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Microsoft Counts Down To XP Death
mikejuk writes "Microsoft have just released an end-of-support countdown gadget that ticks off the days until XP is no longer supported — but it only runs under Vista or Windows 7! It focuses the mind on the fact that XP is being forcibly retired. It is a wake-up call to think hard about the unpleasant situation and consider the alternatives.So as you watch the count down to XP's death tick by think about the problems created by using software that actually belongs to someone else..."
his is potentially good for the economy, because corporations across America will soon be forced to update the operating systems and IT departments may need to hire new techs for installations.
This is just another version of breaking windows (*sigh* just re-read this, the glass kind) being "good" for the economy because it caused people to buy windows and pay window repairmen. The "good" for the economy would be found instead in people switching to more efficient software, having less system downtime, and more security resulting in less spam/viruses wasting resources. But the simple forced switching causing companies to hire IT workers is not good for the economy.
Don't get me wrong, IT workers are important for a company, but you need to understand that all they do is lose a company money. Like HR, they usually don't produce product, they are on overhead. A good IT person can "save" a company huge sums of money by being efficient and lowering overhead and downtime company wide, but increasing IT budget is always a loss unless that increase is recouped by their ability to increase efficiencies elsewhere.
Dude, XP is over 10 years old. Please inform me which popular Linux desktop distro has backwards support for 10 year old packages?
XP was still on sale last year when I bought my netbook (now wiped and running Ubuntu). The date it was first released is meaningless.
It's very different, because there are multiple organisations that provide linux support and nothing to prevent new organisations springing up, while only one organisation provides windows support.
You wouldn't want to grow dependent on anything without there being a second source supplier who can step in if the first one fails. And similarly, multiple competing suppliers will result in better and cheaper service.
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Debian, with in place upgrades there is no need for a standing version. Gentoo as well. This whole one version thing is a hold over from proprietary licensing.
If you want to go that route XP has not been supported that long, XP SP1 is for instance no longer supported, I do not believe SP2 is either.