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Microsoft's Attempt To Convert Users From Windows XP Backfires
MojoKid writes "Microsoft has been loudly and insistently banging a drum: All support and service for Windows XP and Office 2003 shuts down on April 8. In early February, faced with a slight uptick in users on the decrepit operating system the month before, Microsoft hit on an idea: Why not recruit tech-savvy friends and family to tell old holdouts to get off XP? The response ... was a torrent of abuse from Windows 8 users who aren't exactly thrilled with the operating system. Microsoft has come under serious fire for some significant missteps in this process, including a total lack of actual upgrade options. What Microsoft calls an upgrade involves completely wiping the PC and reinstalling a fresh OS copy on it — or ideally, buying a new device. Microsoft has misjudged how strong its relationship is with consumers and failed to acknowledge its own shortcomings. Not providing an upgrade utility is one example — but so is the general lack of attractive upgrade prices or even the most basic understanding of why users haven't upgraded. Microsoft's right to kill XP is unquestioned, but the company appears to have no insight into why its customers continue to use the OS. "
...to a Mac mini for $599 with the latest OSX.
FUCK YOU!!!
Not to mention the fact that upgrading from any computer old enough to have come with XP to Windows 8 is highly unlikely. You will almost certainly have to buy new hardware along with that expensive software.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
People keep using XP because it works just fine.
There's nothing wrong with it. Why would we change?
If it aint broken, why fix it?
Save Windows XP!!
Anyone who I have known who wanted to buy a new computer, I have told them to make sure they get windows 7. Those people have been pretty ok. If Microsoft wasn't trying to kill their good product (Win 7) by pushing everyone to Win 8, they'd be fine.
To DEBIAN, bitches!!
You may want to take a seat, this may be a bit of a shock to you; this is a website about technology. Perhaps surprisingly, the desktop many of us have to support counts as "technology". Therefore, the company behind the OS on these desktops gets attention. More so when they make as many boneheaded moves as MS has over the past several years.
For a while there, MS was doing "OK". Windows 7 was decent ( even though they moved shit around on me and broke some functionality that was useful to admins in xp...but I digress ), security was 1000% better than it used to be. They were really picking up steam, especially after vista.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
While it's true that /. has a long history of MS-hating, I'm even more disturbed by the fact that Apple still seems all-too-often to get a free pass around here. Apple has, IMHO, *WAY* surpassed MS in the "evil empire" category. MS, even at it's most arrogant and heavy-handed, never tried to construct a walled garden around its OS's and forbid users from loading 3rd-party software that they didn't approve of. Apple has not only done that, but it's become their trademark.
There are loads of people on /. who are still blasting MS for putting a fucking their own web browser in their OS back in the 90's. But when Apple not only puts their own web browser in their OS, *BUT FORBIDS INSTALLING ANY OTHER THIRD-PARTY BROWSER*, everyone just shrugs their shoulders and talks about how great a guy Steve Jobs was.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
They should just roll back to Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and start from there. It's bloody good, and all this is a bloody shame. They were just getting good and learning from the UNIX crowd about security and user space. Aero is gorgeous and efficient. And they threw all the best bits I got excited about in the bin - and no I didn't get excited about Vista - 7 runs better on anything that runs Vista.
I've posted before about this calamity that is removing Windows 7 from the shelves for this 8 nonsense.
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really?
i HIGHLY doubt this...the people i know running XP on old hardware are totally clueless about linux...all they really use the machines for is browsing, email, and perhaps an application here n there.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
For the average user XP is generally good enough. They want a browser, maybe an older copy of Word, and the ability to print. That is about it. So if you have something that works and is good enough then why would anyone change. I know people will apples who have asked me which version of Windows they are running and people with Windows who ask me to "install apple". So explaining to these people the nuanced differences between XP, Vista, 7, 8, or 8.1 (or even Mac OS X) is nearly impossible.
.docx files sent to them) so what killer feature does a newer OS have? Generally the only killer feature is that older applications are starting to not work with XP and thus it is a new meaning to killer feature but that is just abusive to the consumer not a positive reason. I can sort of see why MS tried Metro in that they were trying to make something new. The reality is that the new operating systems don't do anything new. They have these huge CPUs and massive GPUs and all they do is slightly slicker movements of the same old interfaces. How about some AI. How about an AI word processor that you give it 5 samples plus your new content and it coughs together a damn good document that might need one quick sanity check? That would set sales records.
Also these people typically will budget 100% of the technology budget to getting a better mobile device. So they aren't upgrading their hardware which is often a 6 year old laptop with a battery good for 5 minutes and they are happy with it.
I recently upgraded my Mac OS X to Mavericks only because I needed the latest copy of XCode and it wouldn't run on my two version behind OS and I am a programmer. I won't argue that Mavericks isn't better than its predecessors but if a fairly hard core user such as myself can't be bothered to upgrade unless forced how on earth can you convince Granny?
A great example of just how odd people's priorities can be would be with my mother. I switched her from an Old Ubuntu to the latest and her number one gripe was that her icons moved a bit; she didn't not appreciate any of the many benefits of the far newer OS such as stability or speed. Apple does have the upgrade system set up to be fairly painless with a low chance of changing things like the positioning of icons so that shows some awareness of the consumer.
But where I am leading with all this is that if MS wants people to upgrade they need to make a more compelling case. Most people would be happy with Word 97 and Windows XP (except when they got
I remember back in the early 90s when most C++ programmers used Borland. Everyone wanted to get into Windows programming but even Hello World was a pain in the ass. Borland had this stupid OWL system. Then a new thing Visual Studio 1.0 came out with a few templates and then this MFC thing that made you look like a programming superstar. Within a year I didn't know a single person still using Borland C++. That was a compelling feature. The same with Word Perfect. Word was an interesting product but it wasn't until you really needed Wysiwyg for laser printers(and other new not dotmatrix printers) that everyone made the leap into Windows and Word. Almost overnight Word Perfect for DOS just wasn't the cool thing.
So where I made the switch to Mac was because it was BSD based and very similar to the linux environment where I deploy my applications. Plus for iOS app development there is no other choice. Those are compelling reasons. What positive compelling reason does anyone have to switch from XP that doesn't require a technically nuanced discussion?
Microsoft's right to kill XP is unquestioned
Well, I'll question it. XP, like it or not, is a major part of America's IT infrastructure. Why should one private company have the right to unilaterally declare this kind of planned obsolescence?
If we had sane copyright laws, this wouldn't be an issue – Microsoft would have been required to put the source code in escrow back when XP was first released, and after 5-10 years (i.e. by now) it would automatically become open source. But since we instead have copyright laws bought by Mickey Mouse, there would have to be another way to achieve this. Perhaps one or more governments could use eminent domain to seize XP, then make it open source and fund its maintenance. Not only would that do a great deal of good for the computing public, but it would also light a fire under Microsoft – they would have to compete with free versions of their old OS, and would have an even harder time trying to shove Windows 8 down all our throats.
I'll go a step further - I prefer Office 2003 to 2010. I've been using the "ribbon" for a few years now, and it still sucks.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
As well they shouldn't. Having to relearn something you already know how to do is dead, wasted time. By itself it serves no purpose. Forcing people to relearn things is only justified if it is inextricably tied to making those things better, which, alas, too often it is only in the developer's mind.
XP is over 12 years old, that's one hell of a *free* long term support package. Is there any other OS available that has a 12 year support lifecycle? Ubuntu's LTS releases have a 5 year support cycle, Apple doesn't have a published official policy for OSX but it's about 4 years on average. RHEL comes the closest I can find at between 10 & 13 years depending on the version, but you have to pay for that so it's not directly comparable.
XP has had a pretty good run of it, all things considered and if Windows 8 wasn't such a PR mess, this "forced" upgrade would probably a lot less contentious.
But there's a gotcha.. I upgrade to 8.1 via Windows 8. The first step from Windows XP to 8 ran pretty smoothly, all of my data from the XP installation was moved to a folder called windows.old where it could be recovered from by someone with a basic understanding of PCs. All well and good, but the obvious next step was to upgrade to Windows 8.1.. a bit trickier as you can't do that without installing KB2871389 first (either through Windows Update or manually). The Windows 8.1 download is enormous, 3GB+ but it installs smoothly enough.
The catch? Well, upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 8 creates the windows.old folder with the old data in. Upgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 DELETES that folder and creates a new one with the old Windows 8 settings.. obliterating your original data from the Windows XP installation.
Well, that wasn't a problem for me as I'd backed up everything onto another drive which I unplugged to be on the safe side. But it wasn't what I was expecting to happen *at all*.. and you can see that a less paranoid customer (or one without a suitable backup disk) could well lose everything if going from XP to 8 to 8.1. And I do notice that there doesn't seem to be a Windows 8.1 Upgrade version available anywhere, so this is the path that a lot of people would take..
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
I know it's shooting fish in a barrel... with a shotgun... and they're already dead... but:
Look to OS X on how updates are done right. Why does MS always steal the somewhat-nice parts from Apple and never the really cool ones?
Upgrade OS on the same machine: Insert disc or download image. Click installer. Wait. Reboot. Done. All your data and configuration is intact, down to the desktop background and even the applications you had running will be open again after the reboot.
Move to a new machine: Get new computer. Turn on. It asks if you want to copy your stuff over from an old machine, so say yes. Connect (WLAN, cable, whatever). Wait. Done. New machine looks exactly like the old one, including all your applications, data and configuration.
So, it is technologically possible. Makes you wonder why one of the biggest IT companies on the planet is incapable of doing it this way.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
My niece came to me crying because her Windows 7 PC was reinstalling its video driver every other day, the sound didn't work half the time. It wouldn't boot sometimes. One day it just died. Wouldn't boot. I did not have a Windows 7 license around, and she couldn't do her homework. To allow her to do her homework, I put Linux Mint on it. Installed Libre Office, Skype, and a handful of teen related things she might want. I figured after a few days we would have to sort her out. and find a Windows to install.
That was a year and a half ago. You would have to pry that machine out of her cold dead hands. No viruses, no crashes, battery lasts longer than it EVER did running Windows. Her Videos work, her music works, Libre Office works. She wants nothing at all to do with Windows. She says Mint is perfect. everything works, it's responsive and nothing she needs to do is missing. She can find a tool in Linux to do anything she needs, and most of it is as good as the Windows version. I asked her the other day if she misses windows... She said she misses Windows at least as much as cancer.