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Microsoft Kills Support For XP SP2
Trailrunner7 writes "Microsoft's announcement this week that it is preparing to end support for machines running Windows XP SP2 not only represents a challenge for the thousands of businesses still running SP2, but also is the end of an era for both Microsoft and its customers. It wasn't until 2004 that the final release of XP SP2 hit the streets, but when it did, it represented a huge step forward in security for Windows users. It wasn't necessarily the feature set that mattered as much as the fact that the protections were enabled by default and taken out of the users' hands."
Way back when I had XP SP2, installing SP3 borked my machine. Had to do a System Restore.
Just sayin'.
That Anonymous Coward guy is pretty annoying. Can we have the government censor him or something?
FYI: EAL ratings I had never heard of this before.
I'd do that, but my XP disc is stamped "DO NOT MAKE ILLEGAL COPIES OF THIS DISC" and I haven't yet finished reading USC Title 17 to determine whether your recommendation would be illegal.
I know you are going for sarcasm, but Microsoft actually tells you how to do this. Also, it says "illegal copies", Microsoft has never much cared if you make copies for your own personal use. Hell, they don't even distribute media by default for their bulk licensed products. You have to download them or pay extra for the media.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
XP64 SP2 is the same as Windows Server 2003 SP2. When there's an SP3 for Server 2003 there'll be an SP3 for XP-64. Further, any updates for Server 2003 SP2 x64 edition will patch directly into XP-64, so in actuality you'll probably have support for that long after XP-32 is dead and buried. Microsoft's support for Server OS's far outlasts their support for consumer OS's (generally).
The successor to Windows 2000 Professional was Windows XP. Not Windows Server 2003.
Millenium was also a consolidation release, designed to make the consumer line look more like the business line so they could merge them. There are three tracks:
3.x -> 95 -> 98 -> Me -> (Line ends. Continue from XP below)
NT 4 Workstation -> 2000 Professional -> XP -> Vista -> 7
NT 3.51 -> NT 4 Server -> 2000 Server -> 2003 -> 2008 -> 2008R2
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Be aware that the end-of-support for SP2 isn't actually news. The date has been known ever since SP3 was released.