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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.

9 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 RiscIt · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    2. 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    If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?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 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      If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
    2. 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?

    3. 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.

  3. 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.
  4. 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.