modifications to the box until way later and kept a limited amount of software installed on it. I can't understand why people hate WinME either....
Of course I know that WinME was a piece of junk where all I had to do was step outside of the strictly supported hardware and software configuration delivered by Dell and I would have issues. Just because I was extremely careful with one box doesn't mean WinME didn't deserve the roasting it got where Vista is in the same boat.
The fact that it is 12-20% slower than Server 2008 on the exact same hardware.
No thanks, I don't really feel like paying the 12-20% MAFIAA tax.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
You are suggesting that XP doesn't have any bugs in it? Surely you jest. Have you ever tried setting up multiple keyboard layouts? Yeah, it will randomly switch to another layout while you are doing your work, and switching back to the other layout does absolutely nothing. The only workaround is to restart the computer.
Oh but wait, that's not a bug, that's just a preference. Forgive me for preferring that it work correctly.
NTP reports UTC. You need to know your timezone to convert to local time. Furthermore proper timezone support depends on more than the present time, it also requires knowing how past times map between local and UTC, to make sense of things like timestamps, etc. And then multiply this for all the different locations you support and you see that this is not an entirely trivial thing to support.
Source for those numbers if you please.
they've shipped a near-infinite number of Windows XP licenses
actually, it's far closer to near-zero than near-infinite. One could argue that MS hasn't really sold many at all and consider it a failure.
You don't really have a good enough point on general use computers. If you have a box that only does one thing, sure, you get whatever program running on it, and there is no need to ever change it. But on a general use computer odds are at some point you are going to want to use something that relies on some fancy new tech that isn't supported on the old machine.
I stuck with 2k for a long time, but eventually it stopped being good enough, not because it stopped doing whet it used to do, but because my expectations were a moving target. And you can't really predict ahead of time what your expectations will be in 5 or 10 years, because the killer app that you will want then hasn't even been thought of yet. In early 90's no one would have thought that supporting CSS and XMLHttpRequest would be a prerequisite for a general use computer a decade later. Ditto USB.
Mod points: Guaranteed to remove your sense of humor.
Side effects may include gullibility and temporary retardation
As you know, it's worse than you say.
The Slashdot story is excessively pro-Microsoft, in my opinion. Quoting the Slashdot story: "... over seven years after the OS originally shipped..." That gives a much more positive impression than is warranted, in my opinion.
Windows XP had very serious problems until the release of Service Pack 2. So Windows XP release version is only 4 1/2 years old.
Service Pack 3 fixed many, many, many bugs that Microsoft itself called "critical". So the final, fully usable version of Windows XP has been available less than a year. A year of good use is not much in return for 6 years of numerous cases of grief and hassles and huge maintenance expense.
Vista was an attempt to get people to abandon Windows XP. Vista was first released about two years ago.
So, one version of the Windows product, Windows XP, was not fully finished until more than a year after the next version, Windows Vista, was first sold, although Windows Vista was so unfinished that it was rejected in the marketplace.
When the version of Windows called Windows 7 is released, many people will be buying their third version of the Windows OS in only two years, even though one of the versions, Vista, was never finished.
That's product churning.
Sooner or later the average buyer will realize that they don't need Microsoft's pushy "upgrades", which all must use much more CPU power, because Microsoft's real customers, the big computer hardware manufacturers, want everyone to buy new hardware. Microsoft is trying to continue creating an artificial market, and the average buyer is becoming more aware of that.
Usually companies make money producing product prospects actually WANT. They don't generally abuse a monopoly to force customers to buy new product they despise.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
It includes code licensed from third parties that Microsoft may not have the right to open
Id Software worked around a proprietary third-party sound driver in Doom by just not including it in the source release. The source port community whipped up several replacements.
What will it take to get people to switch to Linux?
First, it needs to be at least as good (eg: laptop+multiple monitors+docking station = no fun in Linux).
Second, it needs be clearly, measurably, noticably and obviously better at something important and highly visible.
I use Vista at the moment, but I'd use XP before Linux. What incentive is there for me to use Linux ?
That's ridiculous! Jim Cramer's boss would never do that.
If you have ever tried to get Microsoft to even ACKNOWLEDGE a bug in one of their products, you'll know you pretty much have to pay up front. Then you might get an acknowledgment. You'll most likely get someone in India telling you its not a bug even though they have no idea WTF they are talking about.
At best, this is just Microsoft finally telling the truth. More likely it just means they really aren't going to fix shit, ever, unless you throw half of the Queens worth at them.
Seems funny however that they just extended the XP downgrade program and are ending actual support at the same time.
I think MS is owned by Apple actually.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
> 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.
Doesn't mean anything. You don't get a human with Vista either. I did it a month ago and got the same robot attendant.
Democrat delenda est
Vista is slow to boot.
I'm with you on that one. I have a machine that is "vista capable" that I decided to install XP on instead. Vista boot time: 26-28 seconds, with all extra apps stripped out of it. XP boot time: 10-12 seconds... with antivirus and 4 or 5 other startup apps I prefer to always have running.
And Vista is a pain if you want to set up a scheduled task to run on all accounts at startup if it's not specifically designed for Vista. It's such a pain to actually try to do anything with Vista, beyond browse the internet, play games, and edit documents. What's the point of a fancy OS if you can't do anything fancy with it?
Before commenting on the Bible, please read it first
Zbrush, Itunes, mudbox, photoshop, canon's raw software, lightroom, avid media composer and other versions of their editing suites, Adobe Premiere, sony Vegas, headus UV Layout, steam, etc
I do 3D animation and photography so a lot of the apps are windows only.
I know Maya, Softimage, and Houdini are on linux but... a lot of the programs used within my workflow are not. I'm a softimage guy and from what i understand the linux version is a bid picky about setup in various flavors of linux. they recommend Red Hat.
The funny thing is linux would be great for all of these content creation apps but linux support is rare to non existent.
I would be happy if they just fixed the old bugs.
HP launched their new Z series workstation line (Nehalem) a week ago. Almost all of them are pre-downgraded to XP. It will be interesting to watch all the "We're a MS shop", "Linux has no support" people buy an unsupported OS.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
How about this one: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/912650
Incredibly annoying, and it doesn't just affect tooltips. Switching windows (alt+tabbing, clicking a program on the task bar, or just clicking on a program window) will often bring the wrong window to the front, etc. Their resolutions are very disruptive as well.
I dont know if you're a troll or not, but...
I think we can ALL agree that Microsoft is slipping.
DRM is a deal breaker... but so is not having applications on linux.
I'm serious when i say that the climate is ripe for a change. It really is, but we work in a world that uses applications and if those applications are not available elsewhere, we have to eat the shit that comes with our meal.
And frankly the businesses that make windows applications, like the controlled environment MS creates. Linux is too scatterbrained, too forked and these companies know MS will try to DRM lock everything so... to them thats a win.
Yeah sure - the point is that only MS obsoletes MS products.
HP seem to be just plain weird in thier handling of this, they make the XP option the default option in the selector on thier small buisness site yet afaict they will only sell you machines with XP installed under the following conditions
"To qualify for this downgrade an end user must be a business (including governmental or educational institutions) and is expected to order annually at least 25 customer systems with the same custom image." unlike dell who make vista the default will happilly sell you XP on one off orders.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
This is as much about pushing a reliable 64-bit Windows platform as it is about Redmond's revenue streams.
Big picture, Vista x64, and the upcoming Windows 7 x64, are the platforms MS wants developers developing for. The 64-bit Windows revolution isn't going to happen with XP hanging around in the background. XP x64 was terrible.
I've personally been running Vista x64 for some time and have had no problems. We all know the benefits, especially with CrossFire and SLI setups taking up as much as a GB of the memory address space of 32-bit operating systems. This seems like something the Slashdot crowd would generally be in favor of.
Vista 64 and Windows 7 64 are the future of the Microsoft platform. With Microsoft controlling 87% of the desktop OS market share, the sooner it happens, the better off we are.
Never use the term "This never happens". Someone can prove you wrong. Also, Windows XP does forcibly reboot itself. I do believe that they removed that in Vista.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Who boots anymore? With sleep/suspend/hibernate, "booting" is so 1997.
People who use a PC containing hardware whose drivers have unresolved issues with ACPI have to boot, or they'll come back to a machine with no video, no sound, or something else that makes the PC unusable. People who want to use applications or device drivers for more than one operating system have to boot if the programs fail to run in a virtual machine or if the machine is a low-cost subnotebook PC without enough slots for enough RAM to support efficient virtualization.
So you've installed some wonky ext2 driver and it's Vista's fault when it doesn't load right on boot? :)
Complain to the driver author instead
The kernel of Windows Vista 64-bit Edition requires all kernel-mode drivers to be digitally signed with a valid certificate chain up to Microsoft Corporation. It won't load unsigned drivers unless you put the operating system into "Test Mode", which displays "Test Mode" banners at all four corners of the screen. This could lead to driver authors stopping updates to the driver once the signing certificate expires after a year. Or does UMDF support file systems now?
I would imagine that different components that run on XP will recieve updates so long as they are XP compatible - MS will contiune IE/WMP updates so long as they don't have to go out of the way to support XP.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
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.
You could buy an Authenticode certificate and sign it yourself ;-)
windows server?
seriously what can you run on that?
apache, microsoft's extortionately expensive SQL? seriously.
PHP, mod_python, and MySQL work with Apache for Windows. Microsoft SQL Server Express is useful for some small businesses, and it isn't extortionately expensive.
So we know that we can't get non-security patches for XP after next week... In the last year or so, what types of patches has MS released that AREN'T security patches? The only example I've seen on this thread were the change in daylight savings time. Can someone give me a few other examples from the last year or so of XP updates that we wouldn't be able to get today?
ere at my workplace (a hospital) we just rolled out Windows XP this past September. We dumped Win2k & Novell Netware for XP and Active Directory. We won't be upgrading for a long time yet.
I made my father's office dump Novell for AD... he won't forgive me easily (sadly, I'm only half joking). Netware was STABLE (of course, you couldn't put half the stuff they wanted to put on top of it). And HP support was crap.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
You're looking at Apple for a potential new computer... but you don't like linux for its lack of apps? What would you run on the mac that you couldn't run on Linux? Don't get me wrong, I'm a mac-fan (just ordered my second MBP in 4 years) but your statements don't make sense unless you need a very VERY specialized suite of programs.
Most people who do more than simple browsing & email don't want "alternatives". They want the applications they've been using to earn a living for a goddamn DECADE, not some 2-bit hack with a steep learning curve and an insanely bad interface. The biggest issue for me is Sony Vegas Pro (requires .NET 3). Vegas 3.x (pre .NET) is NOT acceptable because my hundreds of existing V8.x project files and templates are not backwards-compatible. Plus 3.x was flakey as hell.
I also rely heavily on Photoshop CS3, ACDSEE Pro, Forte Agent, VersaCheck, and Quickbooks. Any replacements would require 100% compatibility, flawless importation of existing files and databases, and a substantially similar workflow.
I already spend 16 hours a day running my business. I could either stop earning a living and spend a month or more trying (unsuccessfully) to rebuild my work environment with "alternatives" or I could just keep on using the apps I am familiar with on 2k and XP until someone can finally talk the major OS vendors into supporting Linux natively.
BTW, I run a few dozen web servers on Centos 5x and wouldn't take a copy of Windows Server as a gift. Success means using the right tool for the job.
Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
Ad Hominem? Never on Slashdot!
Actually, my wife is the Adobe user. For myself (and her as well) it is games. There are still plenty of DX9 games that will not render correctly in WINE, and we will not even start on DX10 support.
You say you want a revolution....
Define a decent try. In my most recent long term attempt, I used Slackware for over a year starting two years ago. I got tired of rebooting to play games, so I dumped it. I recently tried to install various distros on my laptop, and on each one, some hardware would not work. I am now running Windows 7 Beta, and it has better hardware support than any of the distros I tried (Ubuntu, Suse, Slackware, and Fedora).
I like Linux. I really wish it met my needs. But it doesn't, and I am hardly unique in my usage patterns.
You say you want a revolution....
benchmarking software. Brilliant strategy, cause a big stir by using crazy controversial benchmarks and in turn pimp out their own software. Located in Florida, go figure.
"When you see a unixer brainwashed beyond saving, kick him out of the door." - Xah Lee
Actually, I know in Hollywood there are people using Photoshop with Wine on Linux, I think it was even assisted by Adobe. So I know it's possible. That's what kinda ticks me off.
New things are always on the horizon
I don't think XP was that milestone, it is NT 5.1 after all. What did Windows 2000 have that XP doesn't? People just hate making a major change hence why Windows 2000 was almost as unpopular as Vista.
> 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
I could name a couple, if I thought Microsoft were listening and might consider fixing them.
But the reality is, unless you're one of Microsoft's BIG customers (the ones who have Redmond's ear because they spend 8+ figures a year on software) this is largely irrelevant. For the rest of us, Microsoft has *never* provided meaningful bug-fix support. We consider ourselves fortunate if they get security updates out within a month after the vulnerability is made public.
There *have* been some worthwhile fixes put out, but most of them were pretty early in the XP lifecycle. Since SP2 came out, the only meaningful update I can think of that was about more than just a security fix, is IE7.
Speaking of that, as a web developer, I *REALLY* hope IE8 makes the cut and goes out via Windows Update to XP users. Because I categorically refuse to continue supporting IE7 until everyone finally upgrades from Windows XP, probably a year or more after Windows 7 SP2 finally comes out.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Vista == XP?
XP service pack 3 already exists in the form of XP service pack 3.
Tanto nomini nullum par elogium.
I tried a Macbook last year, it lasted 2 weeks. The bluetooth was awful and the fact that mac cant (easily) read and write to NTFS nor Windows to the Mac file system made Bootcamp irrelevent and "Parallels" haha don't make me laugh !
Except when they can get away with it?
Seriously, we are in the middle of a financial crisis based largely on companies making money producing products NO ONE wanted.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
"How many computers is this product installed on?"
Uhh...
;-)
2.5 * $vista_market_share
Dell was rather slow to switch from Ubuntu 7.x to the LTS (8.04).
And Windows7 is supposed to sell things (like Ultimate licenses which allow to downgrade to XP).
Netbooks are shipping with XP and only XP right now.
Dell's cheapest netbook ships with Ubuntu ($20 less than the XP version)
> 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.
It was probably creating a system restore point, which on Vista may mean anything up to creating a shadow copy of every file on your system so that you can (at your option) revert to precisely the configuration you had before applying the updates, should there be any problem. Does your debian update do that as well?
Support? Microsoft? WHAT support?
Where a Microsoft mailing list like I find on FOSS projects, where the developers will actually respond and actually FIX bugs found and make actual improvements to the product?
Message boards? I've seen what Microsoft offers -- they suck donkey balls.
As for security fixes, most are fixed long long after the exploit is in the wild, and the only real way to get Microsoft to respond to a security problem is to actually release the exploit publicly, as they don't give a rats *** to responding to issues brought to them by researchers who try to do the right thing and warn before releasing.
So, basically, nothing changes.
Hell, I work in a corporate environment where we support Microsoft, Apple, and GNU/Linux stuff (and IBM AIX). We don't even bother calling or contacting Microsoft. We've long since banned their clueless rep from coming to our offices, as his sole reason for being wasn't to support us, but to sell to us.
Which windows applications do you rely on?
Line of business apps that you don't just buy off the shelf, don't run natively on Linux and aren't supported in WINE for obvious reasons.
Is it that old classic, Photoshop? Can I ask how much you paid for the license? Same with word? Oh wait, you probably pirated them.
Yeah, all the users I support (roughly 300-400 spread across about 25 different businesses) pirated all their software. They all got together one night and had a massive torrent party and downloaded a bunch of keygens and had white zinfandel and snacky cakes.
Look, I love my Debian and FreeBSD at home, and the Redhat in the few places in my field where I actually come across it, but small business users need to work on their actual work, not their golf swing or their nails while I'm spending four hours trying to get ImportantSoft installed in WINE when it installs and works in Windows XP in about 10 minutes.
Nothing would make me happier than if our shop officially supported Linux and FOSS apps, but my happiness doesn't pay the bills and it's sure not going to spread itself to the end users who know their software's ins and outs and don't have time or money to spend a week or more learning all new stuff. Sad, too, because SMB is a market that's screaming for Linux adoption right now.
Why on Earth would you want WGA updates?
When developers stop writing software for Windows XP. That is when people will start to upgrade.
I don't understand Microsoft. MS has almost no development costs with XP anymore except what's needed to patch it and there is still a major demand for it. That makes it a cash cow. Mostly all they need to do with it is package it, ship it and let it roll the $$$$$$$ in for them. By allowing vendors to put it on computers, they don't really even have packing and shipping costs either which means even less overhead.
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
they need a trun off update that also lets you get m$ downloads that need WGA to download.
also if would suck big time if you had to pay a support fee just to get a WGA hardware lock out reset.
Actually, WINE will take over from XP. It will be the only way to run your legacy apps after 2014.
We have a lot of people still balking over the switch from GroupWise to Exchange Server. There were some nice features of GroupWise that Exchange does not support.
I think we need regulation to make all Closed source software to Open source software if the vendor decides to end its support.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Actually, I meant evolving past things like x86 and ATX. They are arguably reaching their limits and I'm hoping we won't spend another decade pulling them along.
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
"Viable" in what way? I mean, would you be satisfied using DOS today? On a PC you just bought from the store? Leave aside the lack of drivers for probably 90% of things out there, or the fact it was concieved before the Internet took off, but what about single process and all the crud and generally the fact that OS is ancient by any standards.
And if you would still consider using DOS today, the question is "why?" Maybe if enough people feel like that there's something to think about. Was it the simpler interfaces? The software that managed to be great in spite of the hardware limitations?
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
So you're saying that Win95 was allround just better than Win2k? I'm sorry but that makes you an idiot.
I am the lawn!
People are always bashing Vista at every opportunity, but it's never caused me any problems,
then later
Now XP, ... had at least as many bugs as Vista does
So which is, Vista is great and never caused you problems, or it has loads of bugs just like XP??
I hope this new version of Windows isn't again designed to force instant hardware obsolescence. I become disturbed when an O/S developer attempts to force me to buy new systems when the primary enhancement the O/S offers - to anybody with a modicum of security awareness and technical expertise - is a prettier GUI.
After all, I wouldn't buy paint that requires me to build a new house around it.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
I always have to laugh when people discuss the "poor" boot time Vista has comapred to XP. Let's say it takes 20 seconds more to boot, and assume (incorrectly in my experience) that XP is fully ready to go after its 10-12 second boot time. You lose 20 seconds a day. Wow.
I've seen people argue about this by adding it up over a whole year and stating that "I lose this much time a year". Big whoop. Do something useful during those 20 seconds rather than staring at the screen.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
It has bugs, of course. My implication was that it doesn't have noticeably more than any other operating system I've ever used (including Linux) and that none of the bugs I've found have been very significant. If I close Left4Dead and I get a video display error messsage that wouldn't appear on XP, I can live with it.
Bugs != serious problems in every instance. A small bug can often be ignored, bypassed or simply fixed with a little intelligence and computing experience. But yes, you're right, I shoudl have qualified "problems" with the adjective "serious".
Here, you've earned yourself a cookie for spotting my mistake. Enjoy.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
"ONE click, my friend. Or just hit ENTER, I know it entails pulling your hand out of the cheetoz-bag by for christ's, computers are all about sacrifice."
One click to do what?
I'm not talking about the FUCK-DAMNED box to elevate permissions. For the last FUCKING time. I don't care about that box.
Read my comments before replying next time. This is about Vista stopping the running of unsigned binaries at startup, amongst other things.
"It was probably creating a system restore point,"
No, it wasn't.
It tells you when it does that. Most of the time it just sits there doing fuck-all for a few minutes before it even downloads the updates, and pauses between each, and downloads them at a snail's pace. And even when it has them, it's three stage "Now I'm installing, now you must reboot so I can do more during shutdown and more again during startup" is painfully slow.
Does debian do an auto system restore? No, if I wanted that I could set it up. In this case windows is being far, far slower even without it, at every stage.
Nope.
I am the lawn!
Once again, you're not who I was aiming the snark at.
If you have software that can't be moved, fine, no problem. It's the usual, somewhat trollish, "lunix teh suxx0r!" crowd I was aiming at, for whom PS is the fashionable excuse to avoid thinking too hard.
"Do something else"? Almost tripling the time it takes for my machine to boot up makes a big difference in use. 10-12 seconds boot time is so close to the time it takes to turn on the TV, that my computer becomes like an appliance. I turn it on, open a document, print it, and turn it off. It feels just like turning on the TV, setting the DVR to record something, and turning it off.
Do you really think a consumer in this day and age would settle for their TV taking almost half a minute to "boot up" in order for them to set their DVR to record a show before they leave for work?
Seconds matter to most people, and if my computer behaves like an appliance rather than a slow booting PC, I can change my habits of use to use less power, so the boot time definitely makes a difference.
Before commenting on the Bible, please read it first
"Do something else"?
Yes, most people boot once or twice a day and don't constantly reboot.
Almost tripling the time it takes for my machine to boot up makes a big difference in use. 10-12 seconds boot time is so close to the time it takes to turn on the TV
XP never booted to a usable state after 10 seconds for me, nor for anyone I've ever known, nor for any of the dozens of computers I've used at my place of work. Nice that yours does though. And how is 10-12 seconds so much more like a TV than 30 seconds? My TV comes on in about a second. XP is ten times slower at best if we believe the random figure quoted here.
that my computer becomes like an appliance. I turn it on, open a document, print it, and turn it off. It feels just like turning on the TV, setting the DVR to record something, and turning it off.
Suspend is your friend. If you want rapid on/off* transitions then don't switch it completely off. Hibernate, or use the low power suspend mode. *Yes I'm aware that "suspend" is not "off". Close enough for me.
Do you really think a consumer in this day and age would settle for their TV taking almost half a minute to "boot up" in order for them to set their DVR to record a show before they leave for work?
Very good point, if it weren't for the fact that A TV and a computer are completely different, and comparing startup times for them is like comparing an aeroplane with a car.
Seconds matter to most people, and if my computer behaves like an appliance rather than a slow booting PC, I can change my habits of use to use less power, so the boot time definitely makes a difference.
Yes it makes a difference, but not to the degree that the hyperbole regarding boot times would indicate. If the most severe criticism of Vista turns out to be boot times then I think the whole Vista/XP debate has been blown out of all proportion.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
Oh and here is a benchmark test performed by Lifehacker showing Vista as being faster to reach the desktop from a boot menu than XP, and it being faster from boot to the login prompt. Not conclusive by any means, but perhaps we can trade meaningless examples for a few hours? Your turn, find a site slating Vista for it's boot times, and I'll come back with one praising Vista.
It'll be fun...
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
PEOPLE like YOU give linux a BAD name because you SOUND like an IDIOT and don't make COMPELLING arguments, just spit TIRED, NON-FACTUAL rhetoric that has very LITTLE to do with the SUBJECT at hand.
Similes are like metaphors
Who boots anymore? With sleep/suspend/hibernate, "booting" is so 1997.
Unless Vista decides to spontaniously break its ability to suspend and hibernate, like it did on my laptop. If the laptop battery gets low, half the time instead of hibernating it blue-screens. Same with sleeping.
Then again my Fedora 9 box likes to kernel panic in the nvidia driver after recovering from a hibernate, so that's not really better.
Well I am a fan of Linux but that doesn't mean that XP isn't the current OS for some netbooks and in that market it's successor which may be 7 still isn't out yet.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.