Windows Vista Enters Extended Support

yuhong writes "On April 10, the second Tuesday of April, Windows Vista will exit Mainstream Support and enter Extended Support. This means that no-charge (free) support will end, no further service packs will be created, nor will future IE versions (such as IE10) be available for Vista. Also, no new non-security hotfixes will be created or be available without an Extended Hotfix Support Agreement (EHSA). This will last for 5 years before support for Vista completely ends in 2017."

Comments

Crap!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm apparently way behind the times -- being perfectly happy with Windows XP!!!!

Re:Crap!

[rrohbeck]

Same here. Since all I need it for is to run Outlook 2003 for our corporate crap, all I need is XP in a VM. Just some 40GB I can copy to whatever machine I want and run it with a single kvm command.
Now if only calendaring and tasks would work in Thunderbird with Exchange...

Re:Crap!

[Eskarel]

You're missing out, Windows 7 is actually a lot better than XP was, Vista you have an argument on, but 7 has a lot of nice stuff, not least of which is 64 bit support which doesn't suck.

Re:Crap!

[HappyEngineer]

Unless you manage the server yourself I'm not sure what all this stuff is. I use XP at home and Win7 at work. It's the same. It's an OS. You run stuff and it runs. The only difference I see is that the gui looks a little different, configuration stuff is in slightly different places and I occasionally accidentally rotate my damn monitor when I hit ctrl+alt+left when I mean to hit ctrl+left.

Nevertheless, the next time I upgrade my home machine I'll go win7 for the 64 bit support. If you don't need more than 4gb of ram then I'd say just stick with XP.

Re:Crap!

[jaymemaurice]

I found Vista 64bit quite good for my purpose actually... the 32bit version and lack of 64bit software as well as the crap hardware of the time is what sucked for me.

Re:Crap!

[Eskarel]

Also true, Vista had good 64 bit support. XPx64 however is shite.

Re:Crap!

[Eskarel]

There's a lot of little things. Better dual monitor support(Windows + left and Windows + right will swap a window from one screen to the other including resizing maximized windows, you could get this in XP, but not without a third party program). Plug and Play drivers for hardware made in the last 10 years. Jump lists and pinned applications are pretty great when you actually start using them. Pinning documents is also helpful in certain circumstances.

There's nothing ground breaking, but the added little things can be pretty great for your productivity. I'm not arguing that people with a 5 or 6 year old computer really need to upgrade their XP machines, but there's really no excuse for taking an existing machine with 7 installed and replacing it with XP.

I get a bit annoyed about this issue because Slashdot is full of people complaining that everything Microsoft makes is buggy, insecure and massively behind the times and then they reveal they're using Windows and Office XP. The OS has come a long way both in terms of features, security and stability. It's still not open source of course so if that's your primary judgement of an OS, that's a perfectly legitimate criticism, but if you're going to be using a Windows OS it really ought to be 7. It's a genuinely good OS. Not so convinced about Windows 8, but time will tell.

Re:Crap!

[jonbryce]

You still have another year of mainstream support.

Re:Crap!

[0111 1110]

You do realize that windows 7 is not free right? What makes it so much better than XP that it is worth spending money on 7 that could be spent elsewhere? I run Windows XP x64 and I just don't see any pressing reason to 'upgrade' to 7. 7 does take up a lot more disk space and I think some of the GUI decisions are horrible enough that I pretty much have to go back to a Windows Classic theme to escape from it and non-indexed search has been dumped, and it takes up a huge amount of hard drive space compared to XP, Arch Linux, or OS X, and it's a bit of a memory hog compated to those OSes as well. But otherwise it really isn't too bad of an OS. Linux and OS X are both obviously superior, but it's not that terrible. I wish microsoft would separate the GUI from the rest of the OS though. Linux is vastly superior in that sense. I love being able to choose my own GUI style in Linux. I don't see how shoving the same GUI down everyone's throat can be considered a good thing.

In its favor Windows 7 definitely boots faster than any version of XP and it's more secure because running programs as a non-admin user is much better supported and it has the trim command for SSDs. Although I don't yet own an SSD. Ironically if you are upgrading to Windows 7 for the SSD support you will also suffer much more from the drive space bloat problem since you may only have 60 GB and Win 7 can grow to take up a significant percentage of that with its greedy WinSxS folder. The hard drive space issue can be somewhat mitigated by installing Windows 7 Embedded, which I think is a better OS overall than the standard versions of Windows 7.

There may be some other minor improvements as well. But I don't see that any of them are so great that it is worth the cost of the new OS. Aside from the money one of the biggest reasons I haven't upgraded to triple boot XP x64, Win 7 x64, and Arch Linux is that my sound card doesn't have drivers for 7, and I like my sound card. I'd have to spend hundreds of dollars to properly replace it. My sound card does have Linux drivers, strangely enough.

Re:Crap!

[0111 1110]

XPx64 however is shite.

Can you be a bit more specific?

Re:Crap!

[Anonymous Coward]

Calendaring certainly does work with Thunderbird and Exchange if Outlook Web Access is used and Davmail is installed on the local machine with Thunderbird pointed at it. Task management is still not working though at the moment.

Re:Crap!

[jythie]

I still spin up new machines and VMs with XP rather then Vista or 7. Does the job quite well.

Re:Crap!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_64#Windows_XP_Professional_x64_Edition

Re:Crap!

[Eskarel]

Note I didn't say that you should pay cash to upgrade. I said that Windows 7 was a good OS with a lot of noticeable improvements in terms of support, stability, security, and productivity. You're welcome to make the decision to say "Financially for me, it doesn't work out", and if you have a full retail license of XP and you want to keep installing that, lord knows it's none of my business. I don't work for Microsoft and I don't get a cut of sales. Piracy of course is not a way of saving money.

In general, my position is as follows.

1. Windows 7 is an excellent OS, in terms of functionality and in the general case it is as good as anything else I have tried including Several Linux Distros and OSX. In the specific case it's certainly possible that it may not be the best choice for your needs(I've seen people using NT because they had software or hardware which only ran on NT and for which there was no replacement), and I'm getting into the discussion about open vs closed source here because the OP was happy using Windows, not Linux.
2. People who claim that Microsoft are a decade behind Linux in terms of features and insist on using XP as their source of comparison are asshats. XP is more than a decade old and has a large number of resulting flaws(the security architecture for instance sucks for one). This is one of my pet peeves because I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and comparing this years Linux build to a a decade old Windows version which is two releases behind is no more right nor fair than comparing Windows 7 to Redhat 5.

As a side note, the vast majority of the improvements are actually in the UI, if you switch to classic mode, you'll get none of them. I understand where you're coming from, I switched XP to the old 98 style start menu for years, but when you start using thins like jump lists, pinned apps, and the like, you'll wonder how you lived without them, particularly in a work environment.

Re:Crap!

[Chaos Incarnate]

The big problem with XPx64 was that it wasn't really XP—it's actually Windows Server 2003. With the assorted compatibility issues that implies.

Re:Crap!

[WuphonsReach]

You're missing out, Windows 7 is actually a lot better than XP was, Vista you have an argument on, but 7 has a lot of nice stuff, not least of which is 64 bit support which doesn't suck.

True, but upgrades are expensive. Win7 64bit professional edition is not a cheap upgrade. Plus there's the whole nonsense about the half a dozen different versions of Win7.

Win7 should have had *one* version, priced at $80.

Re:Crap!

[Eskarel]

Not necessarily one version(though the current 5 or whatever it is is a little excessive, but the price point is a probably about close to right, at least IMO. You can sometimes manage to get hold of an OEM license even if you're building yourself if you're buying enough parts from a single supplier, but it's still not cheap.

That said, when you buy a new PC you'll either get or need to buy a new license anyway, and for all that upgrades aren't pushed by software anymore, 5 years is about the longest life you're likely to get out a regularly used desktop these days before you start getting faults, so the upgrades still happen.

Re:Crap!

[0111 1110]

Actually I tried pinned apps and all the other post-XP GUI crap and I hated it. Pinned apps are definitely a step backward. Task switchers and app launchers should be separate. Probably the only reason Microsoft is combining the two functions is to emulate the OS X dock which I also hate.

I have yet to see a single argument as to why any of the newer Windows GUI stuff is more productive in any way. Just because something is newer doesn't mean it is better. Admittedly GUIs tend to be very personal things. Some people love docks, not only in OSX but in Linux as well. I don't prefer the XP fisher price GUI because I love it. I prefer it because it doesn't suck as badly as the Windows 7 version. I much prefer several Linux GUIs. The freedom to choose your own GUI is one of my favorite features in Linux. It's just wonderful. There is no excuse for doing things any other way.

I think Windows 2000/XP was the only good operating system Microsoft has ever made or will ever make. If they finally make a MinWin kernel with modular, customizable GUIs only then will I be impressed. Only then will they be able to compete with Linux. It's pathetic that Microsoft can design a modular install system for Windows 7 Embedded, but aren't willing to offer a consumer version of that. Microsoft is anti-consumer in every way. I never used to hate Microsoft but I am starting to now. Rather than upgrading to Windows 8 I am seriously considering dumping Windows completely except for playing games. Once I am no longer able to use XP x64 due to lack of driver support or whatever I will probably only boot to Windows to play games.

Re:Crap!

[toddestan]

The main problem with XP 64 is the lack of drivers. This really was the same problem Vista 64 initially had, but XP 64 was never really considered mainstream and a lot of hardware manufacturers simply ignored it (and continue to do so).

Does this mean even more pown'd windows boxes?

[Anonymous Coward]

No patches == more zombies?

Will be interesting (and possibly annoying) to see if this end of patches is accompanied with a surge in botnet based spam and such.

Re:Does this mean even more pown'd windows boxes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah. No worries there, not even criminals want to run windows vista :)

Re:Does this mean even more pown'd windows boxes?

[LostCluster]

Yep, and it wouldn't surprise me to see someone from Microsoft go home and write the critical exploit for the flaw that'll never be fixed. If your OS no longer has patches available, you're running too old an OS.

Re:Does this mean even more pown'd windows boxes?

[DMUTPeregrine]

No non-security hotfixes is not the same as no patches. They'll patch security flaws, but not add any features.

Re:Does this mean even more pown'd windows boxes?

[Anonymous Coward]

no NON-SECURITY updates during extended support phase.. however security-related fixes will continue as usual for another five years.

Re:Does this mean even more pown'd windows boxes?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's fascinating how the mere mention of something "Micro$haft" induces posts far more moronic than they even usually are on Slashdot. Seriously, if you really thought patches were over for Vista, what the hell do you suppose 5 more years of support meant?

Re:Does this mean even more pown'd windows boxes?

[Hadlock]

I'm pretty sure that the average user stopped seeing new features added sometime around win98 or 2000. Other than UAC in vista, I can't really point to a feature that my mom uses in win7 that wasn't there in 98.

Re:Does this mean even more pown'd windows boxes?

[larry bagina]

Windows 2000 added the "not a complete piece of shit" feature.

Re:Does this mean even more pown'd windows boxes?

[green1]

sorry, that feature was removed before vista

Re:Does this mean even more pown'd windows boxes?

[hobarrera]

Fancy 3D effects and transparency?

Re:Does this mean even more pown'd windows boxes?

[Superdarion]

Many of the new features are invisible to the user and therein lies their usefulness, since the user doesn't need to do anything (or even be aware of them) for them to work.

Re:Does this mean even more pown'd windows boxes?

[antifoidulus]

Um, no, it means they won't patch any non-security related bugs(though the exact definition of what renders a bug a security issue is a bit unclear). Theres a huge difference.

Re:Does this mean even more pown'd windows boxes?

[TangoMargarine]

Snap-to-Edge? Once you start using it, you hate to go without.

Re:Does this mean even more pown'd windows boxes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea!!! Features were always the big problem. I don't know how many hours I've spent disabling them. No more dotnet crap. Vista will finally be as good as XP.

Re:Does this mean even more pown'd windows boxes?

[ZombieThoughts]

Download Aerosnap? It's free and does the same thing. You can google it.

Re:Does this mean even more pown'd windows boxes?

[shutdown -p now]

It was cut because of schedule problems, but, hey, it made it back in Win7.

Re:Does this mean even more pown'd windows boxes?

[TangoMargarine]

Hey, he asked for a new feature. If Windows 8 is Compiz-ified, I'd still call that a new feature. For Windows, anyway.

Re:What Really Needs Support

[noh8rz3]

Yes, that's accurate - support is for people who need help. In other news, water is wet.

Long live XP

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet my company, a major Fortune 500 member, lives on with XP

Re:Long live XP

[Anonymous Coward]

in two years and your company will either be running botnets or migrating to a newer version.

all xp updates end april 8th, 2014

Re:Long live XP

[ConceptJunkie]

I'm sure there are a lot of Fortune 500 companies still running XP. The biggest reason to upgrade by far, as has always been true for Windows, is for newer hardware support, or when security patches stop. Actually, I'm sure almost no one actually upgraded even to Windows 7, they just bought a new computer with it.

Re:Long live XP

[marcosdumay]

That'll be interesting to whatch. What comes first? Massive migration from XP or April 2014?

Will the currently old computers that run XP be replaced by them?

Re:Long live XP

[yuhong]

Wonder how many enterprises will end up buying the expensive Custom Support Agreements.

Re:Long live XP

[symbolset]

Oh, if only there were a third choice. Torn between torment and damnation we might glance about for some saving grace, some true escape from our peril but it is not to be. The choice is either run botnets, or migrate to a newer version of Windows. There is no third course. Alas, we are lost!

Re:Long live XP

[JDG1980]

Oh, if only there were a third choice. Torn between torment and damnation we might glance about for some saving grace, some true escape from our peril but it is not to be. The choice is either run botnets, or migrate to a newer version of Windows. There is no third course. Alas, we are lost!

In practice, no, there is no third option. Attempting to migrate to Linux or MacOS would not only require extensive retraining of every employee in the company (including the IT staff!), but also rewriting every piece of custom software that relies on Windows (including stuff like Excel spreadsheet macros and VBScripts, many of which are probably undocumented). This would be far, far more expensive than just upgrading to Windows 7, even if that requires new PCs. A migration to another OS is almost impossible to justify by a simple cost-benefit analysis in any large company.

Re:Long live XP

[Calos]

Answer: the world will end before April 2014, and mass migration from XP is a harbinger for the end of the world, so it's all irrelevant.

Re:Long live XP

[Dusty101]

Minor nitpick, but I thought Mac Office 2011 brought back support for Visual Basic scripting?

Re:My message to you, Laura:

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why the above is rated -1. It's certainly more interesting than TFA.

Euthanize XP

[backslashdot]

When are they going to put a mercy bullet in XP .. I go to major corporations and find that they are STILL on XP .. living off the Extended Support contracts. The IT departments apparently just cant justify moving to Windows 7 or Vista.

Take XP off Extended Life Support.

Re:Euthanize XP

[thegarbz]

When are they going to put a mercy bullet in XP

You're implying that you're doing it a favour killing it? There's a reason it's still widely used. It works. I have yet to find something I can't do on the system. Every application runs on it save for the few that Microsoft's marketing department have deemed unsuitable like DirectX 11.

You shoot the race horse AFTER it breaks a leg and becomes useless, not while it's still in good racing condition.

Re:Euthanize XP

[jawtheshark]

The words you're looking for are "good enough", because that's what XP is and Microsofts main problem with it.

Re:Euthanize XP

[yuhong]

XP will end support in exactly two years (April 2014).

Re:Euthanize XP

[lightknight]

This is assuming you are in the racing business, and not in the business of selling equestrians.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 Practical

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

Every application runs on it save for the few that Microsoft's marketing department have deemed unsuitable like DirectX 11.

The marketing department wasn`t responsible for the complete rewrite of the graphics driver model as well as the subsequent re architecture of DirectX.

Re:Euthanize XP

[jawtheshark]

True, but in this case everyone except MicroEquus, is in the business of using horses. Some of them are employed as brewery horses, others are employed as race horses, but as long as they work fine, there is no need from horses from MicroEquus.

You can of course switch to the free Llamas, but they're so unfamiliar.

Re:Euthanize XP

[davydagger]

This shows how microsofts model of making people pay to beta test backfires, because no one wants to spend money on anything not 10 years old. No one in the linux scene is bitching because they stopped maintaining kernel 2.4 (came out around the same time as XP).

Re:Euthanize XP

[LordLimecat]

I have yet to find something I can't do on the system.

Drop admin privileges without breaking every program in existence?

Run a version of IE that isnt dog slow?

Also, not enough shiney [not sure if joking]

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

Drop Admin privileges? That's pretty easy these days, and (oddly enough) we can thank Vista for it. I'm serious, in the last 5 years, running Limited User on XP has become a non-issue.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

Reason to upgrade? Oh, I don't know but maybe running 64 bit applications or needing more than 4GB of ram perhaps?

No, 64 bit xp doesn't count and has never counted. Try to find drivers for it.

For those of us in a domain, win7/vista allows SMB2 and a slew of other enhancements for group policy, ad, etc. (on a 2k8 domain)

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

Try running 64 bit apps. That is one thng you will find it can't do.

Re:Euthanize XP

[bertok]

Lots of things don't work on Windows XP. Just off the top of my head I can think of:

* Windows 2008 R2 RSAT Tools -- you can RDP to a server instead, but that's not always possible or recommended.
* PowerShell Active Directory module -- very handy, but doesn't work on XP at all.
* You mentioned DX11
* Internet Explorer 9 or later
* Location APIs for HTML5 apps
* Proper IPv6 support (XP has some experimental support, but in practice it's not very usable)
* Any 64-bit only software like the SharePoint 2010 design tools -- I know there's a 64-bit XP edition, I used to use it myself, but few others did, and support for it by hardware vendors was never good and even less these days.

Sure, these are all small things, but they add up. To get an XP machine to "work" you need about a bazillion hotfixes, add-ons, extras, drivers, and even some scripts. On top of that, these days it's getting hard to buy a machine with "only" 4GB of memory, but that's the most XP supports, unless you're a masochist and want to run an unsupported decade-old 64-bit OS instead of just going straight to Windows 7 64-bit like a normal person.

Sure, its leg might not be broken, but it's limping pretty badly.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense. If Fortune 500 companies had huge numbers of old Linux workstations, they would be waving cash at RedHat to buy "extended support". Linux gets away with relative short lifecycles only because it's primarily used in a server role with hands-on administration.

(These companies have a 'software subscription' with Microsoft & are buying Windows 7 and downgrading it to XP. The issue is logistics of upgrading, not license cost.)

Re:Euthanize XP

[ConceptJunkie]

Well, that was one thing MS got right... about 10 years too late... but right nonetheless.

Of course, Vista shipped with such moronic security features such having to ask permission multiple times to rename an icon on the desktop, but they managed to get it right with Windows 7.

Re:Euthanize XP

[ConceptJunkie]

...and yet it's still perfectly fine for 95% of users.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Jesus_666]

Well, every web developer on Earth woud love it if Microsoft kicked every version of Windows that won't receive IE10 off the web. Yes, that's unreasonable but with Microsoft not believing in backports we get to support IE8 until XP has negligible marketshare, which will probably still be another decade. Having to code against that POS (and the only marginally better IE9, which will live for another decade after IE8) means a lot of redundant work and expenses.

It's been "spend half your time coding against the spec and the other half ironing out bizarre IE bugs" for far too long now. By now we shouldn't have to worry about whether an element "has layout" or how to set static dimensions on dynamic content so that IE won't do weird things when we want a float to overflow its parent.

Of course the best option would be to give up on Internet Explorer altogether and spare us all the horror that is Trident. Not like that would happen, either. I have little doubt that Microsoft will keep supplying us with half-baked IE versions with quirks that we need to support for decades because the users can't update IE without buying a new copy of Windows.

Re:Euthanize XP

[backslashdot]

If you are a developer of applications (including web developers that have to test how their application looks in IE7), you'll see better where I'm coming from. Also, it isn't very secure. Its not very convenient for users either, because if they have upgraded from XP they are likely still on Office 2003 or something.

Re:Euthanize XP

[MightyYar]

On the other hand, MS Services for Unix is free on XP.... so I guess it depends on what you need to do.

In my case, I have no need for RSAT tools, the PowerShell Active Directory module, DX11, IE, HTML5 apps, IPv6, or 64-bit applications (though it would be nice sometimes to have 64-bit MATLAB). But I do use MS Services for Unix. I'm sure I'll figure something out whenever I get a new PC with Windows 7 on it, but there's certainly nothing compelling me to actually upgrade.

The biggest thing going for Windows 7 (versus Vista) is that there's no compelling reason to DOWNGRADE :)

Re:Euthanize XP

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

Services for Unix is prepackaged in Win 7, but under a different name. I can't remember what it is...but i know it's there (check the Win 7 equivalent of add / remove windows components)

Re:Euthanize XP

[Kawahee]

It's now Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications and it appears to be deprecated as of Windows 8.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Kjella]

I wouldn't put it on a new machine, but if you have XP-generation hardware there's no need to upgrade. If it was a free upgrade I'd probably suggest everyone go Win7 but I wouldn't spend money on it. And for a lot of people what it does and the hardware they have is enough.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Wingman 5]

it is now called Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications

Re:Euthanize XP

[Billly Gates]

According to statcounter XP in the United States is dying very fast if you include Aprils numbers. Home use on the weekends is only around 18%.

It is not good enough for most users anymore. Its old and will have a place in conservatives hearts like Windows 98, 95, and W2k did. Meanwhile its time to move on.

Re:Euthanize XP

[tepples]

For practical purposes, SFU/SUA has been replaced with MSYS.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

XP WAS, a great OS but 7 is the far superior choice in every single way.

Cant understand some people and XP, they would rather have a OS that is no longer supported, has security holes you could drive a truck though, is much much slower than windows 7, is much less efficient, runs fewer programs and a dozen other reasons. THose people just cant let go of it and would rather have a rougher running pc, that is slower instead of using windows 7.

I mean sure yes if you own a cadillac eldorado from 1954 that belches black smoke, is loud, runs like shit, is a gas hog, bumper has fallen off, rust holes in the body allover, seats worn out and no one will fix it up for you but if it runs why would you want to buy a 2012 toyota corolla that is new and runs like a dream with virtually no problems at all that can easily be fixed should something happen right?

Re:Euthanize XP

[Billly Gates]

Also I would like to mention support for
* greater than 4 gigs of ram
* SSD and trim command support
* better SMP support
* Supperior security for all browsers due to better DEP and other security enchancements
* Touchscreen
* multi que async with Sata and PATA drives
* Much better security

XP is running on bandaids with newer hardware. For shit and kicks I installed XP on my Phenom II 2.6 ghz 6 core, 8 gigs of ram system with a Sata drive last summer. It was sllooow. Boot time doubled, the kernel would freeze up when reading from the disk in random sets (not BSOD but just become unresponsive), not to mention I am used to using the keyboard to type which programs to start like W-O-R ...> Word 2010 ... click.

It was a blast from the past and it felt anitquated. It was a great operating system 10 years ago. Sadly, todays obsession of minimizing costs and having financial gurus become CEOs have hugly devalued technology. You do not see people running Windows 3.11/DOS in 2006 anymore did you?

There comes a point where any upgrade offers more benefits than just costing money. Old hardware wont be around forever and there is productivity enchancements and a security risk has a much bigger cost than the CPAs realize.

Re:Euthanize XP

[humanrev]

...and yet it's still perfectly fine for 95% of users.

I bet most of those people don't know any better. Once you get used to Windows 7 and are shown by someone knowledgeable about how it can do things better, you realize how old-tech XP really is. I have yet to meet anyone in the flesh (i.e. anyone apart from Linux nerds) who actually prefers XP over 7. Just my experience.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Billly Gates]

XP is dying. I agree with MS on this as if they supported more people would still use it. IE 9 requires ASLR, refined DEP, new exception handling security fixes, and something else I do not remember, and of course DRM for their h.264 license which is part of aero.

In essence they would have to turn the kernel into vista lite and would more than quadrouple the development cost for a dying OS that is being discontinued. Even Chrome and Firefox run in crippled mode in XP without these security enchancements.

IE has changed and will have an annual release. IE 10 will be out soon and next year IE 11 will be out etc. Windows Update automatically updates to the latest browser now starting this year and IE 8 usage was only 13% this weekend according to g.statcounter.com! Corporations will have to update their browsers far more often compared to the past. It wont be like IE 6 since it was such a different beast from any browser or even version of itself.

IE is not perfect but MS is at least making steps and it should be simple to upgrade old intranet code if its made for IE 8 or later or it might just work with any future IE release. Metro forced MS to embrace HTML 5 and AJAX.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

And
*USB 3.0

Windows XP is getting to the point where new hardware simply will not run on it.

So if your boss buys you an ultrabook with USB 3.0, touch screen, and a SSD drive you will have issues and probably a dead drive within a month or two. This assumes you can even find drivers?

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of things don't work on Windows XP. Just off the top of my head I can think of:

...

And for those of us without extreme Microsoft addictions, for the most part, we could care less.

OK, I might like IE9. But then again, I might like IE more in general if it didn't suffer from the Highlander Syndrome.

And, yes, if IPv6 support is truly shaky, that would concern me.

For the rest, big deal.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a company with about 5000 employees, our sister company has about the same. We are going to Exchange 2010 this year.
On Windows XP with full Microsoft support.

Everything works fine, we just went to IE8 last month.
Citrix, proprietary apps, full Office, ... all work.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

thats fine, cant find the 64 bit apps anyway

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

I would love to run windows 7 on my laptop, but oops it doesnt have a directX9 compatible video card, and 7 is sure to nag and bitch and whine about it every chance it gets

if you want to buy me a new laptop fine, but I am not going to do it when the one I have works perfectly for what I need it to do

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

And for those of us without extreme Microsoft addictions, for the most part, we could care less

So why don't you care less?

Re:Euthanize XP

[JBMcB]

Corporate IT runs XP because it runs a set of time-tested apps, that are either custom or extremely vertical. Updating to Windows 7 would mean:

1 - Upgrading licenses for the OS and probably office suites
2 - Possibly upgrading hardware
3 - Upgrading licenses for all your third party software
4 - Upgrading licenses for your web-based software to run in a newer browser (this is why so many companies still use IE6)
5 - Possibly upgrading server licenses to work with Windows 7
6 - Validating and testing to make sure all the new software works together (no small feat for large companies - think VPN clients competing with new active directory configurations, new authentication mechanisms, new IE mechanisms talking to new web app stacks that are probably custom, etc...)
7 - Re-train your support staff so they know the new software inside and out
8 - Finally you can re-train your users to use the new stuff

All that, for what? You're replacing a system that's known to work with an unknown quantity. The new functionality you get had better be WELL worth it, 'cause it's going to cost you.

Re:Euthanize XP

[ConceptJunkie]

I would bet you lunch it's because 99% of those old XP machines have been replaced, not upgraded.

Of course XP is dying very fast. You haven't been able to buy a new XP machine in about 4 years, except for netbooks, and that's been over 2 years. XP is only disappearing because you can't get it any more. I would bet very few machines have been upgraded from XP.

I would also bet that 95% of users would still be perfectly served by XP. I think Windows 7 is fine, but there's definitely nothing significant about it I prefer to XP.

If you don't use IE, like any sane person, and you don't care about DirectX 11, which counts everyone who doesn't play leading-edge games, the only advantages of Windows 7, for home users at least, are the latest security fixes and support for newer hardware. Microsoft's biggest problem was that XP was really quite good, and they've simply got nothing else to offer. The best we can ever hope for is incremental improvements, mostly driven by advances in the hardware technology.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

The real issue is that plenty of people need a replacement for XP based on compatibility and hardware... Both things going out the window with 8 even further.

That's a case where pretty much any free Linux Live CD will easily replace XP... With better results versus nursing XP along. Except for SOFTWARE and MEDIA. Good luck getting basic stuff like WoW or iTunes to work... If you use "pay for" services you're pretty much stuck with Lion or Win7. It eliminates old PCs from what's become basic multimedia.

Microsoft could have done an "XP mark 2" years ago and people would pay something for it. The hardware hasn't really been mopped up by Linux.. It's just been replaced with smartphones and tablets.. Mom n dad keep one old XP machine for bills and such.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Hamsterdan]

"and a SSD drive you will have issues and probably a dead drive within a month or two."

I'll call BS on it. I've ran XP for about a year on my Agility2 and it's still humming at near-new performance. Once I wiped the drive it regained full performance on a newer Win7 machine.

Re:Euthanize XP

[blind biker]

Lots of things don't work on Windows XP. Just off the top of my head I can think of:

* Windows 2008 R2 RSAT Tools -- you can RDP to a server instead, but that's not always possible or recommended.
* PowerShell Active Directory module -- very handy, but doesn't work on XP at all.
* You mentioned DX11
* Internet Explorer 9 or later
* Location APIs for HTML5 apps
* Proper IPv6 support (XP has some experimental support, but in practice it's not very usable)
* Any 64-bit only software like the SharePoint 2010 design tools -- I know there's a 64-bit XP edition, I used to use it myself, but few others did, and support for it by hardware vendors was never good and even less these days.

Sure, these are all small things, but they add up. To get an XP machine to "work" you need about a bazillion hotfixes, add-ons, extras, drivers, and even some scripts. On top of that, these days it's getting hard to buy a machine with "only" 4GB of memory, but that's the most XP supports, unless you're a masochist and want to run an unsupported decade-old 64-bit OS instead of just going straight to Windows 7 64-bit like a normal person.

Every time people make a list of features, they say "they are not important but it adds up." This "adds up" doesn't really happen with Win 7. In our research organization, not a single person needs Win 7. We will be upgraded, we know that, but are trying to keep a number of desktops on Win XP, because of some MEMS design apps. Being a research organization, it is full of content-creating people (we make extensive use of MS Office and OpenOffice packages, graphing tools, Autocad and other vector design packages, MEMS layout editors, physics simulators of all kinds, even bitmap editing apps). And yet, not a single one of us 200 needed Win 7. From this perspective, I'd say that list doesn't amount to a hill of beans. I mean, who the fuck needs IE 9 ? Just run Chrome or Firefox like everybody else, FFS. No need to be all special and different by using an exotic browser :D

Re:Euthanize XP

[acoustix]

* Windows 2008 R2 RSAT Tools -- you can RDP to a server instead, but that's not always possible or recommended.
* PowerShell Active Directory module -- very handy, but doesn't work on XP at all.
* You mentioned DX11
* Internet Explorer 9 or later
* Location APIs for HTML5 apps
* Proper IPv6 support (XP has some experimental support, but in practice it's not very usable)

The only reason why your list of things don't work is because Microsoft will not allow these updates/applications to be available on Windows XP because it is in "extended support". Windows XP is perfectly capable of running the software you listed with minor tweaks, but Microsoft doesn't want to support it.

There's a huge difference between planned obsolescence and a broken OS.

Re:Euthanize XP

[thegarbz]

Dropping admin privileges is required from a security standpoint. It's not something that needs to be done to get a 100% fully functional system, and it's also not something that is much of a problem for a competent computer user.

Run a version of IE that isnt dog slow?

You're messing with me aren't you? You suggest dropping admin privileges to eliminate security flaws and then suggest actually letting someone loose on the internet with IE? Thanks but pass.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

or switch to the expensive Almacas...

Re:Euthanize XP

[JDG1980]

XP is dying. I agree with MS on this as if they supported more people would still use it. IE 9 requires ASLR, refined DEP, new exception handling security fixes, and something else I do not remember, and of course DRM for their h.264 license which is part of aero.

The H.264 license does not require the use of any DRM. Where do people get this nonsense and why do they keep spreading this misinformation? DRM is only required to play back Blu-rays and other "protected" content – not freely available video from the Web.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Culture20]

They have 2 years to figure out what they want to switch to (when XP runs out of support). Best get crackin.

Re:Euthanize XP

[LordLimecat]

Those icons resided in the %allusersprofile%\desktop folder, which is (rightfully) only writeable by admin. By attempting to rename those icons, you were attempting to write to a system protected location. Darn tootin it asks for credentials, and Ill note that even on XP a non-admin would not have been able to rename them.

And for the record Win7 would give you the same issue.

Re:Euthanize XP

[LordLimecat]

IE9 vs Firefox vs Chrome seems such a wash security wise at this point that the wisecracks are a bit worn. Chrome's auto-update and sandboxing may make it more secure, but gone (IMO) are the days where you can really be on solid ground mocking someone for using IE-- IE9 is a decent (though limited) browser, with a number of performance and security features that I do not believe firefox matches.

Re:Euthanize XP

[satuon]

Same here. I have an old PC with Radeon 9200, and there are no Win7 compatible drivers for that. Works fine with XP, though.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't been able to buy a new XP machine in about 4 years, except for netbooks, and that's been over 2 years.

The desktop PC I'm sitting in front of was bought in September last year with XP as it's (sole) OS. It wasn't even particularly hard to find a vendor offering XP as a standard option then either.

Re:Euthanize XP

[0111 1110]

greater than 4 gigs of ram

Windows 7 32 bit does not support more than 4 gigs and Windows XP x64 supports as much RAM as you've got. OS X and Linux also support more than 4 gigs and both are far superior to Windows 7.

SSD and trim command support

Fair enough, but you are also going to have significantly less room on that SSD of yours due to Windows 7 bloat. I believe OS X also has trim support now and it is a far superior OS even if you hate the dock as I do.

better SMP support

Noticeably better? I run a dual core CPU on XP x64 and both cores seem to operate just fine.

Supperior security for all browsers due to better DEP and other security enchancements

Again how much better is the DEP support in Windows 7? XP SP2+ also has DEP support.

Touchscreen

Riight. Now that's an important feature. Who the fuck even uses a touchscreen for a desktop OS?

multi que async with Sata and PATA drives

Whatever that is I don't think I need it. XP has full command queuing support for SATA drives.

Much better security

Fair enough. There are some real security improvements in Windows 7. Along with the trim command security is the main reason to upgrade to Win 7.

Re:Euthanize XP

[0111 1110]

No, 64 bit xp doesn't count and has never counted. Try to find drivers for it.

All of my devices have XP x64 drivers, including some older, somewhat obscure RAID cards. I find the driver support to actually be pretty good. OTOH, one of my devices does not have driver support for Windows 7. In fact that is the main reason that I don't multiboot with Windows 7. Lack of driver support.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Jesus_666]

IE has changed and will have an annual release. IE 10 will be out soon and next year IE 11 will be out etc. Windows Update automatically updates to the latest browser now starting this year and IE 8 usage was only 13% this weekend according to g.statcounter.com! Corporations will have to update their browsers far more often compared to the past. It wont be like IE 6 since it was such a different beast from any browser or even version of itself.

If IE8 has a 13 % market share that means that my customers would lose approximately 13 % of their visitors by not having it supported. That's a hard sell. I can get away with it once IE8's market share drops below 5 %, although less would be better.

(Another problem is that I might need to support IE8's Trident until IE9 has died out due to hacks like CPP3PIE apparently only working in IE9 if IE8 compatibility mode is active. And no, "just don't use gradients" is not an option.)

Re:Euthanize XP

[0111 1110]

The marketing department wasn`t responsible for the complete rewrite of the graphics driver model as well as the subsequent re architecture of DirectX.

What makes you so sure? Do you work there or something? Microsoft is most definitely a marketing driven company.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that's unreasonable but with Microsoft not believing in backports

Uh, okay.

Microsoft is fine with backports. Microsoft isn't fine with backporting to ancient operating systems. Kind of like every other operating system vendor, including the commercial Linuxes. Linuxen? Linuxii.

Re:Euthanize XP

[thegarbz]

Maybe. Ok so lets mock IE for other reasons. How about the ability to start up IE without it questioning me about accelerators and other ways to enhance my search experience or that automatic downloads are displayed in the most unobvious way with a little bar on the edge of the screen which is easy to miss and often leaves you wondering if a webpage / download is working at all. How about we pick Chrome due to it's ultrafast javascript performance, excellent WebGL support, or support for more than one high def video codec?

And while Microsoft is busy shouting from the rooftops that IE9 supports the canvas tag and scores 100 on Acid3, it fairs quite dismally at http://beta.html5test.com/ supporting less than half the number of points on HTML5 support than your nearest competitor safari and close to 1/4 of the points of the current leader.

Also what's with not showing an SSL page as secure by colour code if you have self signed certificate which is otherwise trusted by the system? Makes me do a double take every time to see if I am actually visiting an encrypted page or not.

There's many reasons other than security for not using IE.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

Never had any issues with 64bit XP (Same patches as w2k3 64 bit).
EMU / Maudio soundcards that could be quirky.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Jesus_666]

I wasn't aware that any Linux distribution developed its own HTML rendering engine. The ones I use only package ready-made stuff like WebKit or complete browsers. Now, admittedly, after a while the upgrade channels are no longer supported but you can generally expect that as long as a release is supported it can expect software upgrades. Microsoft tends to have Windows versions on "extended support" where they no longer receive things like new IE versions but are still "supported" and thus acceptable for companies to use.

Plus, other operating systems aren't nearly as badly affected as they don't ship browsers that use Trident as their rendering engine. Old versions of other engines lack support for certain things but mostly adhere to the specs. Old versions of Trident tend to deviate from the specs in weird ways or force web developers to deal with bizarre stuff like hasLayout.

The problem is not that old Windows versions have old components, it's that one of those old components (Trident) negatively affects the web by forcing web developers to implement arcane hacks for as long at it sticks around. Each version of IE after IE6 has gotten a little better but these things have a long half-life and they keep costing us time and money until they're obscure enough to be ignored.

You know, if Microsoft did put Google Chrome Frame into Windows Update as a heavily recommended update for obsolete Windows versions (XP and Vista) that would make life a lot easier. Win8 ships with IE10 and the others can semi-safely be assumed to run WebKit if asked, which should reduce the number of hacks needed for IE compatibility.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

Well don't fucking put Windows 7 on it. Honestly, why is this topic so hard for everyone? Don't need 7 and XP runs fine? Don't fucking put 7 on. Don't have hardware that would run 7? Don't fucking put 7 on. Have hardware that would run 7 and need more than 4gig of RAM available? Don't fucking run XP. Don't have any need for Windows but use a UNIX toolchain 10 hours a day? Don't fucking run Windows, run Linux or OSX or one of the BSDs or whatever. This has to be the most futile argument I've seen in a long time, and I check /. most days.

Re:Euthanize XP

[toddestan]

Technically, the PC came with a Windows 7 license (check the sticker on the case) and was downgraded to XP. I'm sure this will continue to go on for a long, long time.

Re:Euthanize XP

[Anonymous Coward]

And you worked there long enough to make sure the marketing department ordered the rewrite of DirectX? No, the only difference between us is that I'm not making up shit on the spot.

Re:Euthanize XP

[jaymemaurice]

As a UNIX guy myself who actually liked(and used) Windows NT features, NTFS permissions/registry/auditing/group policy/etc., and not a Windows hater by any means. I actually thought Microsoft Services for Unix would bridge the gap nicely... but I found SFU is terrible (for my use). The NFS implimentation is terrible. The terminal is terrible. There is no X server. There is no native ssh included. No community support. No vi. It (was) all crap and there was no way I wanted to port and recompile every mundane script/program. When I started installing cygwin binaries to make my SFU experience more complete, I eventualluy ditched SFU all together. SFU was just a steaming pile of sog dhit waiting for you to add the flies.

I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[future assassin]

disk and installed in on a spare latop not too long ago. Shit that thing flies even compared to lxde distros.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[tverbeek]

I have an old Win98 box with some historical files in poorly-supported legacy file formats (WordPerfect/Paradox/Quattro) that I fire up from time to time. A mere half-gigahertz processor, quarter-gigabyte of RAM, and it's still so responsive it feels like it's anticipating my commands.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[LordLimecat]

Until IE5.5 crashes trying to render www.slashdot.org, that is.

Btw why the heck is slashdot a .org? Did geeknet become nonprofit when I wasnt watching?

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[Ogi_UnixNut]

I believe slashdot.org was around back when this was pretty much a bunch of nerds in their basement. I.E before the corporate acquisition :)

And to be slightly on topic, I still have a windows 2k disk set, I have both pro and advanced server, windows 98, and windows 95 (including 95b) as well as XP and a Vista beta disk. I don't know why I still keep them (nostalgia??) and I have them installed in VM's, which I've not turned on for years, but I guess it is good to keep them there just in case I need them in future.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[DesScorp]

disk and installed in on a spare latop not too long ago. Shit that thing flies even compared to lxde distros.

There are a couple of anti-virus vendors that support Win2K with current versions, but no browsers that I know of (again, with current versions). Otherwise, I'd be perfectly happy using Win2K on some boxes.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[Anonymous Coward]

now u know what it's like to use linux on almost any machine.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[larry bagina]

Opera claims to support it:

Minimum configuration
Windows 2000 on a Pentium II
128 MB of RAM
20 MB of free disk space

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[bmo]

>old software and old OSes.

This is why you run a virtual machine and load up whatever software and OS you want from the old days.

It can be tricky, though. Because some of the really old stuff doesn't even expect a hard disk. I unpacked a .zip install of PFS Pro Write on to the "c:" drive in a DOS VM and it /demanded/ that I install to a drive location other than the install drive. Because the developers assumed the destination was a floppy, even with a c: drive letter.

Old software, all the games you missed playing over the years, etc. Load up a VM in a current computer. Install the legacy OS, boot it when you get all nostalgic or need to read really old files, and put it away when you're done. No need for separate hardware. DOS, Windows of all flavors, Linux, BSD, Solaris, OSX if you have an Intel processor, etc., can all be loaded in virtual machines. No need for a separate computer.

And when you're done, just close the VM and go on with your other business.

My favorite Windows for virtual machines is Windows FLP. It's like a pre-stripped XP. I tried 2k, but I wound up ripping DLLs from XP to put into 2k anyway. The same with NT4, which I needed to get DLLs from 2k and XP to just install Opera.

DRDOS 7.03 is out there for free download too. Unfortunately Windows 3.11 says that FreeDOS is "incompatible" and will refuse to run (wrong version). Hrmph. It also helps to have a serial mouse and serial port available for things like DesqView/X which demands an actual serial mouse.

My virtual machine software of choice is VirtualBox. There are others out there, like Xen, KVM, VMWare, Parallels (macintosh). Try them.

As for Win98, giving it any more RAM will be futile anyway. It maxes out at 512MB of addressable RAM. Windows 95 maxes out at 64.

A snapshot I took once to demonstrate the power of virtual machines: http://ompldr.org/vYXgzcA

--
BMO

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[hobarrera]

Why not wine, or a VM?

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[Sique]

Slashdot was founded in 1997 and only in 1999 got sold to Andover.net. Geeknet, Inc. is the reincarnation of the merger of Andover.net and VA Linux.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[arth1]

I have an Me installation, because of some old games that won't play with DOSBox or similar. "Why sucky Me instead of glorious 98SE?", I hear from the peanut gallery. Because its networking stack works a lot better against Linux dhcp servers and Samba.

Another spike in the coffin for 98/Me is that next month, the last usable AV software to work under DOS based Windows (Eset Nod32 v 2.7) will cease getting updates. Of course, behind a NAT in a VM, it's not so critical, but it would still be nice to have the option, at a price.
For web browsing, Opera 10.83 works, so you can browse /. from 98/Me.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[Kawahee]

Unfortunately Windows 3.11 says that FreeDOS is "incompatible" and will refuse to run (wrong version). Hrmph.

I believe this is because Windows 3.11 relies on the implementation details of Microsoft's own DOS (certain things will always be in this exact memory location) and FreeDOS' implementation is not identical down to that level.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[Hamsterdan]

"Old software, all the games you missed playing over the years, etc. Load up a VM in a current computer. Install the legacy OS, boot it when you get all nostalgic or need to read really old files, and put it away when you're done. No need for separate hardware. DOS, Windows of all flavors, Linux, BSD, Solaris, OSX if you have an Intel processor, etc., can all be loaded in virtual machines. No need for a separate computer."

Doesn't work for all the old games, especially older Win32 games because most VM software won't provide the necessary tools for older OSes like 9x/ME for things like Video Acceleration. (ST: Armada is one of them). What those companies sould do is release source code so the engine could be updated to run on modern OSes instead.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[X0563511]

I'm pretty sure you can run clamscan on anything that's mountable, so if you are really hurting, boot up the VM in a liveCD or something and give the filesystem a scan that way.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[arth1]

Indeed. I have several games here that require Voodoo graphics support (glide or minigl). Good luck getting that in a VM.
There are also copy protections that require the floppy.

What would be useful is if Microsoft and other vendors did a "final release patch set", and offered it to the public for all foreseeable future. So even if you can't get support anymore, you can at least install the latest official patches, no matter how old those patches are.

As it is, you can't - Windows update won't work, and the patch download pages either have been removed, or made inaccessible. If you have to reinstall, your only options are to either go unpatched or to pirate the patches.
I don't expect Microsoft to support OSes forever. But I do expect them to not remove patches that have already been released. The hosting costs are negligible - an entire Win98 patch set probably takes less space than a single typical Tuesday patch, and will be downloaded by far fewer people, so the bandwidth costs are pretty low too. And, face it, it's not like customers are going to run Windows 98 instead of Windows 7/8 either, so there won't be any lost sales. Just some goodwill, which they are short on.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[arth1]

clamscan is reactive, not preventative. Nod32 can intercept an exploit against the network stack or browser and stop the malware as it is downloaded or attempted written to disk. With clamscan, you have to be infected first; then you can scan.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[phantomfive]

What host OS is that? It looks like Motif or something.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[bmo]

It's Ubuntu with FVWM as the window manager.

Yeah, it's ugly. There is no way to make FVWM pretty, except for FVWM-Crystal, but that particular fvwmrc has its own issues.

--
BMO

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[bmo]

Actually, 3.1 and 3.11 ran on PCDOS, DRDOS, and OS/2 and DesqView/X. Possibly Phar Lap, but I never got a chance to use that.

I think it's just Microsoft being dicks back then.

--
BMO

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[couchslug]

Mod up for truthiness!

VM installs are terrific. Easy to restore from Snapshots, very quick to load additional machines for testing apps etc, and dandy for data rescue too.

For example, I needed to make a .pst from a .ost for a friend. Instead of tying up a PC, I loaded Office and the .ost recovery app I needed on an XP VM, did the deed, then reverted to a previous clean Snapshot. I also exported to Thunderbird Portable so he can use that too.

Didn't have to leave my recliner to do it, praise be to VirtualBox.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[1u3hr]

Until IE5.5 crashes trying to render www.slashdot.org, that is.

You can run the latest versions of Firefox or Opera at least on Win2k. I'm doing it now. There is very little software for XP or Vista that won't run on Win2k.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[nonicknameavailable]

i have an old mac with clarisworks

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[boristhespider]

If you're running W2k you need antivirus.

Of course, these two statements are not mutually exclusive.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't work for all the old games, especially older Win32 games because most VM software won't provide the necessary tools for older OSes like 9x/ME for things like Video Acceleration.

What's the current state of 3D acceleration for virtualization in general, BTW? It's probably a bit tough task to crack, but shouldn't be completely impossible. (Unless you talk about exotic game stuff like Glide, which will presumably never get support.)

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[1u3hr]

There are a couple of anti-virus vendors that support Win2K with current versions, but no browsers that I know of

I have current releases of both Opera and Firefox running without any problem in Win2k.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[Anonymous Coward]

Also Flash 10 has still W2K support, and it seems to still get updated.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[bmo]

I have 3D acceleration in WinFLP, but I don't have any applications that use it.

3D acceleration does not work in seamless mode with VirtualBox on Linux. Fullscreen only. Obviously stuff that relies on DX11 is right out if you're using Linux as a host OS. And besides, there is no DX11 for WinFLP anyway.

I don't know what happens if you use Windows as the host.

The Xen kernels do not have 3D acceleration at all and there is no support from ATI, Nvidia, or Intel for it even as proprietary drivers. No 3D in the Xen host and none in the client OS.

--
BMO

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[sdnoob]

It can be tricky, though. Because some of the really old stuff doesn't even expect a hard disk. I unpacked a .zip install of PFS Pro Write on to the "c:" drive in a DOS VM and it /demanded/ that I install to a drive location other than the install drive. Because the developers assumed the destination was a floppy, even with a c: drive letter.

SUBST usually gets around limitations like this in older programs.

recently set up a new win7 system with xpmode for a bunch of old programs, some needed to be installed from subst'd drives, while a couple needed to be installed TO subst'd drives (and shortcuts modified to create the subst before running the exe). took awhile to work out what needed what, but everything is still working a year later.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[bmo]

ooh, neat, thanks.

I've forgotten so much about DOS.

--
BMO

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[arth1]

I think it's just Microsoft being dicks back then.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[camperdave]

I don't expect Microsoft to support OSes forever. But I do expect them to not remove patches that have already been released. The hosting costs are negligible.

The problem is not with the hosting costs. The problem is that if Microsoft did that, people would have no incentive to switch to the new operating systems and office products. It would carve a gargantuan hole in Microsoft's profits.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[jythie]

Pretty much. They were doing a check to see if you were running their version of DOS and if not put up what were essentially fake error messages. It was one of the bits of evidence in the anti-trust trial years ago.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[BenoitRen]

As for Win98, giving it any more RAM will be futile anyway. It maxes out at 512MB of addressable RAM. Windows 95 maxes out at 64.

Nonsense. Windows 98 maxes out at 1 GB of RAM, though there are workarounds and even patches to make it address more. Windows 95 can have at least up to 256 MB of RAM. It probably has the same limit as Windows 98, but that's untested as far as I know.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[toddestan]

My impression of Windows 95 and 98 is that they don't really know what to do with more than about 256MB of ram. The OSes can use it, but they don't utilize it effectively.

The so-called 64MB "limit" for Windows 95 may come from most of the original Pentium chipsets back in the day where the L2 cache would only cache the first 64MB of ram. Since Windows 95 tended to allocate memory at the end first, you could take.a pretty big performance hit by putting more than 64MB into those systems unless you actually had need for large amounts of ram (in which case why are you using Windows 95?).

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[shutdown -p now]

The particular bit that you're talking about (that was evidence in the trial), was in the beta version of 3.1, not in final release, so it can't be what GP is running into.

Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro

[jythie]

Good catch. I was not aware that it didn't make it into the final release.

Who gives a flying fuck?

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

I mean, really?

Re:Who gives a flying fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll take a crazy stab at it: People that still use Vista?

Re:Who gives a flying fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, really?

People who have Vista, and apparently you,,,

Re:Who gives a flying fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

The two of them?

Re:Who gives a flying fuck?

[GmExtremacy]

and apparently you

Looks like he only cared about commenting.

Re:Who gives a flying fuck?

[Psychotria]

The two of them?

I know you're joking but there is a boatload of people out there running Vista... just about everyone I know who bought a laptop before W7 was released (excluding the people who are adept enough to install Linux, XP or W7 themselves) are running Vista. These people don't even know they're running Vista; to them it's just a computer and as long as they can write their emails, look up stuff on the internet, play FreeCell and occasionally write a document they are happy and oblivious to the fact that they're using Vista.

Re:Who gives a flying fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh man....that is hilarious. You exaggerated by saying only two people use Vista, implying that not many people use it (when you know more than that actually do). You have insulted Microsoft (or as you probably say in a much funnier way: Micro$oft) by putting it down in such an original manner. If you weren't anonymous I would tell all my friends ("the two of them" as you would say in order to razz me!) about you and your joke. Salut!

Re:Who gives a flying fuck?

[mspohr]

One of them is my mother.
She only uses the web browser (Firefox and Yahoo for email) and occasional type up a list for one of her clubs.
She always is "losing the Internet" usually by minimizing Firefox.
Next week I'll be visiting her to upgrade to Ubuntu. I think the Unity interface is perfect for her. She only needs one or two buttons.

Re:Who gives a flying fuck?

[DesScorp]

The two of them?

There are more Vista desktops than Linux desktops out there.

Re:Who gives a flying fuck?

[hobarrera]

just about everyone I know who bought a laptop before W7 was released (excluding the people who are adept enough to install Linux, XP or W7 themselves) are running Vista

I dont want to sound repetitive, but: the two of them?

Re:Who gives a flying fuck?

[Billly Gates]

My ex and her 2 kids for one.

All 3 of the machines have Vista on them. There maybe a few fortune 500 companies who upgraded as well and of course school districts. Vista is as popular as MacOSX according to g.statcounter.com. My guess is computers bought from 2007 - 2009. These machines still work and it does not make sense to plunge $120 for a machine worth less and lose all your important data in the process. It just works. ... slowly :-)

Re:Who gives a flying fuck?

[Psychotria]

just about everyone I know who bought a laptop before W7 was released (excluding the people who are adept enough to install Linux, XP or W7 themselves) are running Vista

I dont want to sound repetitive, but: the two of them?

Yes, you're right. I concede defeat.

Re:Who gives a flying fuck?

[arkhan_jg]

We actually had to downgrade a laptop to vista the other day. You can install clean windows 7 on it, but one of the built-in drivers causes it to straight up blue screen after a couple of minutes, but without telling us which driver in the stack trace, just a generic error. We *think* it's the hard-drive controller after various eliminations, but various versions of the intel drivers don't help. We spent days on it trying to debug the damn thing.

Stick vista on it (which it came with). Works fine out of the box, no bluescreens, just keeps working. Just needs drivers for the touchpad and optional better intel GPU ones.

So screw it, vista it is.

Re:My message to you, Laura:

[Psychotria]

I thought at first this was some kind of weird troll, but I checked your posting history and apparently I was wrong.

current os vista - next os will not be M$

[Anonymous Coward]

My next operating system choice will not be Microsoft.

I purchased Vista in 2008. This is way too early for extended support.

If MS wants to cut support for Vista - fine, just give vista customers a free bounce to 7 and support is fixed.

7 is what Vista should have been anyway and 7 should have been a free upgrade for Vista users.

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[jawtheshark]

The longevity of XP was an accident. It was a good time to live in, but they won't make that mistake ever again. Don't expect support to last as long as the XP support for 7 either.

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[SpryGuy]

There's no valid excuse for not upgrading Vista to Win7. The upgrade is fast and easy, and you get more than enough improvements to justify the minor cost.

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[Anonymous Coward]

~100 bucks certainly is, especially considering that vista SP2 on decent hardware isn't as bad as you claim it to be.

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[jawtheshark]

Minor cost? I guess you will pay for the half dozen XP machines I support for family and friends, because non-nerds see no point in paying for something that works in their eyes. Heck, I have one remaining XP machine and see no reason tho shell out good money that I can use for more useful things. You talk about 100$ as if it were chump change. It also assumes your old peripherals will work, where printers and scanners are the worst players. At work we have an expensive multifunction printer whose Vista/7 drivers suck compared to the very reliable XP drivers. At least there were drivers available. Replacing peripherals that stop working because of an OS upgrade cist money too. Sure this problem probably is moot when talking about a Vista to 7 upgrade.

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[Anonymous Coward]

Got $120 I can "borrow" and never repay?

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[leathered]

Minor cost? An upgrade to Win 7 would be half of the original cost of my netbook. And for what? A new browser that I don't use. Or maybe the a nice UI which is irrelevent when the only icons I use are the ones for Chrome and occasionally Word. I'd have a much better experience if I spent that money on more RAM or an external monitor.

Believe it or not people are sick of the upgrade treadmill. The consumer operating system of the future is one that boots straight into a web browser from which all applications will be accessed. And people certainly won't expect to pay good money for it.

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[NJRoadfan]

I guess it means that Windows 7 really is Vista SP3. I'm also noticing how each version of Windows has less service packs (it peaked with NT 4.0). NT 3.1 = 3 SPs, NT 3.5 = 3 SPs, NT 3.51 = 5 SPs (first widely deployed release), NT 4.0 = 6 SPs (this is when NT went mainstream on servers), 2000 = 4 SPs, XP = 3 SPs, Server 2003 = 2 SPs, Vista/Server 2008 = 2 SPs, and finally 7/2008 R2 = 1 SP (so far).

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[Anonymous Coward]

Its called ChromiumOS...

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[Anonymous Coward]

He said there is no reason not to upgrade from vista to 7. Hardware that runs vista will run 7 just fine. You are SOL for your triceratops XP crap.

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[Dwedit]

Look at Windows 7 right now. Now look at Windows 8. Are you trying to suggest that Windows 7 won't have longevity?

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[Billly Gates]

That was 4 years ago. That is a whole PC life cycle. You do not expect Windows 95 updates in 2000 or NT 4 updates in 2002 do you?

Go upgrade or keep your security fixes.

In the good old days MS only supported OSes for 2 years. MS is frankly being nice and I think people are frankly spoiled

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[Rich0]

Oh, I suspect 7 will be around for a long time. Big companies are likely to switch from XP to 7 one of these years, and then they'll begin fossilizing on that OS just as they did with XP. Unless the next Windows version offers some feature that actually saves companies money that they can't save in any other way, they're going to stay put.

Switching OS versions can cost a company millions of dollars by the time everything is done. Most of the time there is no upside, other that avoiding even larger costs if you don't switch. Well, companies are going to wait until those costs actually start to show up before switching. What costs so much? Well, for starters you have all the obvious logistics. Then you have application testing. Then you have all the disruptions because of all the apps you didn't test (nobody knows all the software at a big company). Then you have all the disruptions that you'd have even if everything went "perfectly" as people re-acclimate/etc, or find that some file wasn't stored on the network and somebody has to restore a backup, and so on.

I have a car. I know it is going to die one of these days. And yet, I don't replace it, because I don't need to. It is just as useful when it is 10 years old as it was when it was new, and a new car doesn't really give me much utility over the old one. I keep the old one, until it becomes cheaper to get a new one (which can include a lot of factors beyond just repairs).

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[Osgeld]

100+ bucks is a fucking good reason

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[echnaton192]

You are right. If Windows 8 won't get a major overhaul it's a dead horse except for pure tablet computers. I'll wait for Windows 9 because I want to use the mouse and multitouch, whatever is more hany fr the given task. And the actual chimera Windows 8 is, it won't fly for Desktop purposes, so NO reasonable IT Deportment will use it. We always use the actual MS-Software after the first SP, because these incrimental upgrades are less rough than waiting for the very last second.

But I bet my butt our IT Department will give Windows 8 the finger if it's not changed big times.

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no valid excuse for not upgrading Vista to Win7

Well, there's the fact that 7 is SLOWER and uses MORE memory.

In fact I can't think of a single reason to upgrade. Can you?

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[JDG1980]

The longevity of XP was an accident. It was a good time to live in, but they won't make that mistake ever again. Don't expect support to last as long as the XP support for 7 either.

Windows 7 has mainstream support until Jan. 12, 2015 (when new feature development stops) and extended support until Jan. 14, 2020. So you can keep using it for nearly another eight years if you are satisfied with just security patches and no new OS features. Windows 8 is shaping up to be a real dog on the desktop, so I expect the boundaries of support to be used to their fullest. 2020 is plenty of time for Ballmer to be canned and for Windows 9 to get back to fulfilling core business needs and forget about this silly Apple tablet envy.

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[JDG1980]

Yep. Expect to see XP on the corporate desktop until 2014, and then Windows 7 until early 2020.

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[unixisc]

My next operating system choice will not be Microsoft.

I purchased Vista in 2008. This is way too early for extended support.

If MS wants to cut support for Vista - fine, just give vista customers a free bounce to 7 and support is fixed.

7 is what Vista should have been anyway and 7 should have been a free upgrade for Vista users.

I fully agree w/ this. Given how broken Vista was, SP2 or SP3 should have been a free upgrade to 7.

Incidentally, does Vista run well given excess hardware, like say, 8GB of RAM?

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[0111 1110]

What makes you so sure Windows 9 is not going to have a tablet focused UI as well? A businessman is at the Microsoft helm now. Not a geek like Gates. So it can be expected to make decisions based purely for monetary reasons. Not for tech reasons. If a techie had been in charge of decisions by now we might have been blessed with a small, efficient MinWin kernel that operates under a user selectable choice of GUI to better compete with Linux. Instead we have moronic decisions leading to primary support for tablets first and then desktops and even laptops as an afterthought as well as one of the most bloated OSes ever created by man. Certainly nothing to be proud of from a tech perspective.

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[Anonymous Coward]

In the good old days MS only supported OSes for 2 years. MS is frankly being nice and I think people are frankly spoiled

You get 7 years free support for CentOS...

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[echnaton192]

What makes you so sure Windows 9 is not going to have a tablet focused UI as well?

I am shure they will integrate multitouch and mouse/keyboard better. I don't expect it to give up multitouch.

A businessman is at the Microsoft helm now. Not a geek like Gates.

To give him credit, Windows 7 was a good OS. And Office 2010 was the first Office since 10 years which was actually better than an open source derivat. One reason being it doesn't implode just because you use too many screenshots in a word document...

The 16-bit-crap they sold the masses for decades while NT was available at astronomic rates was not. XP was a big (!) security mess until SP 2, so I REALLY think the claim that Bill decided for better / geekier products from a thechnologic point of view shoulkd be doubted. For the time between Windows 3.11 and XP SP2 M$ as a company needs to burn in some special nerd hell.

So I pirated NT and 2000 as a matter of self defense because I paid for Windows 95 and Windows 98, which were unusable crap. How often have you played top notch games back then and the system hung altogether? A nearly non-issue under NT.

On the other hand, what we've seen from Windows 8 makes it unusable for Desktop Users, because it is a step back. And the new Home Server 2011 is pure crap. Boy, did they mess WHS 2011 up. And I don't mean the missing drive extender.

So what I am suggesting here is that under the evil Ballmer Microsoft made some really good products while Bill is responsible for the really bad ones, just saying.

Instead we have moronic decisions leading to primary support for tablets first and then desktops and even laptops as an afterthought as well as one of the most bloated OSes ever created by man. Certainly nothing to be proud of from a tech perspective.

I personally have no problem at all with the OS being bigger every time. The hardware is following moores law for decades, so there is no limiting factor here. But you are wrong, Windows 8 is actually not using that much more ressources than windows 7. What I have a problem with ist stability, usability and security. And the usability is a step back if it stays that way. And this will need to go away in Windows 9. For Windows 9 I want an inputdevice on my PC (beside the PC and the monitor, which I doon't want to be multitouch) like a multitouch tablet and a mouse and a keyboard. With all three combined the user interface adapts to your specific tasks. And who knows: If M$ kann make multitouch OSes, maybe in a few years time the more open Windows environment is superior to the walled gardan Apple has to offer. Maybe. I bought the iPad 3 despite the limmitations though because the other tablets optically are not worthy to be used as a bookreplacement. And a kindle is ONLY a book.

I don't give up my hopes yet: Windows 8 could MS make understand multitouch. And Windows 9 could combine the best of two worlds. We'll see.

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[echnaton192]

The longevity of XP was an accident. It was a good time to live in, but they won't make that mistake ever again. Don't expect support to last as long as the XP support for 7 either.

Windows 7 has mainstream support until Jan. 12, 2015 (when new feature development stops) and extended support until Jan. 14, 2020. So you can keep using it for nearly another eight years if you are satisfied with just security patches and no new OS features. Windows 8 is shaping up to be a real dog on the desktop, so I expect the boundaries of support to be used to their fullest.

I second that.

2020 is plenty of time for Ballmer to be canned and for Windows 9 to get back to fulfilling core business needs and forget about this silly Apple tablet envy.

I disagree. First because MS fucked up big time before Ballmer: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2773391&cid=39620577

People tend to forget what a mess XP was securitywise until SP 2. Or what crap they sold to the mass market between Win 3.11 and XP (first usable OS if you were not so keen on spending hundreds of dollars for one decent OS).

And I see multitouch as an important addendum to the already available inputdevices. There are things far more easily done with multitouch, while others are faster done with a mouse and others with the keyboard. The essential thing is a good integration. I assume that it will be done fine in Windows 9. Win 8 will make themlearn (like Vista on 3D) and Win 9 will be the the windows7 for multitouch and Desktopintegration. We will see.

Re:current os vista - next os will not be M$

[unixisc]

CentOS offers support? I thought they just compile RHEL and give it to you, sans any support.

Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

This means that no-charge (free) support will end,

Windows support is only ever free if your time has no value.

Re:Obligatory

[ConceptJunkie]

Windows support is only ever free if your time has no value.

And assuming there's an actual answer to your question. I would imagine the only support issues MS can actually solve are those that can be easily answered with a Google search or two... at least based on my experience.

Re:Obligatory

[PPH]

You had to go rub salt into the wound by saying Google instead of Bing, didn't ya?

Re:Obligatory

[ConceptJunkie]

I wish I could take credit for that, but there's simply nothing about Microsoft search that makes me remember it exists. Google is not the be-all end-all of everything but Microsoft is always years behind them.

Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[tverbeek]

I am writing this on a laptop (TabletPC) running Windows XP. It's a 5-year-old machine, but aside from the battery life getting low (a $40 fix I'm considering, for convenience) it does everything I need a laptop to do. It runs *office. It runs Chrome. It runs Manga Studio (my main drawing program) with full support for the built-in stylus/digitizer. I have no reason whatsoever to replace it. I'm familiar with Windows 7; I work with it at the office. If I had a desktop PC instead of an iMac, I'd probably use W7 on that. But I cannot think of a single feature of W7 that I would benefit from on this computer, and I can think of several factors (speed, mostly) that argue against upgrading. Windows is just an OS: software that acts as an intermediary between my applications and the hardware. WXP does that job quite adequately. To "put a mercy bullet in WXP" is nothing more than deliberate, willful, unnecessary obsolescence.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[SpryGuy]

Let's see... Windows 7 is many times more secure than XP, has a better UI with better usability, better handling of wireless networks, better handling of external projectors, can be upgraded to IE9 (vastly more secure than IE6/7/8, even if you don't use it)...

XP needs to die. It really, really does. Win7 is better in almost every single way. Even if you only consider security issues, XP needs to die, and XP users should update to Win7.

I use Win7 at work and at home. Every time I have to go back to using XP, it's like trying to work with mittens on, or use stone knives and bear-skins. It's so ancient and obsolete and difficult to use I can't even stand it. Win7 is just better in every single way I can imagine.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[fast turtle]

I've got a 7yr old laptop that came with XP/SP1 on it and I'm getting ready to move it to Win7 permanently. During testing, the improvements that Win7 brought to it were impresive since XP/SP1 has accumulated lots of cruft/bloat from all the security patches/updates that have been applied over the years. Yes battery life isn't getting better due to age but usability does and from my standpoint, that's all that matters.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[Anonymous Coward]

Max out the RAM and upgrade it to Windows 7. I've found that W7 is faster than XP on every PC I've tried it on, so long as it has enough RAM.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[Anonymous Coward]

I strongly disagree with the 'better usability', Win7 was a very painful transition for me (and probably everyone else who makes heavy use of the keyboard). I made heavy use of shortcut keys in WinXP - my computer-geek friends were amazed at what I can get done within a few seconds with half a dozen key strokes. After being forced to upgrade to Win7 (with the purchase of new laptop) I was mortified to learn that many of these shortcut keys had been removed. It takes me eons (by comparison) to accomplish the same tasks I could do in WinXP. This is also true of Office2007/2010.

Considering the new learning curve required, I made the jump to Linux (Arch + E17). I had been dabbling with Linux for several years (particularly on servers), and this was the final push I needed for the desktop. If I have to learn something new, may as well be something with long-term prospects and that I have semi-control over. However, I still make regular use of WinXP within a Virtual Machine - particularly for running incompatible apps.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[JSG]

>Every time I have to go back to using Windows, it's like trying to work with mittens on ...

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could have spent 15 seconds in google looking up the new mystical shortcut key. Or you could have just posted your complaint here and about a dozen people would have told you what it was. Give it a couple days and you will have forgotten everything about having to relearn a shortcut. Instead you chose to troll. Classy.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[Osgeld]

oh thank god it handles projectors better, here I am sitting on a pile of projectors but it was just too fucking difficult to plug into a XP box. 7's better handling of wireless? eh maybe better UI with better useability ... eh not really its pretty much the same UI with dumb crap, transparency and a search box in the start menu, and the only thing keeping IE9 (and better directX) off of XP is (wait for it) mircosoft!

directX is the only reason I upgraded from XP to 7, otherwise its pretty much a waste of money, half the hardware I had no longer works, half my software acts retarded or will not run, but shit, it works better with projectors and its "prettier".

please, its just an artificial forced upgrade to make money from people who are happy with their machines.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[Osgeld]

oh one of these "any change is the best change ever" types ... bet you love that windows 3.x era program manager like setup in KDE as well

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see... Windows 7 is many times more secure than XP...

This.

Off the top of my head, Windows 7 has ASLR, better DEP, UAC and the associated integrity levels (IE Protected Mode), and 64-bit vastly improves the security of the address space protections. A fully patched WinXP is still much easier to get malicious code to execute than a fully patched Windows 7, especially 64-bit.

Roundabout car analogy (hang with me on this): In the 1950s automotive engineers thought the safest way to build a car was to be as stiff as possible. People were getting impaled by their steering columns in a frontal collision, and the shock of the impact was being directly transferred to the human body. Today they build cars with crumple zones and buckling steering columns, even engine blocks which are designed to rotate down in the event of a crash. The energy of the impact is designed to be directed as far away from the human occupants as possible. This has produced measurable safety improvements and reduced injuries. WinXP is like driving a car based on the 1950s mindset. Microsoft didn't even take security threats seriously until SP2. Windows 7 was built with technologies under the hood to keep the user measurably safer in the event of an attack.

No I'm not a MS shill, but I do support primarily Windows systems at work. We have a MS kool-aid drinker at work and I thought he was nuts when Vista and Win7 first came out. I was one of the ones calling for MS to not end support on XP back then. But now that I understand what Microsoft actually did with Win7, I have changed my mind. WinXP does need to go.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[Anonymous Coward]

If your "computer geek friends" are amazed at what you can get done with just a few keystrokes, then you need to find real computer geek friends, 'cause they certainly aren't

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[thegarbz]

Let's see... Windows 7 is many times more secure than XP

From a stupid user / phishing scam perspective.

as a better UI

slower UI you mean, i.e. one that actually requires support for a video card to do something as basic as render a video

with better usability

debatable, and I'd debate on the "hell no" side every time I want to do something trivially frigging basic like get to the page which lists the network adapters

better handling of wireless networks

??? I've never once had a problem on an XP machine connecting to ANY wireless network.

better handling of external projectors

Wholy crap we're reaching now aren't we? 4 years at work when I went into a meeting I'd plug the VGA cable in and hit FN+F6 and volah instant projector, at the right resolution, in extended desktop mode. Hit it again and it goes into clone mode.

can be upgraded to IE9 (vastly more secure than IE6/7/8, even if you don't use it)

Marketing issue only, and why not just go straight to Chrome?

It's so ancient and obsolete and difficult to use I can't even stand it. Win7 is just better in every single way I can imagine.

Based on all your above rationale I can only conclude that you think Windows 7 is better because you didn't actually know how to use XP. Security is about Windows 7's only real strong point.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[unixisc]

Can Windows 7 run older Office versions that I actually purchased, like Office 2003? I refuse to move to anything beyond that, due to ribbons, new default document formats, and the fact that I don't want to pay a $0.01 more for something when the old one is still in perfect working condition. As an example, Acrobat 6 doesn't even work on Vista, and I paid for that full version (not the reader). So aside from buying Windows 7, one would have to buy new apps to go along w/ it as well. Only advantage of Vista and Windows 7 is that it does IPv6 right out of the box, which is important as routable IPv4 addresses start to dry up.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[unixisc]

This actually makes perfect sense. If one has to buy Windows 7, there are apps that one would have to buy new upgrades for. Like Acrobat 6. I know we're on 10 now, but if I had bought 6 and it's working, but won't work under Vista, why bother upgrading the OS and then preventing myself from saving and editing PDF documents?

So if one has to get a new OS && new apps, might as well look @ Linux, and Linux apps. If a Windows app that one wants ain't available under Linux, then by all means, go for Windows 7. But otherwise, just do this one switch, and then stay w/ this OS as long as possible.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[Anonymous Coward]

That Windows 7 "better UI" can't even remember previous window positions without a 3rd party add-on. Oh yeah, it keeps wanting to maximize and auto-dock my windows when they cross certain imaginary boundaries by default (which can be turned off, but the default is on). Someone else has already mentioned USB instability. Win7 is more difficulty to use for the user who just wants to just use their computer, IMHO.

Vista is slower, but by now is certainly not in the same class of OS as Windows ME.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[bruce_the_loon]

Yep, runs Office 2000 and 2003 happily from my own usage on a 64bit installation. Same reason as you, hate the damned ribbons.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[zyzko]

Office 2003 run just fine on Windows 7 - both in 32 and 64 bit versions. Ribbons I can agree you with - I'm not a great fan. But document formats? The old Office 2003/97 file format is a pile of crap. And OOXML is not perfect either, but it is at least an attempt to step forward and Office asks (at least here in Europe, I don't know if it is some EU-thing) the first time you start it if you want to use OOXML or ODT as default. I'm all for burying the old Office 97 format - good riddance.

As for Acrobat 6 - you know that using obsolete Adobe products is dangerous as hell (althought version 6 is so old that maybe the newest exploits don't work on it...).

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[serviscope_minor]

As for Acrobat 6 - you know that using obsolete Adobe products is dangerous as hell

You're thinking of acrobat reader which one would use to read untrusted PDFs from the web. He is almost certainly talking about Acrobat, which he probably uses to create and modify his own PDFs. There's no danger in that.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[zyzko]

I would bet my money on that Acrobat has the exact same exploits that Adobe Reader of the same ganeration has. And by default Acrobat (the full version) acts also as a reader (you can install a newer reader on the side, though).

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[1u3hr]

XP needs to die, and XP users should update to Win7. 1) Not enough RAM. 2) Not enough CPU. 3) Not enough hard disk 3) Not enough money.

If you upgrade my hardware and give me a voucher for the software, I'll do it tomorrow.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[unixisc]

Yeah, I very specifically mentioned Acrobat. The Reader is a free download, and I wouldn't have complained if that was the thing. But w/ Vista, Acrobat 6 stopped working, and so I was outta luck.

Actually, I last had Acrobat 6 and Reader X working (some pdfs complained about Reader 6, so I upgraded that part) - I used Acrobat to print to pdfs and alter pdfs (such as insert or delete pages). Since I paid for it, I certainly don't want to buy Acrobat X.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[drsmithy]

After being forced to upgrade to Win7 (with the purchase of new laptop) I was mortified to learn that many of these shortcut keys had been removed.

For example ?

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[Anonymous Coward]

Win7 is better in almost every single way.

Except price and performance. Two rather critical features.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[tverbeek]

Evidently you're one of those people who can't grasp the concept that not everyone is just like them, and therefore doesn't bother to listen when other people describe their needs from their perspective. But has no problem with imposing his point of view on others. I'll try explaining again why the reasons you are sold on Windows 7 are unpersuasive to me, in my situation, for my uses, or this computer.

Windows 7 is many times more secure than XP,

XP is secure enough. I generally practice safe computing with my laptop, usually using it behind good firewalls or offline, with antimalware software running.

has a better UI with better usability,

As I clearly explained, I interact with the UI very little on this computer. And I know all of the parts that I use to the point that they are effortless. (And if you'll permit a brief digression: making the "shutdown" option harder to get to - especially via the keyboard - is not "better usability".)

better handling of wireless networks,

See above. XP knows all of the wireless networks I use and handles them transparently. (Another digression: Win7's "Network and Sharing Center" is - in my professional opinion - a usability clusterfuck.)

better handling of external projectors,

I can't imagine any situation in which I'd want to hook this laptop up to a projector. Why would you assume that I care about this? Because you do it?

can be upgraded to IE9 (vastly more secure than IE6/7/8, even if you don't use it)...

IE9 represents the latest in Microsoft's desperate efforts to oversimplify the UI to the point of obscurity. It's a trainwreck I hate having to use at work. And security: see above.

I use Win7 at work and at home. Every time I have to go back to using XP, it's like trying to work with mittens on, or use stone knives and bear-skins. It's so ancient and obsolete and difficult to use I can't even stand it. Win7 is just better in every single way I can imagine.

"I... I... I... I.... " But I am not you. I'm sorry to hear you have so much trouble remembering how to use XP. I don't. So go on with your love affair with Win7, and let me continue doing what works for me.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[OrangeTide]

"I made heavy use of shortcut keys in WinXP - my computer-geek friends were amazed at what I can get done within a few seconds with half a dozen key strokes."

You should join us on the dark side of Unix and Linux.

"Considering the new learning curve required, I made the jump to Linux (Arch + E17)."

Welcome.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[jabelli]

I used Acrobat to print to pdfs and alter pdfs (such as insert or delete pages).

If that's all you were using it for, then you should look at PDFCreator.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[SpryGuy]

I know damn well how to use XP, and used it for quite a while, both personally and professionally.

Win7 is better in just about every way, as I said. I'm sorry I didn't list things that satisfied you, but I didn't want to sit here for days listing all the ways it's just plain better/easier/faster.

And your video card slam is just ignorant... it's faster because it uses hardware-accelerated video (offloading from CPU). Better drivers. More efficient.

I think, based on your post, that I can only conclude that you don't know how to use Windows 7. Pretty much every objection is either bogus, or just ignorant.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[SpryGuy]

The Ribbon in 2010 is fine (and customizable). All it takes is a TINY effort to actually accept it and use it, instead of just deciding you fraking hate it and fighting it every step of the way. Sheesh.

(Besides, all your old keyboard short-cuts still work, so if you're actually any good, you won't even notice... and you can collapse the ribbon out of the way if you want... and you can access it entirely from the keyboard if you want (via Alt-Letter combinations...)

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[SpryGuy]

In no way, shape, or form is Win 7 more difficult to use for a user that just wants to use their computer than XP.

Where do you guys come up with this B.S.? You've either never used XP or you've never used Windows 7... I'm not sure which.

And those "imaginary lines"? They're very clear, both document and in behavior... move a window so that the mouse cursor bumps either the left or right side, and it will auto-dock to half the screen ("Areo-Snap"). Move so the mouse cursor bumps the top edge, and it full-screens it. Drag it back down, it'll resize to the original size (same when you drag the Snapped windows from the left or right). Resize a window and bump the mouse cursor against the top or bottom of the display, and the window will resize to take the full height of the monitor.

These aren't bugs are problems, these are great productivity enhancers, and I use them all the time. That you haven't even made the tineist effort to understand a feature so straght-forward and useful, to the point of listing it as a "drawback" of some kind, is laughable.

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[SpryGuy]

Um... how is "Start, Shutdown" more difficult than in XP? In Win7, the default power button is "shutdown", so it's exactly two clicks. And as for keyboard... Win + Right-Arrow + Enter. Same number of keystrokes as in XP from my counting.

And I'm almost certain your XP has some 3rd party wireless networking support (I never bought a laptop without some, because XP's built in handling of wireless was so lacking). Win7's native support for moving between networks, network switching and selecting, etc, is just a lot easier to use and understand than XP's native solution (or the fact that going from XP to XP meant you frequently had different interfaces, as each OEM installed their own).

And no, not by any measure is XP "Secure enough".

Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied

[unixisc]

Thanks - I'll try it out

Oh no!

[JosephTX]

I've been dreading the day I'd have to leave Vista behind!

Re:Oh no!

[Undead Waffle]

Laugh all you want but I really have been afraid of this. Vista is the most recent version of Windows Microsoft gave me for free. When it stops working I'm in for a lot more WINE configuration unless Microsoft realizes how awesome I am and sends me a free copy of their latest OS.

Re:Oh no!

[ifiwereasculptor]

They gave you Vista for free? Man, they must really hate your guts. So relax, they'll probably give you Windows 8 too.

They should just cut the foreplay...

[idbeholda]

And end support for Windows Vista altogether. Let's face it, even "upgrading" from Windows XP to Vista is basically the same thing as "downgrading" to Windows 3.11 For Workgroups. Except Windows 3.11 had far fewer issues that the user had to contend with.

Re:They should just cut the foreplay...

[Nimey]

What they should do is sell a cheap upgrade from Vista to 7 for some really low price like $10, make it available to anyone with a Vista license, then say "sorry, we're washing our hands of this".

Re:They should just cut the foreplay...

[idbeholda]

Exactly. Vista is a slow-motion trainwreck. I use the phrase "slow motion" because that's how it works, even after tweaking it.

Re:My message to you, Laura:

[rrohbeck]

Her name is Vista not Laura. You got that wrong.

Waiting for XP to go...

[Kawahee]

I'm a developer at an ISV. Personally, I am waiting for XP to go. Microsoft has some great technology (WWSAPI, SQL Server 2012 LocalDB) that looks like it will solve some of the problems we need to solve with our application, but it's not available on XP. (Technically WWSAPI is, if you're willing to pay for the support contract.)

As it stands, while XP is still supported (mainstream, extended or otherwise) and we have customers on it we are unable to use these new technologies.

In the context of my job I don't think Vista is any different from 7 in terms of the technology available and the support effort.

At home I find 7 to be superior to XP and Vista. I don't think Vista fills any niche, XP has the 5-year-old-low-powered-device market, but anywhere else really should be using 7.

Re:Waiting for XP to go...

[Billly Gates]

Which means programmers will use obsolete products and the PHBs will say well XP works fine and can run all software so why upgrade?

It creates a perpetual problem. I mean the last 2 years we finally gave a finger to IE 6 thanks to Google and other websites refusing to support it. The corporations are not upgrading (well some). Unless someone big stands up and releases new software that uses these technologies the CPAs and phbs will keep using obsolete technology forever and never change so they can give themselves bonuses.

MS is hinting the next Office will only run in Metro/Win 7 and same is true with Visual Studio with the Windows 7 version being crippled. XP ... what XP? The really cheap companies will just stay on obsolete versions until people start emailing .docx version 2 or something dumb.

Re:Waiting for XP to go...

[vgerclover]

I'm a developer at an ISV. Personally, I am waiting for XP to go. Microsoft has some great technology (WWSAPI, SQL Server 2012 LocalDB) that looks like it will solve some of the problems we need to solve with our application, but it's not available on XP.

I'm really intrigued by why you couldn't use SQLite3 instead of SQL Server 2012 LocalDB or any API other than WWSAPI for web services.

Re:Waiting for XP to go...

[Kawahee]

Our application supports SQL Server and (unfortunately) Microsoft JET as database backends. Both database engines have their own proprietary syntax for some things, and our application is literally littered with:

if (sqlServer)
execute(

Re:Waiting for XP to go...

[Kawahee]

Whoops, I cut myself off...

The point I was trying to make is that we already have many places in our application where we go "if MSSQL, do this, else do that" to accommodate for Transact-SQL and JET-SQL. We're not after a third SQL dialect in our application (even if it is a close implementation of ANSI92 SQL).

To use some of SQLite's words, we're after for a drop-in database engine that's small, fast and reliable. SQL LocalDB fits the bill pretty well, with no major modifications to our application.

As for libraries for consuming SOAP web services, the endpoint we're talking to is a little bit liberal when it comes to the SOAP standards, so when we find a library that can talk to it (and deal with the protocol violations) that's what we use. So at the moment it's ATL/SOAP, and WSSAPI is also looking good. We haven't really evaluated other SOAP libraries in too much depth, other than WCF which is too standards-compliant (Microsoft standards compliant?!) for the version of "SOAP" we deal with.

Re:Waiting for XP to go...

[Anonymous Coward]

Our application supports SQL Server and (unfortunately) Microsoft JET as database backends.

So use sql server express 2008. If you're using features unique in SQL Server 2012 LocalDB, your app probably needs a standalone database server.

Re:Waiting for XP to go...

[Kawahee]

I'm well aware of the Express edition, but it's a bit heavy for our customers to install and manage. They're not very technically minded. LocalDB looks to be a good replacement for our customers using Microsoft JET.

Further, our application is meant to be run on a desktop and to have a full blown copy of SQL Server Express running in the background just for our application is not ideal.

your app probably needs a standalone database server.

Several of our larger customers (10GB - 250GB of data) use SQL Server 2005 Enterprise and SQL Server 2008 Enterprise very successfully.

Our thousands of smaller customers (50MB - 250MB of data) use Microsoft JET mostly successfully. But for development it's a pain in the ass, and as I said above, LocalDB seems to be a good replacement for Microsoft JET.

Re:Waiting for XP to go...

[Anonymous Coward]

Win7 is still in mainstream support. MS isn't foolish enough to cripple Visual Studio on Win7 - remember, "developers, developers, developers". Worst case, there will be some add-on (possibly not released at the same time) to develop Metro/Win8 apps on Win7. They've done that sort of thing before. I'd be surprised if the next VS release runs at all on WinXP, though.

- T

Re:Waiting for XP to go...

[Anonymous Coward]

The point I was trying to make is that we already have many places in our application where we go "if MSSQL, do this, else do that" to accommodate for Transact-SQL and JET-SQL.

I'd humbly suggest that you're doing it wrong. Instead, partition the DB-specific parts (especially any SQL) into a DLL for each DB and simply install the appropriate DLL. Ideally, you could adapt such an approach to any customer's existing DB platform (Oracle, DB2, etc.), allowing you access to a broader set of the larger potential customers.

- T

Re:Waiting for XP to go...

[Kawahee]

The application was originally written in 1993 and there's been various levels of pragmatism applied to new development and maintenance between then and now. There are "proper" ways of manipulating data in an RDBMS invariant manner, but the application was never designed for it.

As it stands we're looking to get rid of support for JET and use SQL Server. For our application SQL Server does everything we want it to, therefore interoperability with other database platforms isn't a high priority.

Perhaps when we've rewound our application to only support the one provider and get rid of all the JET crud (no pun intended) we'll more easily be able to add an abstraction layer.

Re:Waiting for XP to go...

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, been there and seen that kind of thing, and I'm guilty of some of it myself. It makes sense given the backstory.

- T

I know I'm not paying for it.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're willing to sign the checks and pay for all the upgrades (not just the OS, but legacy software which may not run on the newer OS), I'll be more than happy to upgrade. But looking at my own budget, then the answer is no. Everything currently in use still works fine for what it does, and it's kind of stupid to spend money I don't have in order get newer software to do what I'm doing already.

Not to mention hardware issues. Who's going to update all the drivers and such for printers and similar equipment connected to the network? How good is the legacy support on that end? It's a step backwards to break things that work now.

As for security? Most security issues tend to be PEBKAC, provided stuff connected to the internet is locked down fairly well. Maybe hard to deal with on a large scale, but on stand alone machines or small networks it's fairly quick to figure out who's causing the problem.

I think others making business decisions would answer the same way.

Where are my Ultimate Edition extras?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since support is ending, I'm sure there will be a flurry of activity to release the promised Ultimate Edition extras now, right? Microsoft would NEVER promise something and completely fail to deliver it in the entire lifetime of the product would they? *drops pin, crickets chirp*

Re:Where are my Ultimate Edition extras?

[KlomDark]

What are these? Other than Tinker, a couple card games, and DreamScene? Are there others that were promised? Cause I was able to get the previously mentioned ones from Windows Update.

Waiting on Intel actually

[nicoleb_x]

I've been planning on upgrading my main computer with new software and hardware but I'm waiting for Intel to let loose those new 22nm wonders. I've been pretty happy with Vista and a 32nm quad core so I'm not going to upgrade until I get some serious reward for my coin.

Weird timing

[KlomDark]

I say what I'm about to say after using Windows 7 x64 for a while, and liking it.

But...

  I got a used Core2 Duo laptop off ebay that came with XP. Went to upgrade it to something that would take advantage of the 64bit cores, but I realized I was out of MSDN licenses for Windows 7 x64. But I had all my Vista x64 license keys remaining for some reason. ;) Dreaded the thought, but went ahead and put Vista 64 on it, and put on all the services packs, etc.

I am very surprised at myself saying this, but I am actually liking the UI on Vista better than Windows 7. Heresy, I know. But with SP2 on it, it's (finally!) solid and it's doing everything I need it to do. (C#/Visual Studio/MVC 3/Entity Framework development...)

I really think the sidebar (introduced in Vista, ripped back out in Win7) should have been longer lived. I did not like it at all when I first encountered it, but now I am just loving it for some reason. (Maybe I just hate change??)

Of course, two weeks after I do this, they end of life it. Dammit...

Re:Weird timing

[Microlith]

I really think the sidebar (introduced in Vista, ripped back out in Win7) should have been longer lived.

They ripped out the sidebar but left the widgets in. Now they just reside directly on the desktop, which is a better solution.

Re:Weird timing

[KlomDark]

Not when you want to still see your gadgets when running maximized. Sure, you can set your gadgets to "Always on top", but then they are always in the wrong place it seems.

Re:What Really Needs Support

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow,

Did that touch a nerve or 2?

Microsoft needs more distinctive abbreviations

[tepples]

For those of us in a domain, win7/vista allows SMB2

I've run SMB2 on MS-DOS 6.22. Heck, I've run SMB2 on a Nintendo for cricket's sake.

Google Chrome Frame

[tepples]

Well, every web developer on Earth woud love it if Microsoft kicked every version of Windows that won't receive IE10 off the web.

What version of Windows still in mainstream or extended support won't receive Google Chrome Frame, a browser helper object for IE pre-10 that uses WebKit from Chrome to render HTML pages using modern standards?

Re:Google Chrome Frame

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just use chrome?

Re:Google Chrome Frame

[tepples]

For one thing, IE can be administered with domain policies more easily than Chrome. For another, Chrome Frame turns itself on only for web pages that specifically request Chrome Frame using X-UA-Compatible.

Re:Google Chrome Frame

[Jesus_666]

Chrome Frame is not distributed through Windows Update and even if it were it probably wouldn't be a mandatory update. Thus I can't assume that everyone has it installed. Since "the website requires certain users to install third-party software" is unacceptable that means that Chrome Frame does exactly nothing to keep me from having to support decades-old IE versions.

Get Microsoft to distribute Chrome Frame with a Windows security update and I'll have a case. Until then I'll have to keep explicitly supporting old vesions of Trident.

Try Xubuntu for excrements and giggles

[tepples]

It also assumes your old peripherals will work, where printers and scanners are the worst players.

Printers and scanners that work with Windows XP but don't work with Windows Vista or Windows 7 are likely to work with CUPS and SANE. Set up a Xubuntu box for excrements and giggles and see if they work.

Re:Try Xubuntu for excrements and giggles

[jampola]

I second this. I moved 100+ pc's to Linux at my company and for the older pc's (p4's 512mb) I installed Xubuntu as opposed to Ubuntu 10.04LTS on the new core2 i3/5 pc's and Damn, Xubuntu is a hell of a distro. All of the random printers and scanners that some pc's are hooked up to work out of the box. It just works no matter what machine I install it on.

Re:Try Xubuntu for excrements and giggles

[gsnedders]

I have a film scanner (cost £500 a couple of years ago â" second hand, it's been out of production for about a decade). It isn't supported by SANE, there are some very limited F/OSS drivers for Windows which don't even work for most of what I have the scanner for (and don't work on Win64), and the official drivers work on OS X/PPC and Win32 (up to Vista â" don't know what stops it running on 32-bit Win7).

I run WinXP in a VM (without networking, except for to host) for it, as it's practically the only way I can keep it running for the indefinite future. That said, I don't expect the majority of users to be happy with VMs, given a mixture of working inside and out, and the different filesystems, and the different networking.

Re:Try Xubuntu for excrements and giggles

[jawtheshark]

Have you checked out VueScan? My father was in the same situation as you and we found VueScan to be the solution. We use it under Linux, but I'm sure the Windows version is good too. Of course, it's still more money than just sticking with what you have.

My company has got another year at least

[gelfling]

...On XPSP3. We'll skip Vista and will probably wind up running Win7 or something like it, virtualized. Around 2015 or so.

The future, not the present

[tepples]

The consumer operating system of the future is one that boots straight into a web browser from which all applications will be accessed.

You're right that the practicality of something like Chrome OS is in the future, not the present. Between now and then, either A. programmers will have to learn how to make web applications use CACHE MANIFEST and localStorage, B. cellular ISPs will have to substantially lower their monthly rates, or preferably C. both.

Re:My message to you, Laura:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised, too. I just hope Laura, Lenin, and Trotsky have restraining orders against him. Well, Trotsky at least. I'm pretty sure Lenin and Laura can take care of themselves.

Re:My message to you, Laura:

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Bob,

Will you never get over that weekend in Vegas? Please. I've moved on. You need to also.

p.s. your omelets aren't any good.

All the best, Laura

Corporates will care

[ausrob]

This has little to no meaning for most home users, many of whom are probably still running XP, or may have upgraded to WIndows 7. However, it may have a big impact on corporations and governments though, in particular ones who standardized their SOE with Vista for workstations.

Many have governance which requires their organization to run OSes which are within the (mainstream) support lifecycle - meaning that Microsoft moving Vista to extended support means many corporates and/or government bodies might get pushed to Windows 7 or Windows 8 for their SOE in the very near future. Not a bad earner for MS assuming their don't push organisations to another platform...

Re:What Really Needs Support

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's some advice:

By writing "M$" you are letting Microsoft win. It makes you sound like your only reason for hating Microsoft is because they sell goods and services. Instead of writing "M$," try explaining specifically what you find objectionable about Microsoft and their products. By providing specific reasons and justification, you may be able to foment change in the individuals and organizations who currently consume Microsoft products toward the products and ideologies you prefer.

I offer you this advice because, as an old man, you should spend your remaining days more wisely than as a fat freetard faggot.

Don't release the magic smoke...

[Anonymous Coward]

Inside those mnemonic memory circuits.... :D

it's like trying to work with mittens on, or use stone knives and bear-skins.

CAPTCHA: sagely (That's the way the pointy eared guy talks whenever he opened his mouth XD )

Re:What Really Needs Support

[Xeranar]

There needs to be a new Godwin's law for when people use the term "sheeple", like when a person uses the term "sheeple" it automatically ends the argument because that person is too stupid to acknowledge they themselves are sheeple in some respect.

I mean in all honesty who thinks they can hold down a full-time job that requires a college degree and write an entire OS then support that OS for almost every instance that requires it and push those updates as fast as you can. Microsoft is in business because their specific OS is widely adopted and hasn't been supplanted because they have commercial partners and they are more than just hobbyists. Open source is /.'s mantra and all but really, open source can't solve everything and brings its own set of problems to the table (i.e. security...etc). I know you're an AC trying to get a rise but what is deemed "support" here is literally updates sent to the OS through the update tool besides the over-the-phone support as the article seems to imply. The fact it is going into the shut-down cycle this soon proves how successful Win 7 was well as how big a failure Vista ended up being.

Virtual Machines are not an answer

[DMJC]

Virtual Machines are still not an answer, not yet anyway. Until there's a Voodoo 2 gpu emulator in the virtual machine that handles directx 1-7, opengl 1.2 and Glide. Old applications simply will not all run. Win9x doesn't work properly in virtual machines even now 15 years on. You still can't play Warhammer Dark Omen with all it's options just like a bare metal Pentium 2 running windows 98 with a Voodoo card can. This is a hurdle that honestly should have been fixed years ago. Wine has the same problem. There are many old applications it doesn't support because they never finished Directx 1-7 support. http://wiki.winehq.org/DirectX-ToDo. Until they get graphics cards properly working in virtual machines it's not ready to be used. Gallium3D is going to make linux able to run Directx 10/11 applications work in virtual machines by directly forwarding commands from the virtual machine to the graphics card, but there are at this stage AFAIK no plans to support older titles. The closest thing I've seen around is Dosbox has some voodoo 2 patches but they're very unsupported, you can't just apt-get install dosbox-voodoo and get a working install at this stage. Also running windows 9x while patchable, is unsupported by Dosbox at this stage. It would be nice if virtualbox would pick up some of this work to fix gpu support. But I suspect noone is interested in making old software work :(

Re:Virtual Machines are not an answer

[Anonymous Coward]

How come you know all this ... useful ... information but are unaware that it's means it is?

Even more off-topic

[colinrichardday]

but I am a blac belt in all five major martial arts so I can protect you from him and from all the rightwing racist vijilantes that creep all over the horrible racist capitalistic hellhole that is the U.S.A.

Can your blac[k] belt stop a 9mm?

Re:What Really Needs Support

[Doctor_Jest]

While you are correct with regards to supporting OSes in perpetuity, Microsoft has actually created an atmosphere of "perpetuity" to their OSes since cutting the cord with the command line all those many years ago. They wanted in the embedded device market... so they made XP work on o-scopes, etc. Well, those OSes need to last much longer than your grandma's computer OS, and Microsoft is increasingly aware that if they're not going to support their OS, someone will have an OS ready that will... and large, monolithic customers (the DoD for one) do not simply update their OS when Microsoft tells them to.

(Open Source has created much more secure and wonderful OSes than Microsoft could dream of creating, but that's for another post... and many folks did it while holding down a full time job.) They did it without forcing or requiring things to exist so they could invent a market, and in spite of Windows' sales numbers, there are many more Linux OSes run by the masses than ever before.... it's not your father's geek OS... :) Windows could cement their dominance by not dropping their OSes off the radar so quickly, but their hubris with regards to "the desktop" has shown many imperfections in the last few years... imperfections that are filled by other companies and their products.

Microsoft's OSes are manufactured to be compatible with each other. Windows 7 is just a better handled bug-fixed Windows Vista. For the most part, like Apple, Microsoft "obsoletes" their OSes artificially. The move to the NT-based kernel has solidified Microsoft's position with a real OS (anything before NT was a toy OS...), however with that comes the inevitable support dilemma that either helps Microsoft sell more OSes and keeps the package "fresh" so everyone will want the new OS with feature X, or it helps Microsoft maintain its existing base by supporting the OS so it won't be ditched in favor of the more plausible alternatives (more plausible and useable alternatives than we've seen in the history of computing I might add.)

While I agree that manpower is something Microsoft must contend with in their OS roadmap, I do not believe they are "hurting" by supporting two or three versions of their OS for at least bug fixes and the odd security patch. I'd be more inclined to believe that it is a substantial burden if Windows were a substantial rewrite each release... with the XP to Vista transition, far less of the OS was rewritten after many features promised were pulled (and still haven't seen the light of day... like WinFS, etc.)... but that is indeed a bigger difference than Vista to 7. But if they support Vista, they won't make any money peddling 7 (and soon to be 8...) That's not to say XP and Vista are twins... that's just to say that the underlying codebase (stuff that would benefit from bugfixes and security patches) is not as different as the boys at Redmond would have us believe.

My personal feeling is security and bugfixes shouldn't be something that gets dropped because of manpower shortages... after all bugfixes and security patches are repairs to something you already sold an unsuspecting public. Saying "well, buy 7 and that'll be fixed" is purely marketing... there is no technical reason to abandon an OS after a short time... Apple's just as guilty... requiring Lion for features that would work find for Snow Leopard. Apple's got the same problem Microsoft had with XP... it's good enough for most people. There's a realistic limit to support for an OS version, as we even see that in Linux, but Microsoft and Apple seem to be falling into the revenue grab trap... and the "sheeple" are not happy about it as they once were... even with smaller investments (with the OS costing more than most PCs that run it), people aren't keen on shelling out yet another $200 for an OS upgrade that just changes the second digit when you do "Ver" at the command line.

I don't believe the failure of Vista has caused Microsoft to "speed up" their shutdown cycle... I believe their increasing irrelevance in a changing market is pushing them to devote more and more resources to things they traditionally would've had "sewn up" in the bad old days of pre-convicted Microsoft.

Wha!

[ebvwfbw]

Seems like Vista just came out!

Re:What Really Needs Support

[Anonymous Coward]

> There needs to be a new Godwin's law for when people use the term "sheeple",

I agree completely, the term is used almost exclusively by wingnuts with some completely unpopular belief system.

At least Marxists had a whole theory on why the workers of the world weren't buying their ideology, and they also had hilarious labels like "lumpenprole".

You're not the only one still on XP ....

[King_TJ]

At my workplace, our systems still predominantly run XP Professional, with maybe 3 or 4 running Windows 7 Pro.

Due to a budget crunch in 2009 through last year, we couldn't afford the planned upgrades, so we decided to make do with what we had. (EG. If a power supply died, we spent the $35 for another one and got the PC going again, vs. using it as a reason to upgrade to a whole new PC with a new OS on it.)

Now, we're slowly rolling out some upgraded hardware and software (just finished upgrading all of our Microsoft Office 2003 installations to Office 2010 -- which we were basically forced against a wall to do, so we could retire our old Exchange Server 2003 and utilize a cloud hosted Exchange Server 2010). But Windows 7 deployment has, quite frankly, created more negatives for us than the positives it brings.

Lack of driver support is a big issue. For example, the classic Adaptec 2940 series SCSI controller cards are no longer supported at all in 64-bit Windows 7. That's a problem for us, since we use a document management system with a group of dedicated "scan stations" people go to to scan in their documents each day. The scanners are old Ricoh SCSI based models that cost us many thousands of dollars each when we first bought them. They're still good workhorse scanners for our purposes and I can't really cost justify replacing them, at least until they fail on us. The only way I've found to make these work in Win 7 is to install the whole XP mode thing and run them in a virtualized XP session. That's ridiculous if you can just keep XP Pro on the computer instead!

Our old HP plotters aren't supported in Windows 7 either, but again -- why replace an "ancient" but still good, working plotter with a new one that costs $14,000 or more, just because you'd like to have the latest $200 or so operating system on the PC it's attached to?

From the systems administration side of things? Windows 7 annoys me because I can no longer browse the network and see the comments entered for each workstation. Under XP, I can double click the "Network Neighborhood" and look at all the PCs in the domain, and if they had description fields entered such as the name of the employee using the PC, they'd show up in the list. With 7, they decided that info was irrelevant, apparently, and no longer display it?!

Re:You're not the only one still on XP ....

[yuhong]

Note that you can install 32-bit Win7 to use your old XP drivers.

Re:You're not the only one still on XP ....

[yuhong]

And SCSI is a standard interface. You can replace the controller card and still use your old SCSI scanners with it.

Re:You're not the only one still on XP ....

[dbIII]

Note that doesn't always work - oddly enough I've seen it with HP plotters like the poster above mentioned. By the time Win7 was out for a bit there were eventually drivers for at least a couple of the models that didn't work with Vista, and the XP drivers at least in that case do not work with 32 bit Vista or Win7.

Re:You're not the only one still on XP ....

[couchslug]

[quote]
Lack of driver support is a big issue.
[/quote]
Which gets me free printers and scanners now and then...

Re:You're not the only one still on XP ....

[zyzko]

According to various internet forums you can get a AHA-2940 working in 64bit Win7 with a driver ripped from x64 2003 or 2008 server.

It is a shame that driver support for old hardware is what it is but it is not really Microsoft's fault - it is not that hard for manufacturer to create a new driver - it is by choice is they will. But hey - XP works for you - but do keep in mind that it is now over 10 years old operating system so it has had a very long life - if you want to keep using it and hardware that only supports it; fine. But at some point of time the cost of self-supporting it becomes greater than breathing new life into old system.

(And yes, I know some Win 3.1 installations which are in use for the exact same reasons - no need to replace the hardware, no support on newer operating systems - but when I encounter those I strongly point out that these are legacy installations and you really should have a plan about how to replace them because they will break at some point in time - and it is better done gracefully with a plan than in an emergency with ad-hoc replacement when something breaks.)

Re:You're not the only one still on XP ....

[tokul]

SCSI is a standard interface.

Only if brand new SCSI connector works with old scsi hardware.

Re:You're not the only one still on XP ....

[skywiseguy]

Have you tried using Print Manager in Windows 7 to install your plotter drivers? I've found it to be very versatile when dealing with random print drivers that won't install the usual way.

Re:What Really Needs Support

[X0563511]

I always like to think of this and this. Especially that last one. ... and we all knew Windows Vista is to Windows 7 as Windows ME is to Windows 2000. Or 98 is to 98SE. Or ME is to... anything else.

Fuck it, Vista was the new ME, and 7 wiped it all over the floor.

re: list of things that don't work in XP

[King_TJ]

Your list is correct, but I know from our own experiences, it's not a very significant list of items for what we do. Obviously, results vary -- but for example? I'd say "So what?" about no IE 9 compatibility. I'd rather see people using Firefox or Chrome, both of which DO work just fine under XP Pro.

Proper IPv6 support is totally irrelevant for us right now too. If we did eventually reach a point where our ISP told us we were being issued an IPv6 address and needed to support it - that would probably be handled at the router level, and everything behind the firewall / router would still use legacy IP addressing anyway.

Direct X11? Totally a non-issue for the business applications we run. Nobody's doing 3D gaming in our workplace, and even though we do some CAD work, all of it is 2-dimensional (such as architectural drawings).

Quite possibly, the biggest reason to upgrade from XP is that 4GB RAM barrier ... but even there, 4GB seems to be enough for what we're doing right now. I've found that about half of our users are just fine with 2GB on XP Pro really, and 4GB gives everyone else enough extra headroom to load and edit larger images or drawings they might be working with. I know this is always a moving target, and in 2 more years, bigger upgrades of some of our apps may require more (ACCPAC accounting package -- I'm looking at you!). But 2 more years of life out of existing software/hardware is 2 more years of life out of it!

Re:What Really Needs Support

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, son, stop giving advice to older dudes, because it looks bad for both of us... also, if filthy words worked, this world would work perfectly, wouldn't it?

Look, kid. Nobody knows how old you are, and nobody cares. The software and stack people use DOESN'T MATTER. The only thing that matters is whether you use your skills for the betterment of mankind. Sometimes that means writing Linux kernel patches, sometimes that means selling Windows software.

The fact that you don't get this means you are immature, uneducated, unwise and unworldly. A fucking child.

You have to be a man before you can be an old one. Grow the fuck up.

Re:What Really Needs Support

[Anonymous Coward]

But then Marxists acted on that theory, and instead of trying to sell their ideology, they switched to sneaking it on people. Hence why wingnuts call the masses "sheeple", because they've actually been snookered into going along with it, and amazingly continue to even when they start to see what's going on.

Re:What Really Needs Support

[Xeranar]

That was a long post that I read with care and agree with you. I was more pointing out the simple fact that winding down an OS's life cycle is not some grand offense. Of course you run into the issue of planned obsolescence as an offense rather than an intentional function of the market. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have a free OS that gets updated continuously by an army of hobbyists and a handful of IT companies that use it as their main system but as a consumer-level product OSX/Windows is successful because of the simplicity and support it gets through a streamlined process and for that benefit we as consumers (in this case...) are subject to having to re-purchase the OS to get the latest updates.

As far as I know on the use of OS'es Linux has pretty much become the choice of the third world because they cannot afford the steep pricing of Windows but in the first and second world Windows is dominant and it's only substantial losses has been to OSX in the last 2-3 years as people buy macs to match their iOS products. If anything the death of Vista was largely due to public perception of it's poor instability. We're still living in frontier times in terms of computer technology as we know it today. A good many of you were adults for the very cutting edge of computers as a home device but until Windows 95 showed up the computer was more novelty than useful for everyday use. Now we're only 5 major versions in and i'm being gracious by calling Vista a major version. That means in a little over 17 years we've updated our OS 5 times for an average of 3.4 year lifespan. Up until XP that average held true. I agree XP held on a great deal longer because it worked but also because processors sped up to support average internet surfing and thus XP wasn't painfully slow. It was as much the OS as the hardware. Vista was painfully bloated and slowed down the hardware to a crawl and failed because of that. Windows 7 runs faster on PCs i've seen from the XP-era. So arguably the progression isn't without cause.

I think the bottom line in this particular case is that Microsoft saw the issue in Vista and is trying to remove it from the market as painlessly as possible. The vast majority of Windows profit is from OEMs who sell it rather than upgrade path consumers. They even offered a relatively long period where if you had purchased a Vista PC you could get a free matching copy of Win 7 (Home Premium for Home Premium...so on and such forth). The need to profit in order to run their machine is a side-effect of our capitalist system but still Linux distros that are extremely popular update as fast/faster than Windows but lesser ones update slower. There are trade-offs on both sides of the argument.

and I'm rambling now...regardless, the shutdown cycle is because they failed with Vista not some giant money grab. XP is where the users are and it has been in shutdown cycle for the last year or more.

Re:What Really Needs Support

[JDG1980]

You see, that is the root of the problem. They ("M$") work so that won't happen. We saw recently news about Chrome overtaking IE on Sundays. Can you guess why?

Because Chrome doesn't support Active Directory administration, and in any business organization of any size which is based around Windows, this is an essential feature. It's the #1 reason why alternative browsers haven't gotten a foothold on the corporate desktop.

Waste of money from microsoft

[qu33ksilver]

Are you kidding me ?? Extended support for a dump of an OS ?? Just stop Windows Vista already .. 7 is way cool. I don't know why they are going for 8 so early, let windows 7 go for some 4-5 years more.

Re:Waste of money from microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

7 is way cool

Are you about 12 years old? And paid by MS? How much do you get? I want *in*!

Re:What Really Needs Support

[Anonymous Coward]

When people link FLOSS with security problems it automatically ends the argument because they obviously don't know what the ef they're talking about.

Re:What Really Needs Support

[g0tai]

... Because Microsoft haven't written a plugin/support so other browsers can support active directory.

Let's not forget here that Microsoft will extend something outside of the standards. If they wanted to support active directory in chrome, firefox, etc, then there is a plugin system to let them do *exactly* that. Funnily enough, they don't seem to have written any plugins to support their proprietary stuff for 3rd party browsers.

Re:What Really Needs Support

[boristhespider]

Except people keep saying that and I see precious little difference between Vista and 7 (when running on hardware that can cope; one of Microsoft's biggest and most reprehensible mistakes when launching Vista was the "Vista-Ready" fiasco which put it on millions of computers that simply couldn't cope. Paired with the problem with drivers, which itself wasn't strictly Microsoft's fault and which I remember happening to the same degree with XP when they changed the driver model and manufacturers didn't prepare, it left a very bad taste in a lot of people's mouths). Other than the taskbar - and I'm not a fan of 7's taskbar, actually, and prefer Vista's - and the way Microsoft tweaked User Access Control to make it somewhat less secure but at the same time rather less aggravating, they seem very much the same to me. Maybe I'm missing something, though; my home machine runs Vista and I've not spent that long on 7.

that old canard

[Phoenix666]

Ah yes, that old canard, "linux is fine for hobbyists and geeks, but serious grown-ups use Windows." Serious grown-ups look at the bottom line and metrics like productivity and decide accordingly. I run my company exclusively on FLOSS and I guarantee you we are serious grown-ups and have greater productivity because we aren't spending large chunks of every day keeping our systems patched or losing half our cycles to anti-virus software or spyware/adware etc.

I had thought linux had long ago buried that FUD among serious grown-ups, but I guess some memes never die.

Re:that old canard

[james_van]

oddly enough, i run my business on windows and also dont spend large chunks of our day keeping our systems patched or lose any noticeable amount of clock cycles to anti-virus.

Re:that old canard

[Xeranar]

When Linux gets a small army of paid employees to keep the OS working around the clock they can join Windows in that exclusive circle of OSes. It doesn't disprove my point as it only serves to reinforce it. YOU personally keep the system up to date and running. Other companies are uninterested or too small to care. They want a product that works and when it doesn't it gets fixed and sent out so quickly they hardly notice. Linux can do that but you need to be supported by the right distro and have good support staff in house.

Re:What Really Needs Support

[jonbryce]

Support is for people who want their computer to show the correct time when their government changes the daylight savings times rules yet again.

Re:What Really Needs Support

[znrt]

open source can't solve everything and brings its own set of problems to the table (i.e. security...etc).

sorry? can you substantiate this somehow?

security is actually one of the strongest points of open source, because it's open to public review and scrutiny as oposed to the questionable security by obscurity in closed software.

The fact it is going into the shut-down cycle this soon proves how successful Win 7 was well as how big a failure Vista ended up being.

this is quite comprensible but security updates should be definitely mantained free. limiting them now to paid subscriptions is a blatant rip-off customers shouldn't tolerate, and a risk the whole network shouldn't have to take. MS should either continue with free security patches for vista or else offer a free upgrade to w7 to all vista (l)users.

Here you go

[benjymouse]

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa374177(v=vs.85).aspx

Group Policies is what sets IE apart from other browsers in the enterprise. But the Group Policy API is open and available to anyone.

You are not suggesting that Microsoft should write GPO plugins for *other* browsers, are you?

The thing I don't get regarding IE is.

[toddmbloom]

They're falling into the same trap they did with IE6, back in the day.

By tying a browser so closely into the operating system to the point where it's impossible to install on a older version of the operating system, you're fragmenting the user base and forcing developers to continue to code for browsers that may not be up to standards.

For all this talk about how the IE team is "turning over a new leaf", they're not really doing so at all. It's more of the same old, same old.

Vista = NT 6.0 = Server 2008

[modicr]

BTW, NT 6.0 is supported till 09-JUL-2013 and EOL is 10-JUL-2018 (http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/default.aspx?sort=PN&qid=null&alpha=Windows+Server+2008&Filter=FilterNO)

Adobe

[tepples]

Since "the website requires certain users to install third-party software" is unacceptable

Then how did so many web sites get away with requiring Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Reader for so long?

Re:Adobe

[Jesus_666]

Penetration. Even today I can safely assume that any non-mobile visitor has Flash Player installed just like I can safely assume that every visitor has a JavaScript-capable browser. Mobile browsers are just now becoming important enough that we can no longer assume Flash to be omnipresent.

Note that I said "requires certain users to install third-party software". Until very recently Flash could reasonably be assumed to already be installed. Chrome Frame can't.

Arth1 guilty of murdering the English language!

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL -> http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2773441&cid=39617909 hahahaha

Win 7/VISTA/Server 2008 = worse in 1 way

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft took out a more efficient block method in hosts files in those versions of Windows!

To wit:

I'd even discussed this with the THEN head of the "Windows Client Performance Division" who posts here as "Foredecker" (Richard Russell), who said he'd 'get back to me on it' & he couldn't & WOULDN'T even try to DENY I was correct on it also and agreed with me too no less...

See here on that note:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1467692&cid=30384918

So, how & WHY are 0, &/or 0.0.0.0 faster & better on disk + reads than 127.0.0.1 is?

Well, the first octet(s) IS/ARE 2-7 bytes (16 bits) smaller each entry used is why: COMMON-SENSE!

Thus, over a large amount of entries (or even smaller ones, just less noticeable) in hosts files record entries??

The usage of 0 (shortform), vs. 0.0.0.0 (longform) or worse, 127.0.0.1 (loopback adapter address) just makes for FASTER loadtime & parsing hosts from disk into your local Caches!

(Be that the local diskcache, which is used in lieu of the faulty DNS clientside cache service on larger hosts files with its inflexible fixed size static structures it uses)!

Also, since 0 (and 0.0.0.0 too, the LongForm of that) perform no "loopback operation" and is an analog to a DROP request essentially vs. 127.0.0.1 doing essentially a DENY request (as in firewalls) and a loopback operation directing back to itself?

Via using 0, you have the MOST efficient operations doing 0 (or even 0.0.0.0 but less so due to larger size) vs. 127.0.0.1, the "loopback adapter" & its address!

(Yes, even on Windows where there is a loopback adapter one may bind to a protocol (which is only a dummy driver for systems that have no NIC in them, see here in that regard -> http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/john-savills-windows-faqs/what-is-the-microsoft-loopback-adapter-and-why-do-i-need-it-for-sql-server-.aspx ))

He never did 'get back to me' on it though!

Figures!

Still - you'd think he would since he was the head of a division @ MS as a Senior VP there in said area of "performance" of the Windows client OS' - I was quite disappointed.

* Lastly on this note?

This is 1 AREA I WILL GIVEN LINUX THE "ADVANTAGE":

Linux's TCP/IP stack design, BSD based like Windows is (except for API masked access to it, sockets vs. winsock/winsock2 + lack of RAW sockets IN WINDOWS MODERN VERSIONS FOR SURE for anyone but admin level users (not sure if RAW sockets are denied in Linux though))?

Linux has no such problems using more efficient 0 blocking addresses in hosts files, as well as not having size limits on hosts files!

(Which the faulty local DNS clientside cache service in Windows does also! I.E.-> Use too large of a hosts file for its static sized buffer structures vs. its FIFO algorithm for aging entries in cache? It lags your system - again, Linux has NO SUCH PROBLEM!)

APK

P.S.=> The "problem" is STILL THERE afaik also on Windows 7, VISTA, &/or Server 2008 (even R2 revision build of the latter)... & has NOT been corrected either!

Now - funniest part is, Windows 2000(SP2 onwards)/XP/Server 2003 will STILL let you use 0 vs. 0.0.0.0 or 127.0.0.1!

(Again - 0's just plain smaller & faster on a couple grounds of parsing + no 'loopback' there either vs. 0.0.0.0 (less bad, but larger to parse) & 127.0.0.1 (worst case of all, larger to parse and can do a 'loopback' if the loopback adapter's installed).

REPORTED TO MICROSOFT by myself, APK, here -> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/02/25/feedback-and-engineering-windows-7.aspx?CommentPosted=true&PageIndex=3#comments

Still no correction... dumb!

... apk

Re: list of things that don't work in XP

[Anonymous Coward]

Proper IPv6 support is totally irrelevant for us right now too. If we did eventually reach a point where our ISP told us we were being issued an IPv6 address and needed to support it - that would probably be handled at the router level, and everything behind the firewall / router would still use legacy IP addressing anyway.

You need to be testing ipv6 now not when your ISP stops giving you an IPv4 address.

"Commercial" scanning lack of support - 64 bits

[Anonymous Coward]

Lack of driver support is a big issue. For example, the classic Adaptec 2940 series SCSI controller cards are no longer supported at all in 64-bit Windows 7. That's a problem for us, since we use a document management system with a group of dedicated "scan stations" people go to to scan in their documents each day. The scanners are old Ricoh SCSI based models that cost us many thousands of dollars each when we first bought them. They're still good workhorse scanners for our purposes and I can't really cost justify replacing them, at least until they fail on us.

I'm finding that it's nearly impossible to find any kind of commercial scanning solutions supported in the 64 bit Windows world. The only scanners on the market that will work with 64-bit Windows 7 are consumer grade toys that connect with a USB cable and are not shareable over a network.

goodbye Vista!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

good riddance to crap software!!!!

Vista was the sole driving force in my decision to go over
to the dark side & wipe my HD clean so I could install Linux!!!

as I heard it put so succinctly somewhere....." in general, Windows is a poorly debugged set of device drivers"

enuff said....

Oh no, someone is wrong on the Internet!

[Anonymous Coward]

>Windows 95 maxes out at 64[MB].

Nope:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/08/14/54640.aspx

PS: Running 95 with 96MB almost every day.

Happy easterbunny.

Firefox for XP works terrific

[Anonymous Coward]

Open office for XP works excellently. I find XP is often superior to Windows 7 which I have on a laptop, but seems a bit flaky (latest thing is the cursor keeps getting corrupted, but before the VPN will periodically disconnect and after too many attempts it just stops connecting at all). I'd have to say I don't think Windows 7 is more stable than XP, just differently crashy.

It seems to me that I don't really need Microsoft at this point, I only use XP because that was what came with the machine, but I can't honestly say I can find a reason for needing it. I have an Android tablet, and the only thing I'm missing is a bigger screen.

My next PC will likely be the new Tegra 3 Android tablets, the ones with the 1920x 1200 pixel screen, 5 core processor, and 2GB of ram. They're due this quarter. Asus TF700T and Acer A700, and probably a Samsung one.

Does anyone want Metro?? I see Asus do a Windows version of their current tablet, but I don't think it sells. I don't see why anyone would want Metro if they don't want that.

Re:What Really Needs Support

[Yunzil]

Windows 7 is just a better handled bug-fixed Windows Vista.

Credibility destroyed.

Re:What Really Needs Support

[omfgnosis]

Couldn't that be accomplished with a network time server and (maybe) software updates, transparently to the user? Anyone who can't get those could just change the time manually like they do any other device that doesn't get network updates. I don't think it requires a phone call, much less thousands of them.

I just proved 3 antivirus companies WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

Major ones in Symantec/Norton, ClamAV, Arcabit/Arcavir, & McAfee. So far?

1.) Arcabit/ArcaVir

2.) Symantec/Norton

3.) ClamAV

Have "retracted/recanted" their false positives on a program I wrote that another security community organization's hosting (malwarebytes/hpHosts) for me (very cool of them).

---

It's a hosts file mgt. program that does the following for end users (Calling it "APK Hosts File Engine 5.0++")

1.) Offers massively noticeable increased speed (via blocking adbanners + hardcoding users fav. sites into the hosts file for faster IP address-to-host/domain name resolutions)

2.) "Layered-Security"/"Defense-In-Depth" via blocking host-domain based attacks by KNOWN bad sites-servers that are known to do so

3.) Better 'anonymity' to an extent vs. DNSBL's or DNS request logs, as well as reliability vs. the DNS system being "dns poisoned/redirected" OR "downed" period...)

4.) Faster resolution of IP addresses for host-domain names (via hardcoding users fav. sites into hosts already ip address resolved, locally = MANY TIMES FASTER than calling out to potentially redirected/poisoned or downed DNS servers).

5.) Write protecting the hosts file every 1/2 second (supplementing UAC) - even if/when you move it from the default location via this registry entry (which if done, can function ALMOST like *NIX shadow passwords because of this program):

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Tcpip\Parameters

And changing the "DataBasePath" parameter there (I do this moving it to a faster media, a "true SSD" using DDR-2 RAM, in the 4gb Gigabyte IRAM I have).

5.) Sorting hosts entries (for easier end user mgt. manually)

6.) Manual editing of all files used (hosts to import list, hosts itself in its default location of %windir%\system32\drivers
etc, the hosts files to import/download & process, & favorite sites to reverse dns ping to avoid DNS (noted above why)).

7.) Removal scanners (if the users decide to remove hosts entries from imported data they can check if the site is indeed known as bad or not (sometimes 'false positives' happen, or just bad entries, or sites clean themselves up after infestation due to vulnerable coding etc./et al).

Their site admin (Mr. Steven Burn, a competent coder in his own right), said it's "excellent" in fact!

(Write him yourselves should anyone doubt any of this -> services@it-mate.co.uk or see his site @ http://hosts-file.net/?s=Download ) & he's seen the majority of the sourcecode (Delphi Object Pascal 32 & 64 bit).

8,) Removal of bloating material in many hosts files like:

a.) Comments (useless bulk in a hosts file that's "all business")

b.) Trailing comments after records (produces duplicates)

c.) Invalid TLD entries (program checks this in a BETTER method than the API call "PathIsURL")

d.) Trims entries (vs. trailing blanks bloat on record entries)

& FAR more...

---

* McAfee's next & in process now afaik since I wrote them @ Mr. Burn's guidance & suggest to do so...

So far/So good, in that my "naysayer experts" are falling like dominoes, 1-by-1, since they simply didn't understand the executable compression engine technique I use... & did a "falsie" on my program!

It happens!

I use exe packing/compressing, for several GOOD reasons:

1.) Compressed exe's load FASTER over a LAN/WAN by far, very noticeably so (& faster from local HDD's too, since the compression/decompression process is offset by the speed of today's CPU's, & since the file is SMALLER on disk & tinier files load up from disks, faster!)

2.) Compressed exe's are HARDER TO "resource hack"

3.) Compressed exe's are HARDER to 'disassemble' (not in memory though)

4.) I test my program @ startup, & IF IT IS NOT THE COMPRESSED SIZE? It will self-terminate (assuming it is infested/infected OR being hack

Vista (.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft: Hey vista we know that windows 7 and xp are better then you but we are going to have to shut your support down.
(Warning screen pops up)
Vista: are you sure you want to do that?
Microsoft: (CLICKS) Yes
(Warning screen pops up)
Vista: you need admin right to do this. are you sure you want me to get those for you?
Microsoft: Yes...
Microsoft: Why did we make vista again? OH thats right to have people answer stupid questions over and over again.

Re:What Really Needs Support

[toddestan]

Have you ever used Vista recently? They've patched it up to the point where it's more or less Windows 7 but missing a few interface tweaks. The main difference is the PR game, where everyone thinks that Vista is bad and 7 is good, even though the differences aren't huge.

Vista on Extended Life Support?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a laugh. The OS was brain-dead on arrival and M$ is just too cowardly to apologize, offer a Win7 replacement for their mistake and simply bury the corpse.

Re: list of things that don't work in XP

[unixisc]

I am a big fan of people testing and migrating to IPv6 yesterday. But how do they do that if their ISP is not ready, and hasn't issued them any IPv6 addresses? Even if they were to obtain IPv6 links from somewhere, their ISP would still have to be capable of handling it - if they can't, having those IPv6 resources is worthless.

Windows 8 can be made adaptable...

[unixisc]

MS doesn't need to do any Windows 9. All they need to do is to in the Control Panel, have something called 'Concepts' or 'Themes' and offer users a choice of UIs - Metro, 7, XP, 2000/98/95. If they wish, by all means make Metro the default interface, but provide the choices right out of the box. Do that, and they won't even need to migrate to Windows 7 - they can go directly to Windows 8. Oh, and one more thing MS can do - make Windows 8 a 64-bit OS only, and refer 32-bit users to Windows 7.

Delaying what ought to be a simple common sense decision for something that might come 5 years later is just inane. Offer the right thing now, and everybody will happily migrate from XP, Vista, 7, 2000, NT4, NT3.5, NT3.1, Windows 98 and Windows 95 to Windows 8 (aside from resource constraints).

Re:What Really Needs Support

[jonbryce]

Support doesn't just mean phone calls. Software updates are a very big part of the support package, and it is the one most people use most of the time. Coming out of support means there won't be any software updates for new DST rules.

A network time server isn't going to work. It gives the time in GMT or UTC, and the local computer uses the timezone information to work out what time it should be where it is. Windows stores local time and timezone offset, most other systems store GMT or UTC and timezone offset. So while you could get the local time stored on the computer to be correct, the timezone offset will be wrong, and that will affect things like timestamps on emails; and calendar appointments either side of the old/new DST changeover dates.

Re:What Really Needs Support

[Xeranar]

They did...several years ago. Whoever is on Vista deserves it now.

Can I substantiate why Open Source can involve security risks? As old holes close new holes open. You don't explain how a lock works to a thief. This is once again /.'s mantra to solve everything.