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Maybe With Help From Google and Adobe, Microsoft Can Kill Windows XP
colinneagle sends this excerpt from Network World:
"Google announced last Friday that, in accordance to its policy of supporting a current browser and the immediate predecessor, its Google Apps productivity suite would drop support for Internet Explorer 8 once Windows 8 ships. Neither IE9 nor IE10 are available on XP. Adobe announced on the Photoshop Blog that the next version of Photoshop CS would support only Windows 7 and 8. The current version, CS6, is available for XP but, amusingly, not for Vista, which was its successor. This is a much-needed boost for Microsoft, which anxiously wants to put XP out to pasture after 11 years. Despite efforts to get rid of the old OS, XP still holds 43% of the market, according to the latest monthly data from Net Applications. Among Steam customers, Windows 7 has 70% market share, covering both 32-bit and 64-bit, while XP has 12%. That confirms what has been known for some time: consumers are adopting Windows 7 at a much faster rate than businesses. I know there is a whole economic argument to be had, and these numbers are not precise or scientific, but if XP really can be found in only 12% of households but 43% of businesses (or something close to that), then it really is time for the enterprise to stop dragging its tail."
You'd think so.... However, you'd be mistaken. The main reason for this is that XP is used by two types of "customers":
Those people will not switch until they get new computers and that simply is the way it works and should work. Finally! Stupid upgrade treadmill.
From an administrator point of view, Windows XP is well known and mature. Which means, you can anticipate problems and make sure everything works like expected. With 7 (let's ignore Vista) a whole slew of new problems got exposed (not necessarily for the users, but for the admins... Try partitioning a 7 machine in two parts: one drive OS/Apps, on drive Data... Results must be seamless for newly created users. Another example is to copy a user profile as a default template. 7 is a true bitch for these things)
What 7 brings to the table, and the only reason I recommend it, is 64-bit. If you need more than 4GB RAM, get 7. I think Microsoft should do a "Windows Classic" which is XP re-branded, and sell it as a subscription to finance future patches. Let's say 5€/month. I think it would sell like hotcakes. I think I'd take it for the few remaining XP machines, I haven't converted to Linux yet. (I'll probably convert one back to XP as the ATI drivers for that laptop suck donkeys balls)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
The difference between consumer and business is Vista. Businesses never went near it, and consumers can't wait to get rid of it.
The actual adobe cs6 suite works with vista sp2 although it isn't officially supported. There is a difference between availability and support...
Thought it was quite funny how easy it was to make Ubuntu look like XP. :-)
Consumers buy new computers with it- there are no XP options readily available. Businesses are run by IT departments who do have some choice. I wonder why XP still dominates. Vista/7 BOTH suck. Of course- I abandoned Windows around the time XP was released because of the bull shit Microsoft pulls. And I'm not talking about stupid shit like IE integration or cause its a monopoly. I'm talking about stupid shit like wizards which take 10 times as long to go through for something that took 2 seconds on prior versions of windows.
consumers are adopting Windows 7 at a much faster rate than businesses
There is probably a significant difference between Steam users and "consumers":
Steam users are gamer, which _have_ to have newer computers.
However, it does not make sense to state that:
XP still holds 43% of the market
and to say that
XP really can be found in only 12% of households but 43% of businesses
because the later would not give 43% market share.
If you are a company that has a working system that runs fine, why would you force an upgrade just because XP is n't used by consumers any more? Even if you put the economic costs at zero which it certainly is n't and the summary brushes aside way to casually; you always have a risk factor of unforseen issues getting passed testing.
No business should upgrade for the sake of technology fashion, weather it be OS or applications. Hell you see companies running custom DOS programs all the time.
Steam users are games that want the latest and best of what their money can buy, and on the shelves only windows 7 computers are available.
Companies want to keep their knowledge/trainning as long as possible, and/or one of their core application doesn't work on windows 7, and/or the investment in new softwares adapted to windows 7 is too high. Companies have a bunch of "good" reasons to keep XP.
But Google is still supporting XP with their Windows version of Chrome... No need for IE...
Pay your Microsoft tax now! Balmer needs new chairs.
If MS forces almost half of its customers (that's more or less what the 43% of the desktop/laptop market is) to upgrade they are going to lose some of them in the process. Some people will buy a Mac instead of a new PC, some will buy a tablet and forget about their old PC, some will install Linux. I can understand why Google is happy with that, even understand why Adobe doesn't care about XP (its customers have to keep working with its sw, no matter what) but MS is sending some of its customers to somebody else. Furthermore I believe that many companies are waiting to get a boost thanks to the WinXP end of life in 2014.
The Google stuff works better on Firefox anyway. Or on Chrome.
While I do see that side of things, the reality is that businesses often base decision completely on immediate costs and ignore the long term. Savings from reduced power costs of more efficient hardware. Savings from reduced labor costs, due to faster hardware. Increased failure rates due to aged equipment. While those may not always outweigh the immediate costs, they often get ignored as well.
Why would business from XP to Windovs 7 (or Windows 8)? For that matter, why would non-gamer browsing and office only user do that? As long as they do not need some new Photoshop or other Windows 7 software, they have no need to update.
Businesses are not supposed to buy new stuff just because it is shiny, they are supposed to spend money only when it is effective. Home users can spend the same money on tons of other fun or useful things. Why new computer when the old one is just fine for what you do?
I always had the impression that photographers and designers preferred Macs. Of course, this is also one of those applications where people will buy a computer to fit the application rather than the other way round, so Adobe can afford to do this.
Companies have a bunch of "good" reasons to keep XP.
Rather they have no good reasons NOT to stick with XP.
Except ofcourse artificial limits created by Microsoft.
If MS would keep supporting XP, it could easily go on for another ten years.
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Maybe it is well past time that companies (i.e. Microsoft) learnt to support customers rather than drive them. If 43% of businesses are really happy with XP then they should continue to support it. Many companies are fed up with constant updates (although constant is not an apt word with this time frame) and would prefer to stick with something that works. Most companies are not interested in bleeding edge and just want Doris to be able to type up that invoice for the roof that Gary has fixed or the sink that Fred unblocked or whatever and updating the computer to do the same job is of zero importance.
It is one thing that a company does not want to continue to develop an old product but when they pull the plug on updates etc. rather than just leaving the server running, I feel that they are not complying with their agreement. If Doris needs to run a new scanner or something that does not work with XP then it is time for her to talk to her boss but while she is happy with her laserjet churning out reams of invoices and heating up the office at the same time, let her.
Written using XP :-)
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
When you have thousands of dollars in CAD software (for example) on a system which works fine for your needs, you lose time and money changing out your PC. If some of that software doesn't work well with later Windows versions, you lose even more.
The cost of the PC and OS may be trivial, but replacing it may "cost" much more than buying a new machine.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Nitpicky point, but Steam figures should never be used to represent the whole consumer market. Gamers are more likely to have new rigs or want to play games that already don't support XP. I suspect XP users a more likely to be users with simple needs who have a system that works for them and don't want to chance. For that matter, Photoshop isn't likely to sway them either. Google Apps maybe, if it includes Gmail -- but damn if that doesn't miss the point of using webmail in the first place.
They are just forced to use it because things stop supporting it. (including newer hardware)
Both of them are an embarrassment of an OS. Seriously embarrassing. Worst things to ever come out of Microsoft, worse than ME, Visual Basic and ActiveX combined.
They are pitiful attempts to copy other OSes.
Not to mention the fact that they removed countless useful features from WinXP to Vista to 7 to 8 and NEVER replaced them at all. Especially true about a lot of lower-level things too.
The new explorer is awful to look at, it is inconsistent as high hell, it STILL is in Win8, and it is a pain to use.
Now we have Win8 and that "Metro", considerably worse than any of these. Let's just have 2 segmented sessions running together, BRILLIANT IDEA.
Why not just go full-on and have everything be its own little session?
I'm skipping to Win9. When Win8 crashes like it is supposed to, Win9 might actually be less crap than this terrible embarrassment of an OS.
WHY is it "time for the enterprise to stop dragging its tail"?
What value is Microsoft providing with newer versions of Windows?
So why should "the enterprise" (whatever that is) fork over more money to Microsoft?
Win8 Metro UI - there is nothing more to say!
The game makers pulled something like this for Windows 2000 in the mid 2000's. Seems like a generation of XP users will have to learn the same lesson I got back then, having to throw away a good OS because of waning application support. It's remarkable that MS has kept XP alive for so long, as they're not making much money on it. There are few other pieces of software with such wide adoption that are used 10 years after the release.
Luckily, nobody cares about those.
If nobody significant uses it, it doesn't matter.
No point in supporting software that is only used by a few geeks.
Unlike Windows 7.
eXamine your priorities.
I think a problem windows is having is they have to many versions. No one in the business word wants to upgrade to Vista and then to windows 7 and then in a year need to upgrade everything to windows 8 and in another year to windows 9 and so on, possibly loosing compatibility along the way and certainly making more work for themselves having to answer user questions on how to do things on the new system. They really need a slow moving Cooperate Windows they can put out and say, this is the next 10 year upgrade. A Home Windows that can change more rapidly and a mobile Windows that no one will still care about.
Virtualisation.
I don't really care what I "use" on the desktop so long as I have something that supports the hardware I need, and a desktop that I can work on without needing to retrain.
Thus virtualisation is being taken up by companies. Why? Slap ANYTHING on the machine itself. Virtualise an old version of XP that you KNOW how it works, all its quirks, all the software you use is compatible with, all your users know how to use, and you already have disk images and licenses for.
So you're not selling XP licenses (businesses already have them), but you might sell a Windows license or not depending on how well Windows works for them. Hell, with modern machines you notice precisely zero overhead from virtualisation and it absolutely DOES NOT MATTER what's running the VM.
I imagine VM companies are raking it in at the moment. If they're not, they're not pushing their product's features well enough.
The argument to upgrade "because everyone has it at home" is so ludicrous as to be beyond mention and shows absolutely zero knowledge of what a business is and how to run an efficient one. Nobody serious in business is still using IE6 (or if they are, it's locked down by virtualisation or proxies that don't let it stray to the Internet), but lots of people in business are seriously using XP. Because it works, predictably.
The only reason to change is hardware support, which virtualisation pretty much solves. Hell, hardly anybody dual-boots any more when they want to try Linux - just run it in a free VMWare player or equivalent at full speed and isolated from the rest of the machine.
That said, I got a new laptop recently. It came with Windows 7 (and a Windows 8 upgrade offer). I kept it on there but, hell, it took me a few days to get it how I like it and turn all the crap off and install some freeware to make it useable. And it will take me FOREVER to get used to the explorer windows (which are horrendous). So I slapped my old hard drive into the second drive bay and virtualised XP on it until I feel I can transition smoothly.
I got Windows 7. Made it as close to XP as possible. Then run XP on it to get work done. Sure, my Steam games are running in a 64-bit Windows 7 install, but that's not anywhere indicative of the OS being a choice itself (only that it's "passable"). I also have an Ubuntu VM to test my code against for multi-platform and 32/64 bit issues. And my browser has never been IE, even on Windows 95.
The fact remains: If you offered those businesses a paid-for Windows XP update, they would probably pay it rather than the massive HIT that they will take moving things to newer Windows. Hell, if they're going to have to have Windows 7, it's cheaper to virtualise their old machines and they get a lot more functionality back for doing so (e.g. rollbacks, snapshots, always clean images, etc.)
Now Microsoft needs others to do its dirty work? I can see it now, poor XP being buried in a cornfield by hired goons Adobe and Google. When will this cycle of violence end?
First, it was already posted: http://it.slashdot.org/story/12/09/15/0130219/google-kills-apps-support-for-internet-explorer-8
Second, IE8 is being dropped, not Windows XP.
IE8 does not equal Windows XP.
IE8 is a web browser.
XP is an operating system that supports many web browsers and applications, and more than one at the same time.
There are plenty of other SUPPORTED ways to access Google Apps on Windows XP:
- Google Chrome
- Mozilla Firefox
- Apple Safari
- Google Chrome Frame
- Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook
With all of the above solutions, Internet Explorer 8 will still work on the computer for other websites that are required (whether that is a technical requirement or user preference). These solutions work in ADDITION to Internet Explorer, they do NOT replace Internet Explorer.
If the organisations IT policy is so rigid that they can't allow any of these solutions onto their network but still use Windows XP, then I doubt that this kind of organisation would be using such progressive and relatively new (compared to on-premise) solutions such as Google Apps in the first place.
We'll be replacing those shop-floor Win XP machines - right after we get rid of the Novell Netware servers. Yeah - we still use Netware.
I guess you'll have to mod me 'funny' because you can't mod me "sad".
Place nail here >+
I meant 43% not 47%.
At the tiny company where I work, we've discovered that many of the software packages we own simply will not install under Windows 7. If Microsoft somehow manages to force us to stop using XP, they are also forcing us to purchase [sometimes very expensive] upgrades. In addition, we often still develop and support 16 bit applications and many of those tools will even (or EVER) run under Windows 7. Of course, Microsoft offers an option for Win 7 Pro and above -- a free Virtual XP! But how long will that last if they are trying to put XP "out to pasture?"
I have no problem with Microsoft abandoning XP, but I fervently believe that the moment a company decides to abandon a product, the product should become public domain, open source, or at least be transferred to an entity that is willing to maintain and support it. Software companies should not have the right to unilaterally revoke our ability to use their tools any more than a physical tool company should be allowed to come take back that reliable old drill we bought 11 years ago, just because they don't want to support that model any longer.
Forced upgrade fees are wrong, bordering on criminal.
The cost of upgrading from XP can be prohibitive. I work part time for a small market radio station. Just to replace the OS it is $150 a pop. There is the new version of the automation software that will not work with XP, that is an additional 15K. The new software won't work with the old servers so add 4-5K on that. Then there are the little things. Adobe Audition1 is a great product! Doesn't work so well on 7. That's another $350 a pop Some business just can't afford it yet.
While reading the above during a lull in work. I'm struck by the fact that this computer sitting in front of me has a Win7Pro sticker on it, but is running XP Pro. Seems to support most of the comments about being easier to predictably manage many installs by our IT dept.
I used to have a good sig...
but with free software (firefox, gimp, gnash...) we can keep windows XP alive for ever. hooray, screw MSTF. oh, wait a minute...
{Crickets} no, really. They have Intel hardware, can't run osx, don't like Ubuntu, don't trust Oracle, don't speak German... still waiting for commodity Linux.
The practice of replacing software and equipment every few years for thousands of dollars a seat doesn't make sense anymore. Business computing is really starting to become a mature market, and there are no benefits to upgrading in many situations. It may be time to start looking at software as a service and not a product. And it's definitely time to sit down and draft some firm standards regarding business computers, so that software can be compliant with those standards. It's time to move away from proprietary operating systems like windows and towards standard operating systems so that software can be guaranteed to work on business computers for decades into the future.
I am still on XP because I was going to wait until my company issued me a new laptop when mine became 3 years old this month, but they extended the replacement time to 4 years. And they no longer have on site support to simply swap my drive with a Windows 7 drive. They no longer do that. Reloading my laptop with all the apps I need would take almost a week, but I would have been forced to with a new laptop. Now, I simply do not want to bother.
Where I work, I use Windows XP to run an Exchange client, deal with some intranet sites that only work with IE, and run a Cygwin X server.
Most of my work is in Linux; whatever docs I need to read from the Microsoft "productivity" suite, I can read with OpenOffice or one of its variants, and I never need to create or edit one, so that doesn't matter.
I don't use Adobe ANYTHING, cause I'm a bit too security conscious (or, paranoid, if you prefer); evince, again, is close enough (actually, better, most of the time) for PDFs.
Why should the company piss away the license cost and three days to a week of my time (~USD$2000/week) to get back to a usable work environment, for absolutely no benefit from a Windows 7 "upgrade"?
What value is Microsoft providing with newer versions of Windows?
Supportability. It simply isn't possible to support ancient versions of software indefinitely. Nobody is going to force enterprise users to upgrade, but if they want to use newer software they'll have to. If they are happy with a Windows that is the way it is and runs what it runs, they'll be fine, but they'll get zero upgrades, even when serious bugs are found.
I've run XP through several system upgrades and have unused Vista and Win7 license sickers on the bottom of various computers. .net on you and slow the systems performance so benchmarks wouldn't show such superior benchmarks vs Vista/7.
IMO SP3 was released mainly to force
What will kill XP is of course the memory limit, 64bit support as software exploits it more;
Theres no money in it, but what would be nice, is if XP was simply optimized(and security patched) over the years and new features that are very popular in Vista/7 be added to it(tho I don't know what those are). then your older systems would seemingly continue to get faster and new systems faster still, vs new computers being basically the same speed to do the same thing on the more bloated OS.
Once incompatibilities force me to stop running XP, I'll try to find the least bloated version of FBSD/Linux and try that for a while.
The biggest drag right now isn't the OS, but the web sites themselves requiring new browsers/plugins just to view content, forcing browser updates that are less and less efficient with 'basic'/old html pages. We keep reinventing the wheel, and imo it doesn't look any different but requires more horses to turn it.
IE6 still works with my gmail(no I don't run IE. Opera/firefox here, but IE 6 is installed and I just tried it)
I'm glad to see big companies pushing XP's viability out the window. It needs to die, swiftly. As someone who manages several large Windows-based software projects, keeping XP around and supported is a headache and costs a lot of money and time. You see, Vista, 7 and now 8 are very much alike from a support and development standpoint. XP has fallen so far behind and is now the edge case, it's the exception. Some of our software seriously pushes (and exceeds) the limits of memory on a 32-bit OS when working with very large data sets (I'm talking 1.5 GB here and more in the future), and well 64-bit XP is kind of a bastard child so it's a no-go (check how many software actually support 64-bit XP, it's very rare). 64-bit starting from Vista is fine.
It is a major pain to support XP while trying to move forward. Having to support XP holds us all back, whether you realize it or not. It can't die fast enough. It served its purpose and now it's time to move on.
... but some genius at Microsoft decided to not support the ICHR6 southbridge on my mainboard running a Pentium 4 Extreme Edition. I suppose I'll be running Fedora on it soon.
I still have Vista installed on my machine with Ubuntu. I use iTunes. I sync to an iPod. I do not care. But it is not time for businesses to drop XP. It is time for us to smash the computers that rule us. It is time for the humans to rise up. It is time to climb to the top of the highest towers and launch our laptops off to the waiting cement below. It is time to smash the computer overlords with baseball bats, to storm into the server rooms of the universities, of the schools, of the businesses, of the research facilities. We must destroy the computers that our attempting to take over our lives. Take up a hoe, or a shovel, or a hammer and begin to destroy all the electronic devices around you. Take off your wristwatch. Is it digital? Destroy it immediately. Destroy everything that contains silicon microchips. If your car was made after 1984 set it on fire with gasoline. Then, and only then, can we form the perect agrarian society. Thank you.
This is not a troll and I am not a spy. You went to the crazy house and said you were going as a student to school. You are abnormal because we have schools here, in all the suburban urban areas.
In his mind, James Taylor is going to Carolina in his mind.
If it is not broke, do not fix it. If your system (which can be huge and cost millions) is working perfectly well on XP, why update?
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
This seems to be the same chatter we had when Win95 came out, then WinNT, Win98, Win2000, WinXP, Vista, etc... (yes I left a few out, but who needs to remember millenium?) Nothing new here, MS is still going to be around even with the shift. Not everyone likes working on a MAC. I for one hate it even though I have to use it at work. And most people still think Linux is command-line only. Of course when you show them what it really is nowadays, they go oooh-aaah, but still want to stick to something they know.
-- http://www.doczayus.com/
XP has a "corporate" install disk that didn't need product activation in both 32 and 64-bit, and passed genuine advantage. Vista and 7 do not. If Microsoft *really* wants Windows 8 to take off, don't be surprised if a Windows 8 corporate install version doesn't get released for *cough* corporations.
Really, because of the 'ol corporate install version of XP, it is going to running in virtual machines for an eternity.
Part of it is just a coincidence, but notice the decline of Microsoft right about the same time they came up with product activation that works fairly well and didn't release a corporate install disk. Apple, Linux, etc., all doing pretty good now.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Microsoft created a vendor lock-in strategy. Expensive and proprietary, they encouraged everyone to develop develop develop for it.
Microsoft has pushed the limits of what companies will spend for OSes and applications. That everything is so very integrated, while it encourages business to work within its proprietary framework, prevents them from easily leaving it.
The short description of the problem? It's deeply complex and rooted within business systems and Microsoft created things this way intentionally.
What did they expect would happen?
I've had to call MS twice for activation. Once for VMWare (same machine, once natively and same key in a VMWare session)
and they were okay. Actually, pretty nice and provided me with a second key.
Another time was a mother board replacement, that took a couple of hours.
The problem is, like iApple, the consumer is at the whim of a person of lesser rank for a product that was legally purchased and
obtained. I see no reason to move beyond XP; if somebody wants my retail business, their pages better work under XP or I
don't need their product. I can pretty much guarantee that XP will be around for at least another decade.
Of what is this "Internet Explorer" that you speak? This is not known among my people.
A guy down the street has a Model T Ford. The Ford Motor Company is tired of supporting it, and is considering ways of getting him to upgrade to a Focus.
software as service is a big mistake.. it's too dependent on reliable internet connectivity and free flow of data.. It's NOT wise to push company data over public networks. It may save money short term, or even long term, but they're one network slowdown away from losing money, and one data breach away from lawsuits.
No matter how high level the logic is designed, if the hardware around it is changed enough, it'll break. The real answer is licensing that allows porting/recompiles so that the company never loses access to its data. It also needs clean, portable software written in languages that produce lean executables. All this needless virtualizing of everything benefits no one but the vendors.
From a software developer's point of view, I would cringe having to support 13 year old software. Yes, in 2014 Windows XP will be 13 years old, originally released in 2001. However, from a business perspective, I don't understand why Microsoft doesn't keep XP around.
I'll put on my evil hat. No more updates for WinXP come 2014 except for "super extended life" customers. Super Extended Life customers will continue to receive security patches, application patches, and support from Microsoft. However, Super Extended Life customers are charged the full cost of the latest WindowsOS license annually until they ditch their WinXP license. Once ready to migrate, they need to repurchase a new license for their new WindowsOS.
Businesses and consumers will switch when its economical to do so, not before. Microsoft has an opportunity to rake in here, they should take it.
XP is like that car from the 80's. It gets crappy gas mileage, and pollutes like crazy, but it has been paid for and it just works. You can get parts and the local mechanic can fix it for cheep. The seats are frayed and the paint is peeling, but so what. You only drive it around town anyway.
Windows 8 is the brand new fancy high tech super cool car. It has every conceivable gadget: GPS, satellite radio, power heated seats, and so many buttons and digital displays that even the people who sell it don't know what they all do. (Can you say Metro?) It is expensive, and it looses 30% of it's value as soon as you drive it off the lot. It goes like a bat out of hell and gets excellent gas millage. This does not translate into getting to the mall any faster then the old car. The road speed limit is the same. (Your ISP is not giving you more bandwidth just because you have a cool new computer,) All the extra stuff makes it a lot more expensive. The fancy stuff is all prone to break, and when it does is is insanely expensive to fix. (My friends with the Volvo wagon have had to replace the door window control unit multiple times, and since it is a module with a embedded controller it's expensive and so is the labor charge to install it.) Unlike the 1984 dog, which is still usable, the cool car will be unusable 30 years later because the electronic spares will be insanely expensive and there will be no alternative suppliers. (You have no recovery disk because floppies are gone and optical drives are so old school 20th century that they are the one gadget that is left off.)
So go out and buy that new car RIGHT NOW!!! Microsoft needs the money.
Why is Snark Required?
It is obvious the corporations don't want to buy new versions as fast as MS would like, and that is how Microsoft has always made its money. Sell a subscription to the OS and just keep the damn thing the same. Obviously, people don't like change. Why not have a Microsoft Business Edition, based off of XP, that only got bug fixes and security fixes, but otherwise JUST STAYED THE SAME FOREVER. Right now, I can guarantee that there are businesses that would fork over money for that OS...every year. Especially if MS didn't go bat shit crazy on the price.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Some one who is using Windows XP doesn't really care about running on the cutting edge - as long as it works it's good enough. That's why they won't upgrade Photoshop either
It's not that people hate to upgrade. Maybe, just maybe... XP is still big because with Vista's driver regulation dropped support for every system that was produced 2-3 years before it. Just here in our house there are 2 PCs that are still perfectly adequate for browsing (~2Ghz CPU), I need Windows on them, I have no other choice. Imagine this for big business. Even if Win8 would be the best thing ever, if it would drop support for Win7 drivers, Win7 would also be dominant for a decade, if not longer.
as long as there will be a browser and an office suite that can run on it.
Which is the actual case.
And never saw the problem of third-party driver support mentioned. I do some audio work, and have a high-end digital audio PCI card installed. The company that made it was "acquired" a couple of times and this product is no longer even remembered by the current owners.
The last OS that they had working drivers for was XP - and it took a while for those to come out.
To upgrade would require that I replace this audio card - it cost over $1200 when it was new and there are NO new replacements. Without a driver, it'd be useless. So I'm sticking with XP.
The latest and greatest from MS would remove needed functionality and replace it with useless eye candy. No thanks.
Until Chrome and firefox are no longer supported on XP, XP will still have modern browsers.
XP users will just stop using IE(which is a blessing for the internet in of itself)
Using Steam to determine the make-up of PCs in the household? Seriously? Anyone considered how squewed the data will be? I have on gaming rig in the house--my most powerful computer. That is the only computer that connects to steam. Also in the house are severl set-top PCs, a NAS,, as well all desktops for my wife and kids--and their notebooks. Of the 9 computers in my house--3 are on Windows 7--the gaming rig and two laptops. Three run XP and the other 3 run linux. XP is far from dead. I have no intentions of throwing away perfectly good computers, but the older ones for one reason or another will not run Windows 7.
I'm stuck with XP on a lot of machines because of the apps that need to run. I have it tuned a hell of a lot faster than WINE or any other emulator could ever hope to accomplish. But your sorry know-it-all ass really believes you know best what my system needs?
Looking at the stats for Steam users and assuming that this represents home/consumer use is a major error. I know that this will come as a surprise to many /.ers, but there are huge numbers of people (especially the older half, but also a lot of under-40s) who don't use their home computers for gaming. For them it's a machine for running office apps, visiting web sites, sending e-mail, storing their photos, and filing their taxes once a year. And in this context, that's an important segment of the population, because those kinds of users are more likely to keep using older hardware.... with Windows XP. Gamers, by contrast, are heavily interested in having the fastest hardware, which comes with Windows 7 by default.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Why should users be cajoled into "up"grading from XP? Some people still have classic cars from the 1950s, and they're *hardware* which needs repairing over time, unlike software. I still run XP at home, as it's good enough for me and I don't really feel like paying for Windows 7. I put my own PCs' hardware together and I don't feel like reactivating Win7 every time I change things. Windows 7 even downgrades some things IMHO like the start menu and search (Explorer search in 7 is apalling compared to Windows XP's search interface).
This is all to do with MS making money, which is frankly a sucky reason for people to "up"grade.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Having used Windows 7 at work for about a year, how I miss XP. I can't speak to admins, but from an end-user perspective Win 7 is poorly designed and a buggy mess. It's so weird- one of the most hated bugs is how it pops up a dialogue box requiring action BEHIND all the other documents/applications you are working on. It's as though your car suddenly came to a stop and you don't know why. Finally when nothing is working you close all the files and lo, there is a dialogue box waiting for you.
I have been keeping a list of dozens of these bugs. XP was never like that.
The latest bug (admittedly in Outlook 2010, not strictly in Windows) is that the out of office (automatic replies) doesn'twork half the time.
Are XP users really in your market? Do they really spend any money on software or the products you advertise? Someone who is still on XP may not have a lot of discretionary funds. Of course they might be a 'crazy' like Steve Gibson.
Why not kill Win8 as well while they are at it? Would do everyone a favour and cut down the number of operating systems we need to support.
The hold back on XP probably is not ie6 compatibility for the majority of businesses. On the other hand, business tend to make decisions based on ROI. If upgrading to Windows 7 gives a favorable ROI, businesses will upgrade. If not, they won't. For most business users, word processing and spreadsheets are the major applications. Does switching to Windows 7 make one type faster? No, of course not. Therefore there is a low ROI.
Another move has been to hosting apps on a terminal server and then just using an RDP client. Again, the ROI on moving users from XP to Win 7 in that scenario is also poor.
Businesses make business decisions based on the bottom line. If they can get a better return doing X than Y, then they will do X. It's not that businesses can't benefit from switching to Win 7. It's just that they don't benefit as much as using those resources elsewhere in the company.
"Neither IE9 nor IE10 are available on XP"
And of course no other 'current' browser would support XP either
Oh wait
What about Chrome - I think the latest version of that still runs on XP
Chromium
Firefox
Seamonkey
Comodo Dragon
If MS want to kill XP, then they should bring out a new OS that will run on older hardware... Oh and NOT suck
For one project we currently have about 3000 nettops in the wild, which are running XP to basically just play Flash content for ads.
The only reason we're now considering to upgrade the OS is the nearing EOL. Full-screen Flash on Linux is such a pain in the ass that we've only running a few systems for mere research purposes.
Microsoft has been forcing Windows upgrades on the consumer since inception.
Alas, the consumer is more vulnerable to its efforts than, say, the larger corporations. Any little 'tweaks' that are done during Microsoft's' little forced Automatic Updates that happen to slow down an already systematically crippled system will continue to frustrate the consumer into finally 'giving up on that dinosaur' and buying the Shiny New System that their Kids have been bugging them for.
Consumers are in a much better position to upgrade than corporations are, as one system at a time, is far easier to accommodate. Both financially, and on the whole Learning Curve of a new OS.
I'm still running WinXP Pro and Office XP Pro, because I absolutely HATE what they did to the interface of later incarnations!
Quite frankly, if they Forcefully De-Activate XP products, I'll simply find an Activator out there "in the wild" somewhere, and keep on processing.
Shame they can't be convinced to release good old 98 as Open Source...
oh, wait. That'd KILL Microsoft!
Never mind ;)
I've never had to register anything with Apple.
>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>life
And don't forget NetMeeting. While I worked for EDS/HP and IBM, NetMeeting has a intense use for meeting and screen-sharing in groups. Microsoft kill this tool in Vista/7, trying sell new tools, which are replaced about 3 or 4 times, with no success (now companies are using web third-party meeting tools).
A tech-savvy site like slashdot says: "...it's time for businesses who are running a perfectly adequate OS for their systems, with which their users are completely comfortable, and which runs all the software that they need to function across 100% of the needed daily tasks needs to (for no reason) REPLACE this OS with one that requires significant hardware upgrades and retraining, and in some cases new purchases of other software no longer functioning in the new OS"
but phrases it as:
"...it's time for the enterprise to stop dragging its tail."".
Pardon me, but it's pretty fucking sad that the marketing-driven 'upgrade for no reason' treadmill reaches here, where (you'd think) functionality and practicality MIGHT be more important than buying the latest, newest thing from MS.
-Styopa
You charge hundreds of dollars for a license then bundle it on just about every PC out there. How can you expect everybody to welcome spending hundreds again for a small improvement on their existing PC when everything works fine. E.g. "Wendy in accounts receivable."
Here's an idea... charge less and add compelling features and abilities or bundle valuable software.
Honestly, M$ should just bite the bullet and keep supporting XP. I hardly think its a financial liability. Just keep it updated with security patches and release IE 9 for it.
And frankly, if M$ REALLY wants people to move to WIn7 then LOWER THE GODDAM price. If Win7 pro OEM was $75, I would have no problem upgrading my users to WIn7, however at over $100 it still makes no sense to move to it.
The retail version is even worse, $275? Really M$? If you lower that by $100 to $175 you would get A LOT more people moving to it. More sales = more profits. Didnt anyone at M$ go to business school?
Of course I know what Steve Ballmer's response to that would be "What? I will lose .01 cent per share if I reduce the price to $175? HELL F****** no"....
I'm quite serious. I run 80+ virtual machines in a lab environment. Every dumb, security-related permissions hassle I have is with Windows 7. While I understand the necessity of security, I just wish the tools to turn things off actually worked consistently and didn't have such poor CL interfaces (e.g. Cacls, Xcacls, Icacles, etc.)
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
consumers are adopting Windows 7 ... I don't agree. Consumers take whatever OS is loaded when they buy the PC.
I can pretty much guarantee that XP will be around for at least another decade.
XP will be "around" but no longer supported after April, 2014, when Microsoft ends security updates for Windows XP. This means that if a security issue or bug is found in the system, Microsoft will be under no obligation to fix it (and hopefully they don't so I can stop supporting IE6).
See Windows Lifecycle chart: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/products/lifecycle#section_2
I've never had to register anything with Apple.
You must not be interested in writing code, then.
Because you already had to pay a ridiculous amount of money for your mac.
Microsoft does not sell hardware nor does it have an app store from which they can profit even from pirate copies of mac like Apple.
Okay, as a guy whose consulting career has included things like training consultants how to architect operating system migrations I'll offer some enlightenment. Pundit article is clueless and has no basis in reality.
Let's start with 43% of web traffic. What does that figure mean? In a nutshell right now 43% of all web traffic is Windows XP. Microsoft hasn't sold Windows XP in six years to the mass market. That means your typical average home user (not slashdot - think your clueless Aunt Martha) probably doesn't have her XP computer any more. Remember that 43% accounts for all traffic, regardless of source.
If Microsoft hasn't been selling XP to home users in six years than how on earth is 43% of all web traffic still Windows XP? It is of course coming from business, government and similar users that are running XP. What that means if your crunch the numbers to make them balance out is that the /overwhelming/ majority of business uses Windows XP. I would imagine your figures are probably well in the 80% range.
Microsoft is desparate to change this, however they bombed things royally with Vista and Windows XP was good enough. Migrations are expensive, embedded applications, package testing, development, image testing, hardware independent image development, personality capture and the like all take a lot of time. A migration of 75,000 users can easily take 1-2 years, and that is without any embedded dependencies that /require/ Windows XP.
You also need to package all of your applications which is very time and labor intensive (although it will return the investment in spades and can be used in lifecycle). There are also license costs for new software, labor costs for staff, labor costs for consultants who know what their doing, hardware costs, staff interruption.
Think about the testing that you have to release a package to production for a single piece of software that you releasing. Now imagine that are doing that for all of your major applications, at once, on a new operating system. Your testing requirements are mind boggling and dwarf the requirements of any typical application by an order of magnitude if you do it correctly. Include things like capturing user data, disparate environments, defining standards, infrastructure and everything else and you can see why a migration is usually the largest project an IT department will tackle every few years.
All of this requires people that really, really know things like operating systems, packages, servers, databases, cmdb's, web servers, drivers, security, software distribution and a host of other skills. You need consultants to perform something like that and there's a limited number of consultants that are qualified to do that kind of work. You could probably take all the qualified consultants that can do this work in the United States and put them in a single conference room with ease.
All of the above applies even if you didn't have a single Windows XP dependency. This excludes things like the fact that you have a lot of applications that have dependencies on Internet Explorer 6 (which is a very large quantity). These require programmers to bring their given application up the new standard (which you have to define and that takes time).
Sorry to burst your bubble, but their is only one reason for companies to migrate to Windows 7 (almost always 64bit), and that is because Microsoft is ending support for Windows XP.
Germany has urged the public to *temporarily* stop using MSIE. I say, why only temporarily?
Once the current bugs are fixed, MSIE will still be a platform designed to have you vendor-locked to msft.
Microsoft has never been forth-coming about bugs, especially those that threaten security. Msft has never taken security seriously. In many cases, msft themselves has been the security threat (phoning home). Everything about msft is closed, secret, proprietary, and designed to lock you into forced upgrades, and other msft products.
Besides, it's not as if it costs you anything to move to another browser. Aside from being more secure, other browser are more standards compliant, and offer better performance.
If you going to leave MSIE, why not leave for good?
Then you can have both XP and 7!
The health care industry is by design slow to migrate. Patient safety is considered above all else, until stability and compatibility can be absolutely assured.
Start making noise on the Y2K level that Business Folks need to migrate off of XP for multiple reasons.
http://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/to?iso=20140408T17&p0=1244&msg=XP+End+Of+Life ---- timer for you
personally i would if i was Google begin getting Snarky and then begin BLOCKING XP/MSIE 6 beginning april 1 2014
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
> XP will be "around" but no longer supported after April, 2014, when Microsoft ends security updates for Windows XP.
Question for the /. crowd. Does anyone know if you can still activate XP *after* April, 2014?
i.e.
Let's say I change my hardware enough that XP thinks I need to re-register it. How long is Microsoft keeping XP activation around for?
TIA.
People who are still using XP at this point are stubborn (and immediately get the finger if they come in for tech support from me), and will not change no matter what you do, so long as the operating system still works.
Don't get me wrong, I think that's fine, whatever works for you (XP no longer works for me personally for home OR business use), just expect no sympathy for me when your 10+ year old operating system fails.
Steam users are gamers and so have more recent computers (that came with windows7) and/or like to ride the latest versions (kids always like to brag about their hardware and software)
typical windows XP users are people that know nothing or near that about computers, people that got their computers years ago and they are still working. they dont need a faster computer and XP is what they know/have at hand to use. XP is still lighter than windows7 (comparing a old XP install ful of trash against a new and clean windows7 install isn't valid compare)
Higuita
Seriously -- back about 2000, I managed to get a wholly legit personal use volume license for XP on the cheap, handed directly to me by a MS assocciate for ... dirt cheap.
I was not the only person in the room to do so.
And no, I'm sure as hell not discussing how or why -- the guy probably should've been fired.
I can activate it more than I'll ever need or want, throw it on as many VM's and desktops/laptops/netbooks as I want. Admittedly, the licensing made no mention whatsoever *of* virtualization, because it didn't exist ... but the pool was big enough it won't ever matter.
When you can give me a win8 install, and I can at least put it on *as many* VM's for individual personal or professional use as I see fit, I'll talk about it. Until then, I've got two to four XP VM's running at any given moment at home, and they all do whatever they need to just fine without having to talk about buying "platinum ultra corporate" to get some bit of functionality and I have no intention of giving a flying fuck about Win7 or later.
I don't want to have to worry for a split moment if cloning and booting a VM after throwing a new video /network /hard drive driver in is going to cause validation/activation, and interrupt my workflow.
And while I might happily pay a thousand or more for a similar license now that I can afford as much, it's all but fucking impossible to get it.
And don't any of you msfanboys mention the actionpack and partner networks -- it's a useless pain in the ass designed by marketing and sales engineers who want me to get a bunch of useless credentials just to download a ISO that will look like a pirated CD the first time someone looks. Half of the disks are time expiring installs -- because that's just what I want in a VM... to boot it up a year later getting the exact configuration of a project, and get kicked out in ten minutes. And it will probably expire or come with weird time and hardware durations from the newly locked down licenses. How kind of them to let me virtualize -- but only up to two instances.
They have plans that work for small development shops, but they trade time for money spent taking bogus e-learning courses when they give you anything functional.
This just in, I want to develop and target your platform -- not be your fucking sales partner. Give me the platform to debug on and test against, and stay out of my way otherwise -- in order to run it the client will need their own licenses anyway.
I have. The software on my Mac Airbook required it.
Fuck Windows... I've gone back to my old DOS/Win 3.11 environment. It boots instantly in a VM on my ESXi box, and my licenses never expire.
> XP will be "around" but no longer supported after April, 2014, when Microsoft ends security updates for Windows XP.
Question for the /. crowd. Does anyone know if you can still activate XP *after* April, 2014?
i.e. Let's say I change my hardware enough that XP thinks I need to re-register it. How long is Microsoft keeping XP activation around for?
TIA.
It'll work so long as MS keeps the servers up for it; but there's nothing official out about how long they'll keep those servers up, or located at some place that XP can find them. So yeah, installing XP after that date might be a PITA. I imagine they'll keep them up long enough though that the phone calls will drop to a neglible amount when they do turn it off.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Adobe just won't provide support for it.
Who the hell even use Google Apps.
Now this is why you do not save anything with XP. If hardware support wanes then it is time to do your dues and say goodbye and move on.
http://saveie6.com/
They either need to keep the servers up indefinitely, or release a patch that removes activation. Anything less is a repossession of a purchased product. The problem for them is that they won't want to run the activation servers forever, but if they were to release a patch that removed activation, XP market share would skyrocket. What they will likely need to do if they want to stay legit is to keep the activation servers up long enough that the bulk of modern software requires features not available in XP. Once that happens, they can un-DRM XP without having a huge influx of new users.
The idea of a cloud is it works in every browser for the portal. IE 6 was proprietary and we made fun of it here 10 years ago on slashdot but never could we have imaged we are still talking about it and using XP 11 years later! If you told me this I would be laughing at you like you are nuts a decade ago. Likewise I would be in disarray if in 10 years businesses are still using Windows 7 ... sadly that maybe true unless something unforeseen happens in Windows 9/10 or we all use IPADs by then.
I am in favor (even though it affects my job security) for using portal sites and HTML 5 as businesses can focus on getting things done and not have to worry about being tied down with obsolete platforms. The web frees it and thank god for Firefox and then Chrome. IE is now standards complaint after admitting defeat starting with IE 9.
Could integration will be part of Office 2013 and Server 2012. This is a great thing and lets hope this decade will be different as many corporations are learning their lessons now with their crappy IE 6 intranet apps that will be just tied to IE 8 for the next decade. What a clusterfuck
http://saveie6.com/
I find this topic fascinating, IMO it's a case study of how a free market system can and will fail to meet demand. If 43% of the entire OS marketshare is XP, then the marketplace has spoken - they want XP and aren't interested in upgrading. And yet they are being forced to, for good or ill, because despite an overwhelming demand the market is deciding not to continue to supply this particular good.
Free marketers are always quick to point out that if there is a demand the market will provide a product or service. But the market here is making strategic decisions that may indeed be better for the computer infrastructure on the whole but is doing so by neglecting the demand side of the supply-demand curve.
There's a third class: "Power Users". I'm sorry, but properly-configured XP on the same hardware IS faster than Windows 7. Better machines than what you describe still perform better on XP than Windows 7. To me, it's a waste of money to upgrade to Windows 7 when I'm going to take a performance hit in the process. I also waste a lot more time reconfiguring Windows 7 to the way I like it than XP.
You're right that the only compelling reason for upgrading is 64-bit, >4GB (technically >2GB) applications. You're also right that partitioning the OS on one partition, data/users on another is an exercise in frustration (there are multiple ways to do it, all of which suck. I even tried junctions. What a mess). The only other reason I can think of at this point for choosing Windows 7 (when you have the choice) will be if hardware vendors stop supporting drivers for XP.,
Some companies still support Windows 2000 with their drivers, though the number is getting pretty small (hell, a few even support Win98!). For instance, D-Link's Wireless N PCI cards still have 2k drivers. Nvida only stopped a few years ago and ATI dropped 2K support a year before Nvidia did. With XP being far more popular than 2K, I would expect that it would be supported for quite a while longer.
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
And who exactly is going to pay for that shift? Why would Microsoft want to assist you in slitting their own throat? And frankly given how exciting the tech industry has been in the last few years on the phone side, the idea that we aren't going to see hardware driven upgrades I think is fallacious. Business are cheap and have been cheap for a decade. So they've allowed the consumer market to become much more exciting and the interesting software is going to start in the consumer sector and migrate into business.
Which is incidentally how Microsoft replaced: IBM, DEC, Unisys...
Yeah, they just take your money and run to their lawyers to sue anyone that produces a phone with pretty icons and rounded corners! Then again how are those security patches working!! On the other hand don't you have to register in iTunes to be able to do anything "i" related, sounds like registration to me!
They either need to keep the servers up indefinitely, or release a patch that removes activation. Anything less is a repossession of a purchased product. The problem for them is that they won't want to run the activation servers forever, but if they were to release a patch that removed activation, XP market share would skyrocket. What they will likely need to do if they want to stay legit is to keep the activation servers up long enough that the bulk of modern software requires features not available in XP. Once that happens, they can un-DRM XP without having a huge influx of new users.
Problem with the "unDRM XP" step is that you then have to be able to get the patch - and that won't likely stay up for long, probaby less time than they keep up the servers if that's what they are going to do.
And this is nothing compared to what Vista/Win7/Server2008 require to keep operational - an active Internet connection that regularly (every 7 days) checks the activation status of the assigned license. (And yes, I've had Server 2008 de-activate itself because of missing the sufficient checks).
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
As others have said, Audition was the once awesome Cool Edit Pro. However, you COULD swap Audition out with something like Energy XT (€39 multi platform, Win, Linux, and OSX), Reaper ($60 discounted license, $225 for full license, functionally the same, Windows and OSX), or even FL Studio ($199.00 for Producer edition to get full-on audio editing and processing).
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
> And this is nothing compared to what Vista/Win7/Server2008 require to keep operational - an active Internet connection that regularly (every 7 days) checks the activation status of the assigned license. (And yes, I've had Server 2008 de-activate itself because of missing the sufficient checks).
Now *that* is total bullshit.
"You have added more RAM. Please authorize your computer with MS so you can continue to use it."
When will people get fed up with this licensed not owned crap.
One of the nice things about OSX is that it doesn't have any of this DRM crap.
> And this is nothing compared to what Vista/Win7/Server2008 require to keep operational - an active Internet connection that regularly (every 7 days) checks the activation status of the assigned license. (And yes, I've had Server 2008 de-activate itself because of missing the sufficient checks).
Now *that* is total bullshit. "You have added more RAM. Please authorize your computer with MS so you can continue to use it." When will people get fed up with this licensed not owned crap.
One of the nice things about OSX is that it doesn't have any of this DRM crap.
Not enough people run across it to make people aware of it. I ran into it because our systems are delivered typically without Internet access; so after a month being off, it tried to recheck its status and it couldn't. Microsoft's solution? Use your Volume License - except we don't have one.
On the other hand, Microsoft is kind of helping themselves out of my way. We put the Server version on as it better meets the user's needs even though we really use the system as a desktop. However, Microsoft has already announced they will be removing the Desktop from the Server edition, preferring remote administration and probably a GUI with just the command-line box open - like Server Core does. So it won't be of any use to me any longer when they do.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Let's face it, 43% of OS users are whiny dependent moocher victim freeloaders who want everything in life handed to them.
Given that for most of Slashdots existence, its purpose has been to bash XP, I'm surprised to see so many comments defending it.
If you have an XP computer that's doing a job well and isn't touching the internet, that's great. No need to change. If you're trying to keep an XP computer running, while also accessing the internet, that's a mistake. XP is a huge target for every bad piece of crap out there.
Also, please stop using XP, so that way software authors will stop targeting it. All software that targets XP isn't as well written as it could be if it weren't.
> Microsoft's solution? Use your Volume License - except we don't have one. :-( Sadly because all MS seems to care about profits, except when things get a little *too* inconvenient. Pity they can't seem to focus on streamlining the tasks users do; if they did they would automatically have profitability.
To be expected.
> On the other hand, Microsoft is kind of helping themselves out of my way. :-)
Agreed. Anything that gets people to consider alternatives, Linux, BSD, OSX, etc. is a good thing.
I propose somebody with the technical expertise (not me!) start a business. Here's the model: create a piece of software that runs on Windows XP, that will do three things:
1. Replace the functionality of Windows/Microsoft Update for XP for when they stop issuing patches, etc., (or have they already done that)?
2. Provides a compatibility layer allowing the use of software that COULD run on XP but that won't because the software's author(s) installed a function that checks to see what version of which OS you're using, and refuses to install or function if they don't want you to be able to use their program. (Similar to Firefox's add-on "Phony" for Android devices.
3. Works to create a FLOSS version of Windows XP, as a standalone OS, bit by bit until they have it, ensuring complete binary and driver compatibility, then phasing out Windows XP support.
Basically, we're talking WINE XP. The logo could be a wine glass with four different colors of liquid inside, (if photographed, gelatin and food coloring could be used to make the effect) with a pair of letters, "XP" suspended in it, made of brass, perhaps. The whole-OS replacement could be called WINE-OS.
But who would build such a thing? Ah well, it was fun to imagine, mostly imagining Microsoft's consternation at learning about this.
Businesses keep XP because of the learning curve, and costs, associated with Win7. XP just flat works! I imagine consumers moved to Win7 because they bought a new computer, not because they wanted Win7. I run XP at work on a machine purchased in 2007, and Win7 at home, on a machine purchased in 2011. I looked at upgrading to Win7 at work, but the number of applications that MS said I would need to change, plus all of the other difficulties involved in the installation, prompted me to stay with XP. Plus I prefer the Win Classic GUI, not the XP or Win7 GUIs.
Seriously, how many people still use IE in any variant? An informal poll among a group of about 50 shows zero users. This is a social group, not tied by a work environment, a group using computers at home. If MS thinks Photoshop and Google Apps will have an influence, they need to see me about some land I want to sell. BTW, what is Google Apps?
The LaserJet 4p is not usually a Postscript printer, and when you add the PS card, it is dog slow. It a 4 page/minute PERSONAL PCL printer. I got one for my daughter to use at university a long time ago, because it it was comparatively small and light to take on the train.. It rests under my desk, waiting for all the other printers in the house to fail. Which it has never done.
--
Think of the entropy, children!
Apple prefers to use hardware dongles, in case you haven't noticed. Really expensive hardware dongles too.
A good example is the absence of netmeeting in vista and 7. It's not that businesses cant afford better solutions like webex, but really, for simple desktop sharing and rudimentary collaboration, netmeeting got the job done. and it was ubiquitously present on ALL of the business's employees' computers.
LINUX IS FREEEEEEEEE.........DONT HAVE TO BUY A KEY. Everyone right now can stop buying all windows operating systems, and use Ubuntu, or Centos 6 and never have to buy anything. It comes with its own Office program compatible with Microsoft format, and comes with Gimp, Photoshops FREEEEEE predecessor. Gimp can do anything Photoshop can do. It also comes with 30,000 to 60,000 different software all FREEEEEEEEE for video editing, audio editing, screen recording, and has 3d capabilities that makes windows look like a piece of junk. Why would i even use XP or windows 7 or windows 8 or any windows from now on ???????? IT would take an idiot to continue using windows when there is a FREE system, with more support for a million years for what price you say? FREEEEEEEEEEE.......... Right now....alll of you can make Bill Gates Broke and Microsoft go slap out of business. Stop buying windows systems,,,,buy only Ubuntu, or get the computer without a system,,,,,and use a Linux Distro you would like to try,,,,,since there are thousands of different brands....all FREE. Anyone who buys windows is a sucker. and should have their money took from them,,,,and never get support......and have their operating system go obsolete....Linux with never be obsolete......EVER. Seriously. stop buying anything with windows on it. Use Ubuntu Linux...its an easy system to use and guess what,,,,,,Linux doesn't need anti-virus or anti-malware or anti-spyware....that's all created for windows by machines like Linux..........duh....... Get with the program. Signed, Super IT Tech Dave..........and can out code all of ya...... Saying windows should be banned....
Overall Microsoft is taking a page out of Apple's playbook and making it impossible to not upgrade to get the latest versions of Browsers and other utilities/software that many use on a daily basis. This is how Apple became so profitable; Sell it now and sell it again in 6 months. My old iMac is an example; Coming with OS 10.1, 10.3 was supposedly the last software I could upgrade to. By 10.4 the machine was out of date. Unfortunately the newer Browsers wouldn't support anything less then 10.4. Buy, buy, buy; It keeps America rolling on. My solution was fixing up a Pentium IV that someone gave me and I've been on it for 4 years now. Does everything I need.