Slashdot Mirror
Windows XP SP2 Support Ends Tomorrow
Vectormatic writes "As can be seen on the product page for Windows XP, support for SP2 ends tomorrow, while the majority of Windows XP users still haven't upgraded to SP3. This could open up millions of users/businesses to exploitation, since security updates for SP2 will stop coming in while security fixes to SP3 may clue hackers in to vulnerabilities."
what's more important is that win2k support is withdrawn as well... and quite a few major organization still rely on it...
submitter here,
I didnt mean to imply MS has any kind of responsability to keep support going for SP2 longer, i much more agree with cmdrTaco's stance "from the better-get-patching dept". My goal wasnt to start a whole new thread of MS bashing, more to just notify people about the end of SP2 support, which i think is significant for most nerds/geeks, even if they moved themselves to *nix ages ago, their parents/siblings/friends might still run SP2 somewhere.
Not to mention that SP2 made XP actually good, sp1 was OK as well, but SP2 was a pretty big thing.
People, what a bunch of bastards
People need to stop with this bullshit of wanting to stay on an OS for ever. No company supports a product for all eternity. 2000 was supported when its replacement came out (XP) and when that's replacement came out (Vista) and even for a while when that's replacement came out (7). It was supported for over 10 years (despite the nae it came out in 1999). It isn't like an upgrade has been something you've had to do quick.
It is just laziness on the part of companies that do this. Also, I'd bet these very same companies would tell me to go away if I brought i one of their products from 10 years ago and wanted support on it. They'd say "That is out of warranty, buy a new one." Yet somehow they think MS should have to support their OSes forever.
Also I'll add you CAN get systems that are supported pretty much perpetually. Mainframes are like that. You can run those for decades and even after new version come out, the support continues. However you pay a ton to buy it, pay even more in maintenance (support isn't free, software or hardware, you have to pay yearly upkeep) and they are going to certify it for certain apps and you'll run those and no other, or lose support.
If that's not your cup of tea, if you want cheap OSes that let you do as you please, well then deal with the fact that you "only" get a decade of support (though sometimes more like with XP).