Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft Pulling the Plug On Windows XP In Three Years

Posted by Unknown on from the kill-it-with-fire dept.

An anonymous reader wrote in with an article from myce. Microsoft will be discontinuing all support for Windows XP in Spring 2014. Coinciding with the announcement, Microsoft released a 1,000-day countdown gadget to help XP users pass the time until their IT departments get into gear. Maybe.

39 of 315 comments (clear)

  1. Ummm by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 5, Funny

    It can't help XP users pass the time since it requires Vista or 7!

    1. Re:Ummm by 0123456 · · Score: 3, Funny

      It can't help XP users pass the time since it requires Vista or 7!

      Does it run in Wine?

    2. Re:Ummm by RiscIt · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's just the killer app they need to get everyone to upgrade!

    3. Re:Ummm by anomaly256 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      My favorite part is that it requires windows genuine advantage validation before letting you download such an inane, useless piece of software. Are they afraid of pirates knowing when XP hits EOL?

    4. Re:Ummm by VortexCortex · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I wrote a JavaScript bookmarklet that displays days till the XP EOL.

      (Just so I could say things like: "Rob, we need approval for those upgrade licenses; we only have 1001.02432 days left")

  2. Not a moment too soon! by Afforess · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How many other companies are expected to maintain 10+ year old software, even after TWO new releases (Vista, Win7) are available?

    --
    If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
    1. Re:Not a moment too soon! by creat3d · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Companies that make operating systems used the world over in everything from personal desktops to enterprise-wide systems.

      --
      Grammar nazis are to this community what excrements are to gold.
    2. Re:Not a moment too soon! by Afforess · · Score: 5, Informative

      Ubuntu does not maintains Long Term releases that long. Apple is notorious for dropping support for previous OS X versions (um, talk to the people trapped on OS X 10.4 due to the intel switch).

      Sorry buddy, your facts are wrong.

      --
      If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
    3. Re:Not a moment too soon! by 0123456 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How many other companies are expected to maintain 10+ year old software, even after TWO new releases (Vista, Win7) are available?

      Hmm, perhaps companies that were still selling that 'ten year old software' on new systems last year?

    4. Re:Not a moment too soon! by jedidiah · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's not 10 years old if it was sold last year.

      Yeah. XP has been shipping on new machines until very recently due to the fiasco that was Vista.

      Your "age calculation" should start at when the product stopped shipping with new machines, not when it was first introduced.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    5. Re:Not a moment too soon! by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

      um, talk to the people trapped on OS X 10.4 due to the intel switch

      My PowerBook is running 10.5 quite happily.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    6. Re:Not a moment too soon! by powerlord · · Score: 2

      Yes, 10.5 can run on a PPC.

      10.6 is Intel only (and RosettaStone is an optional component, to be removed in 10.7)

      --
      This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
    7. Re:Not a moment too soon! by confused+one · · Score: 2

      We have a lot of production software written to target Windows XP. We're still running some DOS software on Windows 98 boxes. The two of us working on this, part time, can not possibly move all the software to the Windows 7 platform by that time. Don't blame me, blame the short-sighted managment that has chosen to ignore all of my recommendations for the past 8 years.

    8. Re:Not a moment too soon! by Spad · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Just like how my house is only 3 years old, because that's when I moved into it. I mean sure, it was built in the 60s, but that hardly counts.

    9. Re:Not a moment too soon! by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

      The machine is 7 years old and shipped with OS X 10.2. For the last couple of years, it's not done anything except play music. I don't really have any problem with it not supporting 10.6 or 10.7. Not supporting 10.5 would have been a problem, because VLC dropped support for 10.4 a couple of years ago.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    10. Re:Not a moment too soon! by kcbnac · · Score: 2

      Then they'll have to pay the price for not listening to their experts, and:
      A) hire more folk to migrate everything
      B) run 'unsecured' systems
      C) lock them down (more) as they'll be unpatched
      D) head for virtualization for the DOS/XP apps.
      E) Combination of Virtualization for the Win98 stuff, and compatibility mode for XP software.

      Time to start harping about that, if its gonna take that long.

    11. Re:Not a moment too soon! by AvitarX · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Like Dell?

      Even so, the system will be 3-5 years old by the time support is dropped. It will be worth $0 to the accountants.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    12. Re:Not a moment too soon! by Urkki · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Ubuntu does not maintains Long Term releases that long.

      Update from one LTS support to the 4 year later LTS version is generally painless. Ie. the support is there, you just have to click a few buttons to install it, and it'll most likely even run, just like that, click click. Upgrading Ubuntu (or other comparable Linux distro) is more like installing new service pack to a Windows OS, there's continuous upgrade path.

      Now try upgrading a basic WinXP computer from just 2008 (to compare to Ubuntu 8.04 LTS) to anything newer.

      But I do think MS does not have any obligation to support XP any longer than they think it's smart business-wise, and I'm rather surprised about how long they've supported XP. Commercial OS costs money, and it's unreasonable to expect indefinitely long support for a one-time payment.

    13. Re:Not a moment too soon! by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, I bought it to do work. It served that purpose well for three years. By the end of that time, the 1.25GHz G4 CPU was starting to feel a bit slow, and it got relegated to being the spare machine, with a new MacBook Pro taking over as my main computer. It was used as a spare when the MBP's hard drive broke a couple of years later and I had to work on it for a few days while the MBP was being repaired, but since then it's been sitting connected to my living room speakers playing music or sleeping, and very occasionally playing YouTube videos or flash animations.

      On eBay, similar models sell for about a hundred quid, so it's not worth selling it and buying some dedicated device. As a laptop, it uses very little power, and can suspend and resume well, so it's a competent device for this.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    14. Re:Not a moment too soon! by toejam13 · · Score: 2

      You see this a bit more in the mainframe and server world. Releases see very long support cycles, often exceeding a decade. However, updates are usually limited to break/fix and security patches as opposed to feature enhancements. Much of that comes from the conservative nature of those environments. The premium pricing of product and support contracts reflects that environment.

      For desktop and workstation markets, a decade is a long time. Microsoft is well within its rights to reallocate those resources from the XP team for other projects. Sure, many applications still work under Windows XP. But the same argument could be made about Windows 2K. Heck, the majority of my productivity applications run under NT4SP6 with a few tweaks. Doesn't mean that I should still be running NT4.

      Having said that, I do have a double standard about being able to use old stuff. While I believe that people should be upgrading their software, I do believe that people should be able to keep their older hardware (within reason). Keeping that stuff out of landfills is a good thing, and many people with limited budgets are more than happy to have it.

      I wish that Microsoft would have released a consumer version of its Windows 7 Thin Client Edition. Windows 7 Home Edition will work with something as old as a Pentium-II/266 or K6/266 (you need an ACPI compliant motherboard, a DirectX 9 video card and enough memory), but it chugs a bit (I wouldn't recommend anything less than 500MHz). Having a version where the compiler is tuned for older procs and smaller memory footprints, while having non-essential programs and services disabled would help. I assume they don't do it because people that cheap would refuse to pay for an OS, and I assume Microsoft wouldn't discount their OS enough for them to bite.

    15. Re:Not a moment too soon! by LO0G · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And Microsoft will continue to support Windows XP. It's just not going to be providing FREE support, you'll have to have a custom support agreement.

      Custom support agreements can go on a LONG time

    16. Re:Not a moment too soon! by nothings · · Score: 3, Insightful

      An operating system is not like other software; it hosts other software. I shouldn't be forced to reinstall all my software every ten years, or five years, or two years. I shouldn't be forced to switch to a new version of the software that controls my access to all my other software if that new version has a different UI that forces me to relearn all sorts of new UI shortcuts, to abandon helpful utilities and add-ons that I've acquired or developed, etc. etc.

      Of course it's not just Microsoft; Firefox has fucking up that last one with nearly ever major release.

      I dunno, maybe I'm just an old fuddy-duddy or something, but after eighteen years of regular OS "must have" upgrades every couple years, yeah, I'm comfortable saying it's a huge fucking waste of my time, and it is stupid, and yes they should support the old versions.

      If upgrading to new versions didn't involve changing the user experience and didn't require reinstalling everything, then it would be no different than a patch or service pack, except it would cost money and have a new version number... and that would be fine with me. (It's still lame to have to pay 50-200 dollars every couple years, but I could live with that at least. But that's not what's on the table.)

  3. This is a dupe by ucflap · · Score: 3, Informative

    Old news is stale :( http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/04/21/1450231/Microsoft-Counts-Down-To-XP-Death

  4. Not surprising. by JKConsult · · Score: 2

    I'm still on (and perfectly content with) XP, but even I'll admit that by that point, it'll be the equivalent of Terry Schiavo.

  5. sad state of affairs by v1 · · Score: 2

    when the have to keep maintaining a product across the course of two new releases so customers can survive long enough for a release that's worth ponying up for.

    Tho I suppose 7 wasn't too bad. Vista, however...

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
    1. Re:sad state of affairs by YodasEvilTwin · · Score: 2

      7 is excellent, a true successor to XP. XP is only still around because of poor people who don't torrent or have ancient hardware, and incompetent IT departments.

    2. Re:sad state of affairs by Darinbob · · Score: 2

      There's also the issue that XP works just fine. Why upgrade? You force yourself to get new faster hardware with more memory, and when you're done putting the new OS on it you discover that it doesn't run any faster than it did on the old system. It's like Office, everyone knows that the older versions are always better than the new ones; I can't recall any release of Office where there was an overall improvement. And yet some people insist on upgrading...

  6. Nor does Canonical charge for upgrades by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

    Ubuntu does not maintains Long Term releases that long.

    Nor does Canonical charge for operating system upgrades. Nor does Canonical drop all support for older yet paid for and still working PC hardware as quickly; Ubuntu 11.04 needs less than half the RAM of Windows 7.

    1. Re:Nor does Canonical charge for upgrades by AvitarX · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't know how true that is.

      Windows 7 runs almost as well as Ubuntu with 1GB of RAM, I can't imagine using either with less.

      I just installed Windows 7 on a Pentium D with 1GB RAM, and Integrated graphic, aside from the fact that I'm in the ugly interface mode, it works pretty well.

      Both it, and my Ubuntu box with 1GB of RAM suffer freeze-ups as things swap.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
  7. 2007 called, they want their MS announcements back by davidwr · · Score: 2

    Microsoft announced back in 2007 or 2006 that Windows XP Pro would be supported until 2014. In 2007, they extended XP Home and Media Center support to 2014.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  8. This is not news by Bacon+Bits · · Score: 4, Informative

    This gadget was released months ago. I've had it on my Windows 7 desktop at work since May at least.

    And before all the whargarbl about MS dropping support... Windows XP was released in 2001. No consumer OS has been supported that long, and few enterprise OSs are. Since Windows 7 was released (that was 2 years ago) netbooks and low end systems have shipped with Windows 7 Starter. XP has not been sold on systems for years, and a four years of security support is not bad at all.

    Earlier the same year XP was released, Red Hat 7.1 came out. That's the first version of Red Hat to use the 2.4 kernel (7 had the 2.2 kernel). Later in 2001 they released 7.2, which as a new feature offered support for the ext3 file system. One of the major selling points of XP, you may remember, was the fact that it offered full native USB support. It's time to move on, people.

    --
    The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
  9. Plenty! by sjbe · · Score: 5, Informative

    How many other companies are expected to maintain 10+ year old software, even after TWO new releases (Vista, Win7) are available?

    Off the top of my head:

    • Every aerospace company that makes software
    • Every military contractor that makes software
    • Most banking software
    • Lots of software that runs on a mainframe (AS/400, etc)
    • Point of sale systems
    • Healthcare equipment
    • CNC machining equipment
    • Accounting systems

    Just to name a few. There is software out there which demands support periods measured in decades. LOTS of companies are expected to maintain support for old software.

  10. No more updates... by WLAJ · · Score: 2

    Only three years until XP is finally stable? That certainly is good news!

  11. Re:"The ironing is delicious" -- new diet? by bkpark · · Score: 3, Informative

    I think the word you want is irony.

    And the family cartoon you want to watch is The Simpsons.

  12. Re:Can I still activate? by cyber-vandal · · Score: 2

    Make sure you have a few VM images created before 2014.

  13. My bank by EmperorOfCanada · · Score: 2

    I was at my bank (a big Canadian one) and the manager told me that they finally upgraded to XP. I was to stunned to ask what they upgraded from.

  14. Re:Final Rollup? by Lonewolf666 · · Score: 2

    Probably not from Microsoft. But maybe from some third party. Currently, there is the WSUS Offline Update (http://download.wsusoffline.net/) for instance. WSUS Offline Update is a small Open Source application that will download the more important patches for you (see http://forums.wsusoffline.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=172).

    So get a tool like this, let it run shortly before the cutoff date, and it will make a "collected updates" DVD for you.

    --
    C - the footgun of programming languages
  15. Activation? by DKirk · · Score: 2

    I wonder what will become of the activation process? If someone should want to reload the o/s will Microsoft still activate XP and allow it's use or will there be a published unlock?

  16. Unsupported or deactivated? by fishbowl · · Score: 2

    I don't care that the OS isn't supported. The only support I've ever asked Microsoft for was the activation of a MSDN key that I bought directly from Microsoft, a full retail MSDN subscription, that would not activate because someone had guessed the key and registered it before it was even assigned. Mind you, I never did get any support, and I had to literally threaten to sue (Microsoft!) to even get a replacement MSDN license.

    Anyway, I don't care at all that XP isn't "supported." The problem is, will it be impossible to *activate* ? Will they go as far as to *deactivate* it? Will they release an activation crack before they end-of-life it?

    --
    -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.