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Set Your Watches For the End of Windows XP
An anonymous reader writes "In one year today exactly, Microsoft will shut down support for Windows XP. The deadline will prove a challenge for many of Australia's largest users of IT, all struggling to migrate to new Microsoft environments." Net Applications' chart of current OS market share figures shows XP only slightly behind Windows 7, even now.
.. where people finally say:
"I'd rather have software that works than software that's supported?"
Because it's about time.
Perhaps some will struggle to migrate to a non-Microsoft environment and avoid the recurrence of this particular struggle next time.
XP will no longer be "supported" but it will certainly still be used by 10's of millions of computers a year from now (and two, and three, and more). It's also a certainty that a stationary "unsupported" target will get a lot of attention by exploits and black hats.
XP -> 7 is entirely worth it. I'm no IT professional and don't know the logistics of it all but when I upgraded it was like day and night. I really don't understand the slow uptake to 7. Laziness? XP to Vista I understand, Vista was a pile of poopy fart poops. But 7 is a breeze and if I may boldly say in my experience even more reliable than XP. Of course, I could be letting the odd obscure legacy program go over my head but still... 7. 7 7 7 7 7. Did I mention 7?
You can dance if you want to.
I have never heard of anyone doing this.
OK, it's become a joke now, but seriously, if we get our act together, we can have a viable replacement for XP for people who just want to browse, email, skype, google, play music, and the like. That's 90% of what people do.
Yeah, line-of-business apps. Except that people don't run those at home.
Even though I like Unity (the LTS version, not the braindead initial versions), I'd have to say a classic Mint desktop is likely to be more familiar to an XP refugee.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
This really means the classic looks of windows 98 used in enterprises will be gone for ever.
I don't know of anyone who has ever received support from MS, personal, corporate or any other kind. The closest you get to receiving support is spending entire days waiting on hold. I conclude that MS support is a myth spread for purposes of PR.
Shutting down a mythical service is a very good idea. It's pointless to waste money on something that doesn't exist.
It strikes me that there's a niche here for someone to offer similar support once MS drops XP. Just as there are any number of aftermarket suppliers for auto parts, I can imagine companies that will serve up regular security updates, compatibility patches, and similar goodies for a price.
If your company runs a couple thousand XP boxes, what kind of annual subscription would you be willing to pay to keep them going?
Three Squirrels
What other choices do I have?
Mac's are light years ahead of Ubuntu and Ubuntu is moving backwards. There's only one realistic answer to that question.
It's only logical that they lose all property 'rights' to it.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
...to set my clock back to when XP was ended on my side
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
More a sign that the world is abandoning Microsoft.
Microsoft Corporation (MSFT): Windows 8 Has Failed, Now What?
The rise of tablets and smartphones has shaken up the once dominant “Wintel” PC paradigm. In an attempt to re-establish its supremacy, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) designed Windows 8 to be a hybrid operating system, useful on a variety of platforms.
But Windows 8 adoption has been poor -- consumers seem baffled by the changes. Meanwhile, Windows tablets are selling poorly, and Windows Phone remains in fourth place.
http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/microsoft-corporation-msft-windows-8-has-failed-now-what-110483/
Actually Windows 95 is becomming secure because it is so obscure and limited that most current attacks are unable to run on it. Attacks that used to run on it are pretty much dead, much like Stoned for DOS is now officially no longer a threat to anyone. I remember seeing the article about a year ago, so sorry no current link to the story.
The truth shall set you free!
Well, I don't think our work site will be ready. We haven't started migrating off of XP yet and we still have systems running NT 4. I wonder how this matches up with our government mandate that we be moving to IPv6. HA!
An even better question they should be asking is "What other choices WILL I have?". Obvious to some, it is becoming more obvious to the masses that Microsoft has no intention of backing down from what it has done with Windows 8. Windows 9/10/11 etc, will be more of the same if not worse.
What options will you have 10 years from now when you need to do a critical desktop computing oriented task - tasks such as spread sheets and word processing that were what brought about the revolution in personal computing in the first place - but there are no more desktops because Microsoft killed them all?
Windows 7.
^^this.
If you're still running 16bit DOS, your machines are highly malware resistant today. I know of no virus or malware circulating currently that will infect your machine.
Yes, ReactOS! :]
If you don't like the direction Ubuntu is moving, try Mint instead. I have a machine on Ubuntu for the same reason many people have Windows XP. It runs their favorite aps and there are no binaries for Mint for many packages yet. I'm also running Mint and loving it.
It is easier to set up network printers in Ubuntu. It's easier to get Jack and synths working in Mint. Sorry Ubuntu Studio, you crash Jack on my hardware. Both run Audacity fine. Mint has trouble running RoseGarden. Installed it but can't find it in the menu.
Not everything works OK on Windows without tweaks either, so the above minor issues are not a showstopper. It runs my aps without flooding the desktop with ads and trialware, the biggest timewasters in Windows. Windows is clogged to death out of the box.
The truth shall set you free!
Indeed, the year of the Linux desktop was 2011/2012. Some of us just didn't notice because the GUI was neither Gnome nor KDE, but Android. By 1014 people will be buying more Android devices than Windows devices.
"Is an Android device a computer?", you might ask. An Vista machine with a dual core 1.3 GHz processor and a GB of RAM is always counted as a computer, so I see no reason why a machine with the same specs running Linux, Android or any other distribution, isn't also a computer. So the way I see it, there's soon to be more Linux computers than Windows computers. They're just a lot more portable than we expected.
It's called the iPad
If you choose to throw away your money and your freedom. You could also pay 1/5th as much for a similar Android device for the same use case.
They are resistant to the average malware. They are not resistant to a targetted attack from a hacker practiced in social engineering, and sufficiently skilled to look up one of the old exploits, or to write their own trojan.
Does Windows 95 even run on modern hardware? I remember that getting Windows 98 SE to work in a virtual machine was a pain in the ass even after I found a floppy image that worked (b/c Microsoft in their infinite wisdom didn't or couldn't make a bootable CD image back in the day) because it didn't recognize any of the VM hardware and everything barely worked at the lowest-common-denominator level. For instance, the best video support I could get was 16-color 640x480 (i.e. absolute shit). Forget about sound or network access. I'm guessing the only reason why the Win98 installer found the blank hard disk file at all is because VMware was propping everything up and making it work behind the scenes. Hell, you couldn't install Win95 on a brand new PC without resorting to some kind of USB boot disk trickery because most new machines don't even have floppy drives anymore.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
Wait until Microsoft tries to force everyone to move to Windows 8.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
If only Microsoft would encourage feedback from uses, and act on them.
I have collected a long list of bugs and annoyances with Win7 which I really wish that M/S was interested in.
Where to send my list to?
Or against a guy with a tank and an RPG...
"classic desktop experience"
You mean dated, right? Because OSX looks like something from the 90s compared to Win8 (or even 7). That, and all the cheesy screen sliding, window slurping animations to give users sea sickness.
macs are worse, throughout their history they break backwards compatibility completely with each new generation, windows 7 only breaks some poorly written VB applications
Windows 98 does. I have one for running OLD games, under VMware Fusion.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
More like "too lazy" to migrate.
On the upside, this year might FINALLY be the year of the Linux Desktop! *hides*
You're absolutely right. I am a Linux guy but I would probably feel more comfortable moving back to Win7 as opposed to OSX (if I ever had to of course!)
Isn't that project not only alive, but getting a bit of a government assist in Russia?
Why don't IT departments just toss some money into that pot, too, as a speculative investment toward NEVER buying MS again? The ROI is insanely high. Take the whole Fortune 500, each tossing USD 1,000,000.00 (a fraction of the MS upgrade cycle costs), and you could get a REALLY good clone of XP.
Oh sure, as soon as Ubuntu can support in-house developed MS Access databases and ODBC to MS Exchange server! Windows is easy to replace, so long as you have no business apps.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
With Windows 7, Microsoft finally made it work. They developed the Static Driver Verifier, which uses proof of correctness techniques to insure that drivers won't crash the operating system, and made everybody run their drivers through it before they were signed. That eliminated about half of all crashes. Anything else was Microsoft's fault, and they knew it.
Microsoft also developed an internal tool that takes in crash dumps and matches them to other crash dumps. This made it possible to digest a huge number of crash dumps and tie them back to the cause.
With those tools, Microsoft finally had the ability to make the thing work. And they did. Windows 7 is much more reliable than previous versions of Windows.
Then, having finally produced a solid desktop system, they found they were being clobbered by the tablet industry, and came out with a desktop interface borrowed from a phone. Sigh.
You mean all that stuff compiz, etc are trying to reimplement on Linux?
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
It will keep working just as well on the same hardware as it is now. Who is really calling MS asking Win XP questions ?
What options will you have 10 years from now when you need to do a critical desktop computing oriented task - tasks such as spread sheets and word processing that were what brought about the revolution in personal computing in the first place - but there are no more desktops because Microsoft killed them all?
First, you can use pirated copies. They exist for all Windows versions. If a version is not sold anymore, and the current version doesn't do what you need to do, then at least you have an ethical excuse for running a pirated copy. It's not a lost sale to MS because you will not buy their tablet OS for serious work.
There is no "second," actually. If the software doesn't work on Win2012 for one reason or another then you have no option at all. Either the ISV is gone out of business; or they decided to discontinue the product; or their roadmap does not include what you need (Hi, Xilinx!) or, the simplest of them all, the upgrade just costs too much and you cannot afford it.
There will still be desktop operating systems. They just might not be from Microsoft.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
As it happens, Office 2008 for Mac ends support after this next Patch Tuesday. But there has been only one exploit that I know of that affect x86 Office 2008 for Mac, and none affecting any PowerPC version.
But Microsoft Windows XP Professional for Embedded Systems will continue to be sold until December 2016. It's the same codebase, just with different licence conditions. Will Microsoft actually stop releasing security updates for a product they're still selling? Will they keep developing security updates for Windows XP but withhold them from non-embedded customers?
It's not exactly rocket surgery.
I've switched all my friends and aquaintances who had expiring Windows XP installations to Ubuntu real quickly. It sucks, too, but less then Windows 8. And it's free. I won't pay my buck to jerks who leave me standing in the rain after some years, when casual users just begin to getting aquainted to their PC.
No, you're wrong. You can't use hyperbole ("broke everything completely") and expect to just be taken as truth.
for January 19, 2038. Because that's when Windows XP stops working
About two years ago my WinXP SP3 stopped updating. The update would start but went into grinding never coming to an end. It was actually a widespread problem at the time, apparently a bug on Microsoft's side, apparently fixed by Microsoft after a while. I tried plenty of suggestions, nothing helped, as of today my system does not update. I never bothered to reinstall from scratch.
So what? You go on the Net without administrative rights, Javascript is disabled and you can relax. But those exploits that attack you anyway? Well, I infected my machine intentionally with a boot virus. I collected information running WinXP under the virus. Then I booted into Ubuntu and had a look at \Windows\System32 to see the intruders. Essentially, I neutralised the infection by hand although in the end I restored the partition anyway.
Only Apple doesn't respect the classic desktop experience either.
That's putting it a bit too strong. The desktop is still there and works just fine in Win8. The metro stuff works well for some things and can be ignored the rest of the time. Storage Spaces, File History, and account syncing make up for any pain imo.
My parents have a PC running XP. Its spec is to low to install windows 7 or vista. Looks like they'll either have to fork out some money for a new PC or else put up with the virus threat. Another point I thought of. If the spec for later versions of windows is higher does this not then mean that they run will slower compared to ealier versions of windows? So even if they could update they would be getting a worse performance. I think a lot of the people with the older version of windows are going to be oldies who have no idea about how to update windows or install linux as an alternative.
Why?
Now I do not run Windows except for VMs. [1] But I remember that when XP was first released MS tried to calm some fears by saying that at end of life they would release a work around for WGA so that those who suddenly find themselves with machines that need verification would not be left out of the cold.
Now we get see if they keep their word.
[1] The point is that I no longer understand WGA intimately.
Despite some IOSification, in my understanding the standard OSX hasn't been completely botched by some mobile UI, yet.
The organisation I work for just migrated all staff computers to a new red-orange-green support system. This included complete re-installs of computers.... With clean installs XP. When asked why they didn't install W7 and not have to worry about upgrading all computers next year and inconvenience thousands of users again, they simply said "one step at a time".
Apple is FAR less secure and Windows.
http://www.dailytech.com/Apples+OS+X+is+First+OS+to+be+Hacked+at+This+Years+Pwn2Own/article21097.htm
If it ain't broke, don't fix it! :) I can understand why XP users are reluctant to move forward, beside the obvious cash implications.
But, truth is, Windows 7 is way better, especially with all the updates.
I've been waffling a long time on which way to invest in upgrading my pc's. win 7 or 8? I like 7's stability and am not excited about metro, but don't want to have to pay the Microsoft tax too soon again. I finally made a decision.
I bought a Mac. Arrives tomorrow.
Yes, it will be more expensive over time. At least the upgrades are priced half what windows are.
With OS X 10.7.3 the ability to effectively sandbox applications with a diverse permissions system for access was made part of OSX. Using this system became mandatory to distribute as part of Apple's App Store. Most OSX applications meet the sandboxing / 10.7.3 requirements.
Obviously there are a lot of exceptions. But those are often applications which are brand names from well known developers. And remember that Apple as of 10.8 also has centralized code signing.
I suspect we are already in a situation where almost all OSX users have 95%+ of their applications either sandboxed or from a large brand name developer. Within a few years I expect that number to be higher. I also expect that Apple will get better at large applications installing complex sandboxing and push that percentage further up.
Even though it's currently supported by Microsoft, Windows XP isn't safe to use. Why? No ASLR or other exploit mitigation techniques. When vulnerabilities are found in the apps that you're using, being on the XP platform makes you a sitting duck.
Neither is Win8. I use it daily and there is no mobile UI anywhere to be seen. For a while I kept my apps pinned on my task bar, after a few weeks I added a start button. Nobody sitting by me knows I am using Win8. Considering it has an about 20% better performance than Win7, not upgrading from 7 to 8 because of some perceived UI issue puts you in the "religious nutcase" category.
BTW, Win XP with its "Fisher Price GUI" was LESS popular than Win8 at launch.
Then, having finally produced a solid desktop system, they found they were being clobbered by the tablet industry, and came out with a desktop interface borrowed from a phone. Sigh
If you use Windows 8 in a desktop mode, can you enumerate all the differences between it and Win7? I used Win8 for a while just having my most common apps "pinned" on the task bar, but eventually also installed a new Start button. I am unable to see any difference between my current setup and my previous Windows 7 setup. I do notice the performance improvements though. The Start Screen is to me just another application, and a rather interesting one at that, since it gives me all the "other" information I consume day-to-day at a single glance. Weather, Stock portfolio performance, number of unread emails, latest tweets, unread articles on /. etc, all in one single glance.
I do not know of a single area where Win8 is worse than Win7, and it is better in quite a few. I am open to input that would alter this perception.
^^this.
If you're still running 16bit DOS, your machines are highly malware resistant today. I know of no virus or malware circulating currently that will infect your machine.
If you're running DOS you're not going to be connected to the internet, so unless a Russian cybermastermind sends you a free floppy disk full of ASCII porn in the post, how are you going to get infected anyway?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Hell, you couldn't install Win95 on a brand new PC without resorting to some kind of USB boot disk trickery because most new machines don't even have floppy drives anymore.
Floppy drives? I'm sure you will be hard pressed trying to find a Core2duo era motherboard with a floppy controller. New Ivy Bridge boards don't even have IDE controllers any more.
Unicode in Slashdot
What you would do is you don't grant that permission at all. Instead the applications has to get permission on a file by file basis to files outside its sandbox.
I agree with you, and I've been explaining this system to other Slashdot users to disprove their claim that it's impossible to create a security model that properly secures a file system from trojans. But under such a system, how would an application gain enough permission to "Compress all files in a folder that the user selected"? How would an application gain enough permission to "Search all files on the SD card for a particular phrase"?
Mac sales are down 20%.
http://www.slashgear.com/apple-says-mac-sales-were-down-20-year-over-year-23266505/
No - just that yet again MS produced a crap version of Windows. *If* history repeats itself, then Windows 9 will be considerably better than Windows 8
They are resistant to the average malware. They are not resistant to a targetted attack from a hacker practiced in social engineering, and sufficiently skilled to look up one of the old exploits, or to write their own trojan.
So what? No system is resistant to things like that.
I forget: can LibreOffice's database product run commercial off-the-shelf software written in VBA for Microsoft Access? I worked for a company that depended on something called Stone Edge.
also have the vista mess financial turmoil is part of that (likely the part of dell and others pushing MS to let them put the sticker on the lower end system that where to slow to run vista)
But UAP was also to much in vista as well. 7 toned it down a bit.
A user can install and update applications into his own folder.
On Debian and Ubuntu, that appears to work only for compiling and installing applications from source, as only root can install .deb packages. Or is that a problem of Debian packaging that other distributions have fixed?
For example most Linux applications can be installed in a user's home directory
How so? I thought only root could install an application from a package because applications are packaged to assume installation into a system-wide directory, not into a user's home directory. Are you assuming installation from source?
In one of the very few moments when my bosses have actually listened to and heeded my words, we've maintained policy for the last year that any used computers sold have to be able to migrate to Windows Vista, 7, or 8. So I've made sure all machines are over 1GHz (shrug) and can carry at least 512MB of RAM. In general most of the used machines we re-sell range between 1.5 - 3.0GHz and 1-4GB of RAM. That's fine for our customers but in a year we're not going to be able to activate fresh XP installs and we still haven't "migrated" ourselves to an OEM copy of Vista, 7, or 8. It's a non-profit company -- does anybody know how we can get ahold of a multi-license or multi-seat license and copy of any of the newer windows for dirt cheap or next to nothing? Oh, yeah. And the "Christian-oriented" non-profit business discriminates against sexual orientation, so Microsoft's direct charity will refuse to help.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Microsoft had a proper security model for ages even before [Windows XP] was released.
Except this proper security model wasn't enabled by default. New accounts defaulted to administrator, not limited user, and there was no concept of a "sudoer", or a limited user who can gain permission to perform an action through a relatively secure user interface. Windows Vista introduced UAC, which emulated sudo, and Windows 7 refined it.
Teracopy
From the link: $19.95. That's one-fifth of the way to a Windows 8 personal use license. If it takes payware to add all your favorite Windows 7/8 features to Windows XP, and five pieces of payware cost as much as a Windows 8 personal use license, why keep the Windows XP?
XP is much lighter-weight
I've read that if you have even 1 GB of RAM in a machine, Windows 7/8 is more efficient at using it for caching the disk than Windows XP ever was. What payware do you plan to add to Windows XP to make it more efficient at caching the disk?
If someone singles you out as target, you need more than just a patched up OS. A serious firewall would be a good start.
[Social engineering is] portable across any operating system that isn't locked down to only run authorised code.
"Authorized" by whom? I'd appreciate a little clarification of your opinion. Do you believe the owner of a computer should have the power to make his own certificate for that computer and use it to digitally sign software to run on that computer? If not, is he still the owner?
But that also means that all those insecure apps they are using on XP won't be allowed to work the way they expect to when they move to WIndows 7.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I kicked and screamed when I was forced to accept Windows 8 on my new laptop by Best Buy, and it was all for nothing. I, too, see Windows 8 as a major improvement over Windows 7.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Now the next question is what about something for which there isn't a system support. Like a new compression algorithm. In the case the whole thing works the other way around. The new compression algorithm dynamic code installs as an extension to Finder, that is it grants Finder permission to use it as a way to compress. Then the application makes a request to Finder to use that compression algorithm.
So what about things other than compression? Does Spotlight's API allow a search program to add specific ways to specify what sort of "needle" to search for, such as regular expressions or language-specific stemming or synonym resolution mechanisms? Does Spotlight's API allow a search program to add support for searching text in specific file formats? Windows, in fact, is going the other way: Windows 8 flat out removed the concept of an "indexing service" from the operating system.
You mentioned trusted wrapper programs for archiving and search. How would an application add more categories of service that the operating system's publisher hadn't thought of, such as file comparison, the sort of continuous background file synchronization that happens using something like Dropbox, and the sort of file synchronization that happens using version control software?
the only problem with Win9 being better then 8 is the "so low bar" that 8 created. Simply put 8 is crap so anything that is so damn stinky will certainly be an improvement even when more invasive.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Still managed to get a bluescreen with Win7 at work first day it has been deployed :-)
Shutting down XP in favor of 8 is the equivalent of gradually choking off private insurance for single-payer Long live Windows 7.
You're really bad at this. I had Windows 95 OSR 2.1 running in a VM just last week, fully functional. Sound, video, net, the whole shebang.
98SE was vastly easier.
And yes, I commented last week that the VM is probably one of the most secure stations in the building. IE 3.0 won't run shit.
The preceding comment is my own, and in no way construes an opinon of the Emperor of Mankind.
The differences are: 1: The start button is invisible in win8 (but in the same default place; bottom left corner) 2: The start menu is fullscreen, and incorporates the idea of gadgets from win vista/7. For most users, that's the difference.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Win98SE runs just fine in VMware Workstation, hardest part was finding all the "latest" update rollup packages for it on the internet, since the built-in windows update is no longer supported by Microsoft.
Haven't we heard this at least 3-4 times before?
I mean, I've switched to 7 on my newer machines, but my couple of older ones (a minecraft server and a fileserver) are crunching away happily on XP because it's good enough and has low hardware requirements.
I can recall at least several previous instances where MS has publicly said they are going to 'stop supporting XP'...but the patches seem to keep rolling out?
-Styopa
^^this.
If you're still running 16bit DOS, your machines are highly malware resistant today. I know of no virus or malware circulating currently that will infect your machine.
Then you aren't paying close attention. I still see SQL Slammer attempts several times a day even though it has been something like 10 years since that particular loophole was addressed.
Asus P5W64 Workstation (my Core2duo m/b) has a floppy controller.
ASRock Z77 extreme 6 (core i3/5/7 m/b) has a floppy controller, although it is inconveniently located at the back bottom corner... no IDE on it, though. I've moved my IDEs to an external enclosure with esata/usb.
But yes, it is increasingly difficult to find floppy controllers on modern motherboards. I may eventually need an external (usb) floppy drive or something. The internal usb floppy drives are nigh impossible to find also.
"What are you doing here, Elijah?"
Just like the world abandoned Microsoft when they produced Windows ME, Microsoft BOB, Kin, PlaysForSure, Mira, Clippy...
Microsoft has made a lot of products that people hated. This is just the latest round of failures, but 90% of all business computers are some flavor of Windows. The OS is so entrenched that there is no chance of MS going going away becoming unprofitable.
You know, I agree with your sentiment entirely, which is why I feel bad calling this out:
It's really not. In fact, the firewall is the last thing you should think about.
That's not just because there are so many exploits right now that are for all practical purposes indistinguishable from normal traffic, although that's a good reason, too. It's because the best defenses are always layered defenses, and those start from the inside out.
Far too often I see people begin and end at the firewall. Even if they intended it only be the start, they're thinking rarely progresses much further into the network... why should it? They think about all the stuff the firewall is going to catch, and it seems to take care of so many problems it's hard for them to imagine what else they need to do internally to lock things down. They've succumbed to the "enumerating badness" fallacy, classically described by Marcus Ranum in his must-read Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security.
That's exactly backward, though. Where you want to start is at your core data, with the assumption that everything else has already failed, and what can you do to mitigate the disaster of penetration at that last possible level.
Then you work your way out, doing the same thing at each level.
Because almost no one does this, firewalls today are the thin, crunchy shell over the juicy taste explosion of vulnerable systems that crackers crave.
No relation to Happy Monkey
They're not even in fouth place for the phone market.
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 a simple google search will show you
From the first result: "A lot of Linux software will be expecting to find its resource files in standard locations specified at compile-time, such as /usr/share or /usr/lib, which will fail if the software is not installed in the usual location."
It's not typically done
The very fact that this is not typically done discourages package maintainers from testing this use case, leading to lack of this capability in the application files extracted from the package. Nor is there an easily discoverable tool to create a chroot in which to install a package in one's home directory.
please quote me accurately.
Don't worry about that. I had planned on linking to your comment wherever I do so.
In your opinion, should a device manufacturer have monopoly power to provide such a developer SDK for devices that it sells
You can configure a device for other servers
At what recurring cost? I was under the impression that in order to configure a device for any server other than the official public App Store server, Apple charged a business $299 per year for the enterprise developer program plus whatever documentation is needed to obtain and maintain a D-U-N-S number. Thus no matter who would operate the servers, Apple would retain the monopoly power over the developer program.
The $299 is not a per device but per server
And it expires after a year.
and can cover tens of thousands of devices.
Can it cover, say, every iPhone and every iPad owned by a member of a religious organization that has a few million members worldwide?
It is a trivial charge meant mostly to keep away people who aren't serious.
Am I correct in assuming that people who use software developed by people who develop software as a hobby are automatically "people who aren't serious" to you?
Easily fixed if you are not a retard. So, what's the issue? Are you retarded?
As for monopoly power over developers that's a negative. If you are running your own Enterprise SDK you can setup the signing authority however you like. Apple won't even know.
The signing chain has to verify back to Apple, or the device won't accept the signing authority. Apple won't know that the certificates are being verified against, but Apple will know that the certificates were applied for. And I imagine that Apple has policies in place to prevent, say, a cooperative of developers from using the enterprise developer program to open membership in the cooperative to the public and release their own software through an alternate app store operated by the cooperative.
Indeed, the year of the Linux desktop was 2011/2012. Some of us just didn't notice because the GUI was neither Gnome nor KDE, but Android.
And Android still requires applications to run all maximized all the time because applications are allowed to assume that the screen size will never change after installation. So for use cases that require multiple windows, such as viewing a web page on part of the screen and taking notes on the other, or running an application on part of the screen and reading its manual on the other, or writing HTML on part of the screen and previewing the rendered web page on the other, what should Android users do?
I'd say developers who aren't registered with Apple or working for an organization registered with Apple aren't serious.
I have completed the process to register my Apple ID as a developer. But when I try to take the next step, to view the iOS App Store Review Guidelines to see whether or not I should buy a recent Mac and sign up for the iOS developer program, I get an "unauthorized" error message. I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on hardware and licenses just to discover that my application concept would be guaranteed to be rejected.
We still use Windows XP Professional and Microsoft Office 2003 where I work. I think some machines have been upgraded to Windows 7 and a newer version of Office, but at least we developers are still on XP.
On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
So what? No system is resistant to things like that.
There are unix systems which are resistant to that. They're not invincible to it, but they are resistant where DOS is not.
Can MS Office use a proper DB backend?
Access can use Microsoft SQL Server as a database backend, and the version of Stone Edge that the company ended up using supported this. The fact that it was using MSSQL let me transition the company away from Stone Edge, as I could write Python scripts to update the MSSQL database through ODBC behind Stone Edge's back.
Your problem here seems to be "It isn't Microsoft".
The problem is that plenty of businesses are locked into applications that in turn are locked into Microsoft platforms. To get away from "It isn't Microsoft", a business must first identify this lock-in and work around it.
So on (2), how is a developer who offers his application without charge supposed to find the money to pay the recurring fee that Apple charges for remaining "known to Apple" and maintaining "an active OSX account", plus the recurring fee that Authenticode CAs charge for remaining known to Microsoft and maintaining an active Windows desktop account, plus the recurring fee that Microsoft charges for remaining known to Microsoft and maintaining an active Windows Store (for Windows 8 and Windows RT) account? It adds up per platform.
And I've read that joining requires first turning 18. I have a cousin who is learning to program. So how is a developer still in high school supposed to distribute his application to the public? Or is he supposed to show no one until his 18th birthday?
Most likely a developer associated with the Macports project would use his binary packager and sign it for him.
I thought MacPorts was for open-source software. Is relying on someone to sign your software even legal under the "Installation Information" requirement of GPLv3 or LGPLv3?
Public distribution of software is supposed to be under some adult's supervision and an adult who is involved in the Apple developer community.
If one has to be 18 just to sign up, then how should a 15-year-old with a non-programmer parent get "integrated into the developer community" in the first place?
I've got Win95 running on my Libretto 50CT. It's certainly not modern hardware, but I've given it an upgrade to 32 MB RAM, and a 4 GB SSD (just a CF card with IDE adapter). I even found wireless drivers for the Orinoco WaveLAN card I yanked from a first-gen Airport base station, and it'll do 128-bit WEP. You'd be genuinely surprised how usable the web generally is with IE 5.5. No Flash or AJAX, obviously, but I've browsed around abandonware sites and downloaded games directly onto it. FilZip still supports Win95, which is convenient. It runs Office 2000 and Photoshop 3, and honestly, if the battery lasted longer than an hour or two (and Win95 didn't suck so badly accessing NT file servers), I could probably do some non-empty subset of "real work" on it.
Installing Win95 without either a floppy drive or CD-ROM drive really isn't too hard. You can copy the whole installation CD to the hard drive you're installing to (and you'll probably have plenty of space for that), and assuming the hard drive is bootable to some form of DOS, you can launch the installation that way. That's what I had to do for the Libretto, since I don't have a CD-ROM drive that will work with it.
Good luck trying to trick a DOS user into clicking a link or finding holes in DOS's (inexistant) network stack.
There are USB floppy drives. Until about 5 years ago, plenty of HP servers included them, along with the SATA drivers for windows XP.
Microsoft's big clients (The Fortune 500, the U.S. Military) are the customers that drive Microsoft's decisions.
There's a few of those left running XP, this ensures that they upgrade.
Microsoft support if you are a big fish - is absolutely phenomenal. When I was working for a big fish, they were the most responsive company I have ever worked with. Now I am a little fish, I can hardly get them to answer the phone, and when they do, I get a completely clueless person...
Murphy was an optimist
Govt must tell Microsoft to Open source Windows XP after its EOL
Casteism
Is this really about $99?
And about the fact that it self-destructs after 365 days. If it were a lifetime sub, I'd say "an iPad mini costs $428".
Assume that the iOS developer SDK were included for free within XCode would that solve the problem?
That and port Xcode to iPad. Right now, someone who owns an iPad and a Bluetooth keyboard can't develop an application directly on the iPad, except within things like Codea that Apple was at first reluctant to approve.
It is not the specific policies of the prison that are the issue, which are rather liberal
I have issues with the prison's specific policies as well.
To clarify my previous comment, here are some things I forgot:
Thank you for sticking with this discussion. When I try to discuss details of my disagreement with a dominant gatekeeper's policy, a lot of other Slashdot users have accused me of deliberately posting inflammatory messages.
My comment about Xcode on iPad wasn't necessarily intended to require that Apple expend developer time=money on doing the port itself, just to give other producers of developer tools enough privileges to make developer tools that run as expected.
You expressed unfamiliarity with what the GNU General Public License requires with respect to Installation Information. A "User Product" is any tangible computing device for home use. GPLv3 requires "Installation Information" to accompany the source code of a covered executable delivered "specifically for use in a User Product". This information includes "any methods, procedures, authorization keys, or other information required to install and execute modified versions of a covered work in that User Product from a modified version of its Corresponding Source." For applications designed for Mac OS X, "build it in Xcode and disable signature verification" would be enough Installation Information. But for iOS applications, I read "in that User Product" to rule out the excuse "well you can just run it in the iPhone simulator in Xcode".
I think you misunderstand. I was listing the two 'differences' to point out that they're not nearly worth the complaining the online world gives them. I use windows 8, and the only time I see the Metro interface is when I unlock the screen, or hit the windows key and start typing in a program name.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I had this problem with a single Samba Primary Domain server and turning off win7's ability to change it's own password (for the machine), stopped this problem.
Oh yeah... but here's the flip side. You have a native 64-machine coming in -- do you use or 64? I.e. on linux they usually have been pushing 64-bit into /lib64 and /usr/lib64, and using /lib and /usr/lib for 32-bit. But as less than 10% of packages are 32-bit on my 64bit machines, I'd rather have the 32bit with the longer path and use the shorter path for native programs. But when I did the switch on windows 7, I felt the same as you. Urg! Screwed either way!
Windows XP has better update time, can update while i am working and less hassles with owner permissions on my folders. Microsoft has been the worst builders of an operating system than Ubuntu. Ubuntu Linux beats any Microsoft Operating system hands down. Microsoft SUX. That Malware bug that was sent and targeting Malwarebytes machines and servers can easily be sent anywhere else. Oh...and by the way guys, This Malware bug, Cannot be stopped by any antivirus, any anti malware or anti spyware software at all. Say good bye to all your hard work MS. Where is anonymous? Oh yeah.....got em.............
Good luck trying to trick a DOS user into clicking a link or finding holes in DOS's (inexistant) network stack.
There are TCP stacks available for DOS, and network enabled applications.
One of them was a multitasking shell for DOS named Windows for workgroups.
There were also Netware IPX networking drivers that could be loaded by config.sys
Furthermore, LANMAN protocol might be used for file sharing purposes on the DOS workstation, in order to access data files stored on shared network servers.
DOS malware/trojan payload might be inserted into the datafiles, being used with the DOS based application
Oh, they say that every year!
Don't they wish...
Sorry but, such things tend not to work when you upgrade Windows and/or Exchange either. Getting ODBC calls to work properly on any 64-bit Windows is a pain in the ass. Especially since the 64-bit ODBC driver is in the 32-bit directory and vise-versa. That was fun to figure out! It took custom scripting, including registry hacks, to modify the vendor install of the application we were using.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
They developed the Static Driver Verifier [microsoft.com], which uses proof of correctness techniques to insure that drivers won't crash the operating system
I find that hard to belive. Afaict in most PCs, PCI(e) devices have the ability to DMA to anywhere in memory. How is the static driver verifier going to know what the commands sent to the device are going to make the device do to the bus?
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Let's break that off and assume for the purpose of discussion we are OK with the idea that all iOS development happens in OSX.
As long as you're willing to add the cost of a Mac to the list price of the first year of a developer license, resulting in $748 for the first year and $99 for additional years, I'm OK with that.
One thing I'd strongly support is iTunes being able to create provisioning files for an iOS device directly connected. I think that would allow low end amateurs to write their own software on their own iOS devices without undermining the security system.
Agreed 100 percent. If provisioning over USB must be repeated after each power cycle, that's not too different from what the hacking community calls a tethered jailbreak. I guess Apple left out this feature in order to discourage third parties from building app stores around such temporary USB provisioning.
Apple has used the analogy of trucks vs. cars for where they want to go. Some people need to own trucks. Some people can own a car and only sometimes use a truck.
To continue this analogy, some fanboys of iOS and video game consoles are under the impression that truck operation should be strictly licensed, and one would need to first do an apprenticeship for several years at a company that uses trucks and then start your own company in order to become eligible for your company to buy a truck. This analogy happens to fit fairly well in the field of tractor-trailers, whose operation requires a commercial driver's license because motor vehicles are deadly weapons in untrained hands. But there also exist light trucks that aren't any harder to operate than a passenger car, and some of these (SUVs) are designed for easy conversion between car mode and truck mode.
I don't currently own a car or a truck, so I'd appreciate some clarification on this: How easy is it to "only sometimes use a truck"? I was under the impression that renting a pickup truck to carry in a gasoline-powered lawn mower for an annual tune-up and then renting it again to carry it home could exceed the cost of the tune-up. And how easy is it to "only sometimes use a computer", especially if you'd need to install an application?
The Warranty Act reduces "void if product is used with an unlicensed part" clauses in consumer product warranties to "void if product is damaged by an unlicensed part". The DMCA, on the other hand, is interpreted such that the adapters needed to connect an unlicensed part to a device circumvent a technical protection measure on the device's copyrighted firmware.
I used to work for a medical equipment manufacturer. We actually made servers, desktops, and laptops designed to connect to and control medical imaging equipment. As you may know, it takes YEARS to certify medical equipment and the things that connect to them. We actually had an inside joke that if HP quit making our printer, we'd have to insert its replacement into patients for 7 years of testing. Not far off. We HAVE to be able to prove to the FDA that a change in our Hardware, Software, or Peripherals do not adversely affect the function of the medical device and that the OUTPUT FROM the Hardware, Software, and Peripherals are EXACTLY the same. It takes 2 years to get an incremental IMPROVEMENT to the SOFTWARE approved. A change in OS--They MIGHT be finally finishing up the move to WIndows 7 now.(We had special permission from M$ and the EU to buy XP-Pro from a M$ division in Switzerland) And since we ship to Europe--GOTTA DO IT TWICE! (Asia & South America are pretty trusting--Africa's just happy to get medical equipment).
I'm SURE Medical Software companies could find SOME commercial linux company like RedHat to lock down an OS for them.
Like Vista to Windows 7, Windows 8 to Windows 9
Or against a guy with a tank and an RPG...
Both are very expensive and easily noticed by the public.
The defense method against those is the police and local guard units; regardless of whether the computer is running Windows '95 or a modern network connected OS.