Why use XP? Think about the Enterprise, with hundreds or thousands of machines in different departments. Applications that have not been updated to work with later tech, such as JInitiator (requires Jedi hacking to work on x64), websites that may only work with IE 6 or 7, in-house batch files / scripts, compatibility with older servers, and so on.
Training isn't much where I'm at - people can barely report what OS they work on ("Do you see the word 'Start' at the lower-left, or a circle?") and most just clickity-click on whatever app they need to run. Outlook, Office, and IE are more like an OS to them.
Sometimes it is just as simple as plopping the new OS on, USMT, map the drives, and done. But in a varied environment it gets somewhat hairier, with infinite support calls. Better to wait either until the 3rd parties catch up or until you can implement workarounds and research fixes and alternatives.
You are correct. Guess I don't know much about Enterprise. But there are legacy apps and web pages that only run on certain OS's or flavors of IE. So about the time we get to Windows 9 they might change to 7??? J/K. Understand now the difficulties. And did not know MS supported XP until 2014.
Security issues with Windows are not new. IT teams have been managing XP's foibles for a decade now. It's not like Vista/7 suddenly lifted the bar enough that they can reduce their efforts either.
The new OS doesn't do anything to improve productivity otherwise, so may as well not change.
I guess you are correct. They need a cogent reason to make the switch and pay the extra licensing fees. I do like the file handling in 7 better and it is faster. But a large part of the slowness at work is network-related, not OS related.
I usually go by the rule of threes for Microsoft. It's usually their third attempt at things that succeeds. Windows 3.0 was the first one that made traction. NT 4 was the third version of NT (3.1, 3.5x, 4.0) and the first that really got great traction. 98 SE was the third 9x and probably the best. XP SP2 was the third version of XP and where they finally got it right. It breaks down after that, I suppose, though you could sort of go with XP-Vista-7 in NT-based consumer OSes?
Incidentally, sometimes I wonder if I'm the only geek that never had major trouble with 95 (or at least, no more trouble than later 9x versions). It was a huge upgrade from 3.1 in almost every way.
Looking at it again, perhaps u r right. Did not know 3.1 was part of NT. NT 4 was also Windows 2000? Never used Windows 95 - skipped by it to 98. It crashed sometimes but not near as much as 3.1. Thanks for your insight.
There are "strict" obligations and then there are practical obligations.
MSFT's Windows lock-in with the manufacturers means that you'll buy Windows if you buy a pre-built computer from anyone except tiny Linux shops. Or Apple.
Windows is next. These things take time. What do I mean? I'll answer the summary's question.
What implications does this have for the future of Microsoft?
That karma is very, very real and eventually even fat stupid Americans catch on and figure out that you're abusing them. It just takes them a long time. Anyone with a fully developed conscience stopped giving Microsoft money 15 years ago when they realized what they would have been funding. The rest care about only their own convenience and jump ship when an alternative is obviously superior. One way or another the result is inevitable.
So what will these "fat stupid Americans" switch to? Linux? Or will Apple start selling machines at a reasonable price and achieve larger market share? Something else I am not aware of? Curious to know.
Well enough on the home-user front. Not so well in the Enterprise, which is why my 2yo corporate laptop runs XP Pro.
But why is that? I work for the police department and they too are still using XP PRO. That has security holes u can drive a truck thru and MS has ended support. So why use it? Is it the price of new licenses or the fact of retraining for some users?
I agree. It seems, uniformly, that every OTHER version of Windows sucks, and the next is great. Windows 3.1 - great. Windows 95 - buggy. Windows 98 = great. Windows 2000 (or NT) = iffy. Skipping on, Vista = sucks hind titty. Windows 7 = love it. So Windows 8 will suck and many say it does from the reviews I have read. Not all are ready for just tablets or phones. They don't have the processing power some need.
I too love it when the "Standard Model" gets broken. It is held together by duct tape and Gorilla Glue as it is. Too many particles with no explanation why they should have this mass or spin, or whatever. No predictions, just observations. Like M-Theory better, but understand it is weak these days as well. That being said, I hope the physicists eventually DO come up with a new theory of Everything. BTW... LOVE your sig!
In response:
1. True, it IS possible for some idiot like Bush Jr to hijack the govt and do bad, stupid things.
2. The Wikileaks cable leak only reveals what was always true - no one trusts anyone, least of all supposed allies. Every nation acts in their own interests, always, no matter what they say diplomatically.
3. Share the technology? What's to share? It has been around for years. Just electromagnets and metal. Anyone who wants to can duplicate it. The railgun is bulky and hard to deploy. As a SPACE-BASED weapon it would be effective as an effective anti-missle defense, but space-based weaponry is, rightly, banned.
I agree with child porn being a crime. It is NOT victimless. The children are victims. As for murder, theft and rape, child abuse: they are illegal because the harm others - they have victims.
Maybe some moral issues ARE legislated. Doesn't mean they should be.
There is one thing that would be a "stop gap", at least for transportation. That is Natural Gas or methane. Same as from the algae, but already existing and much cheaper. The USA has trillions of cubic feet of this gas. Even though the CO2 emissions are still there, they are MUCH less. And a conventional automobile engine can be converted easily to run on gas. The main problem - infrastructure. In my hometown the local gas company runs its entire fleet of trucks on methane. But the filling station there is about the only one in the state. With some time, money and effort, that could change.
Even methane plants are better than coal. Less emissions.
The other "up side" is less dependence on rogue governments for out oil.
In fact, the one failure resulted in the situation being no worse than it was. As for the "powers that be", they know many voters would have issue with it. For all the wrong reasons. But there is no reason to tell anybody until it is tried. The results would only be seen by people with a few miles of the site. A big upwelling of water, like the old depth charges of WWII only MUCH bigger.
During the 1960's the USA and other nations conducted underwater tests with HUGE bombs, to no ill effects. The radiation is absorbed.
In the earlier discussion on Slashdot a couple of weeks back the MOAB option was discussed (and dismissed) for very simple reason. The MOAB if a fuel bomb, and as such needs oxygen to work.
Sure, "top kill" and "top hats" have risks. However, a caldera is not an associated risk, as it would be with a nuclear weapon. I dismiss cures with extinction as a side effect as well.
Are you serious? Do you know nothing of physics? You should if you are on Slashdot. It would take a 20 megaton hydrogen bomb to create a "caldera", and even if it did, with the thousands of atmospheres of pressure and icy cold temperatures a mile down, it would "freeze" the magma instantly.
These are not 20 megaton "cobalt" planet busters. The Russians used very small bombs, just enough to do the job, around 20-30 kilotons. The Heroshima bomb was about 19 kilotons, for comparison. The bomb is detonated ABOVE the wellhead. The force shatters the surrounding rock and plugs the leak.
The problem would be that if the United States - the self-appointed benchmark of responsible nuclear weapon policy - demonstrated a peaceful use for nuclear detonations, it would punch a major hole in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which supports non-proliferation of nuclear weapons AND the right to peacefully use nuclear technology. You'd have North Korea arguing it wants to use nuclear detonations for excavation, that sort of thing.
In short, "in a pig's eye". Using the bomb in this way IS a PEACEFUL use of nuclear energy. If necessary, the use would happen after a meeting with the IAEA, to make sure all safety conditions are met. As for North Korea, a) they don't have a working bomb yet. If they did they would have done a test to put a feather in their cap, and b) the whole world would cut them off. They are almost there already. That would put them over the edge.
Absolutely a country has the moral right to decide that it's citizens are not allowed to see porn just like it has the moral right to make any other decision to protect and provide for it's citizens. That's the very definition of government. Just because you disagree with the decision does not make it immoral.
I could not disagree more. NO government has a right to make "moral" decisions for me or anyone else. Porn is victimless. It harms no one, even those to whom porn is disgusting suffer no hard in looking at it, willingly or not. Censorship is in no way the "very definition of government.
If there was a.xxx domain I'm sure there are more than a few countries that would consider a nationwide block. I'm not saying I agree with it but it's not immoral for a country to attempt to do it.
Sure they would. It would not be right, but is technically feasible. Better to allow a mechanism for individual to decide if they want ".xxx" domains blocked - like changing the Google search to "resticted" vice "off" in viewing images.
I'm going to assume you're an American and suggest you peek outside the borders of your country and you'll see that there are many different shades of morality around the world.
From what I hear and know first-hand, if anything Europe is much looser in this regard. Asia is pretty conservative and restrictive - although there are exceptions (Japan). In any event, morality should not and cannot be legislated.
Slashdot Mirror
XP will receive security updates until April 8, 2014. Windows 7 until January 14, 2020.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/products/lifecycle
Why use XP? Think about the Enterprise, with hundreds or thousands of machines in different departments. Applications that have not been updated to work with later tech, such as JInitiator (requires Jedi hacking to work on x64), websites that may only work with IE 6 or 7, in-house batch files / scripts, compatibility with older servers, and so on.
Training isn't much where I'm at - people can barely report what OS they work on ("Do you see the word 'Start' at the lower-left, or a circle?") and most just clickity-click on whatever app they need to run. Outlook, Office, and IE are more like an OS to them.
Sometimes it is just as simple as plopping the new OS on, USMT, map the drives, and done. But in a varied environment it gets somewhat hairier, with infinite support calls. Better to wait either until the 3rd parties catch up or until you can implement workarounds and research fixes and alternatives.
You are correct. Guess I don't know much about Enterprise. But there are legacy apps and web pages that only run on certain OS's or flavors of IE. So about the time we get to Windows 9 they might change to 7??? J/K. Understand now the difficulties. And did not know MS supported XP until 2014.
I am still waiting for all the games I like to run on Apple or Linux. I think I still have to wait a very long time for that.
Amen Brother
So why use it?
Why not use it?
Security issues with Windows are not new. IT teams have been managing XP's foibles for a decade now. It's not like Vista/7 suddenly lifted the bar enough that they can reduce their efforts either.
The new OS doesn't do anything to improve productivity otherwise, so may as well not change.
I guess you are correct. They need a cogent reason to make the switch and pay the extra licensing fees. I do like the file handling in 7 better and it is faster. But a large part of the slowness at work is network-related, not OS related.
I usually go by the rule of threes for Microsoft. It's usually their third attempt at things that succeeds. Windows 3.0 was the first one that made traction. NT 4 was the third version of NT (3.1, 3.5x, 4.0) and the first that really got great traction. 98 SE was the third 9x and probably the best. XP SP2 was the third version of XP and where they finally got it right. It breaks down after that, I suppose, though you could sort of go with XP-Vista-7 in NT-based consumer OSes?
Incidentally, sometimes I wonder if I'm the only geek that never had major trouble with 95 (or at least, no more trouble than later 9x versions). It was a huge upgrade from 3.1 in almost every way.
Looking at it again, perhaps u r right. Did not know 3.1 was part of NT. NT 4 was also Windows 2000? Never used Windows 95 - skipped by it to 98. It crashed sometimes but not near as much as 3.1. Thanks for your insight.
oh come on, mod this one up
agreed
No one is obliged to buy windows 8
There are "strict" obligations and then there are practical obligations.
MSFT's Windows lock-in with the manufacturers means that you'll buy Windows if you buy a pre-built computer from anyone except tiny Linux shops. Or Apple.
Windows is next. These things take time. What do I mean? I'll answer the summary's question.
What implications does this have for the future of Microsoft?
That karma is very, very real and eventually even fat stupid Americans catch on and figure out that you're abusing them. It just takes them a long time. Anyone with a fully developed conscience stopped giving Microsoft money 15 years ago when they realized what they would have been funding. The rest care about only their own convenience and jump ship when an alternative is obviously superior. One way or another the result is inevitable.
So what will these "fat stupid Americans" switch to? Linux? Or will Apple start selling machines at a reasonable price and achieve larger market share? Something else I am not aware of? Curious to know.
Well enough on the home-user front. Not so well in the Enterprise, which is why my 2yo corporate laptop runs XP Pro.
But why is that? I work for the police department and they too are still using XP PRO. That has security holes u can drive a truck thru and MS has ended support. So why use it? Is it the price of new licenses or the fact of retraining for some users?
I agree. It seems, uniformly, that every OTHER version of Windows sucks, and the next is great. Windows 3.1 - great. Windows 95 - buggy. Windows 98 = great. Windows 2000 (or NT) = iffy. Skipping on, Vista = sucks hind titty. Windows 7 = love it. So Windows 8 will suck and many say it does from the reviews I have read. Not all are ready for just tablets or phones. They don't have the processing power some need.
I too love it when the "Standard Model" gets broken. It is held together by duct tape and Gorilla Glue as it is. Too many particles with no explanation why they should have this mass or spin, or whatever. No predictions, just observations. Like M-Theory better, but understand it is weak these days as well. That being said, I hope the physicists eventually DO come up with a new theory of Everything. BTW ... LOVE your sig!
U should b getting an upgrade for funny or even creativity.
Man powers car on ethanol, forgive me if I am less than impressed.
Dirty ethanol at that. Perhaps it will get some badly-needed funds for KY.
You should get upgraded to at least TWO for FUNNY!
Linux is just stolen code from Unix.
True enough.
In response: 1. True, it IS possible for some idiot like Bush Jr to hijack the govt and do bad, stupid things. 2. The Wikileaks cable leak only reveals what was always true - no one trusts anyone, least of all supposed allies. Every nation acts in their own interests, always, no matter what they say diplomatically. 3. Share the technology? What's to share? It has been around for years. Just electromagnets and metal. Anyone who wants to can duplicate it. The railgun is bulky and hard to deploy. As a SPACE-BASED weapon it would be effective as an effective anti-missle defense, but space-based weaponry is, rightly, banned.
I agree with child porn being a crime. It is NOT victimless. The children are victims. As for murder, theft and rape, child abuse: they are illegal because the harm others - they have victims. Maybe some moral issues ARE legislated. Doesn't mean they should be.
There is one thing that would be a "stop gap", at least for transportation. That is Natural Gas or methane. Same as from the algae, but already existing and much cheaper. The USA has trillions of cubic feet of this gas. Even though the CO2 emissions are still there, they are MUCH less. And a conventional automobile engine can be converted easily to run on gas. The main problem - infrastructure. In my hometown the local gas company runs its entire fleet of trucks on methane. But the filling station there is about the only one in the state. With some time, money and effort, that could change. Even methane plants are better than coal. Less emissions. The other "up side" is less dependence on rogue governments for out oil.
In fact, the one failure resulted in the situation being no worse than it was. As for the "powers that be", they know many voters would have issue with it. For all the wrong reasons. But there is no reason to tell anybody until it is tried. The results would only be seen by people with a few miles of the site. A big upwelling of water, like the old depth charges of WWII only MUCH bigger. During the 1960's the USA and other nations conducted underwater tests with HUGE bombs, to no ill effects. The radiation is absorbed.
In the earlier discussion on Slashdot a couple of weeks back the MOAB option was discussed (and dismissed) for very simple reason. The MOAB if a fuel bomb, and as such needs oxygen to work.
Sure, "top kill" and "top hats" have risks. However, a caldera is not an associated risk, as it would be with a nuclear weapon. I dismiss cures with extinction as a side effect as well.
Are you serious? Do you know nothing of physics? You should if you are on Slashdot. It would take a 20 megaton hydrogen bomb to create a "caldera", and even if it did, with the thousands of atmospheres of pressure and icy cold temperatures a mile down, it would "freeze" the magma instantly.
These are not 20 megaton "cobalt" planet busters. The Russians used very small bombs, just enough to do the job, around 20-30 kilotons. The Heroshima bomb was about 19 kilotons, for comparison. The bomb is detonated ABOVE the wellhead. The force shatters the surrounding rock and plugs the leak.
Here is one.
+2. Where are the mod points when you need 'em?
Too cost intensive and would take too much time. Nuclear option as the Russians have tried accomplishes this in a fraction of the time and money.
The problem would be that if the United States - the self-appointed benchmark of responsible nuclear weapon policy - demonstrated a peaceful use for nuclear detonations, it would punch a major hole in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which supports non-proliferation of nuclear weapons AND the right to peacefully use nuclear technology. You'd have North Korea arguing it wants to use nuclear detonations for excavation, that sort of thing.
In short, "in a pig's eye". Using the bomb in this way IS a PEACEFUL use of nuclear energy. If necessary, the use would happen after a meeting with the IAEA, to make sure all safety conditions are met. As for North Korea, a) they don't have a working bomb yet. If they did they would have done a test to put a feather in their cap, and b) the whole world would cut them off. They are almost there already. That would put them over the edge.
Absolutely a country has the moral right to decide that it's citizens are not allowed to see porn just like it has the moral right to make any other decision to protect and provide for it's citizens. That's the very definition of government. Just because you disagree with the decision does not make it immoral.
I could not disagree more. NO government has a right to make "moral" decisions for me or anyone else. Porn is victimless. It harms no one, even those to whom porn is disgusting suffer no hard in looking at it, willingly or not. Censorship is in no way the "very definition of government.
If there was a .xxx domain I'm sure there are more than a few countries that would consider a nationwide block. I'm not saying I agree with it but it's not immoral for a country to attempt to do it.
Sure they would. It would not be right, but is technically feasible. Better to allow a mechanism for individual to decide if they want ".xxx" domains blocked - like changing the Google search to "resticted" vice "off" in viewing images.
I'm going to assume you're an American and suggest you peek outside the borders of your country and you'll see that there are many different shades of morality around the world.
From what I hear and know first-hand, if anything Europe is much looser in this regard. Asia is pretty conservative and restrictive - although there are exceptions (Japan). In any event, morality should not and cannot be legislated.