Microsoft Ending Mainstream Support For XP 580
Slatterz writes "Come next week, Microsoft will be in the unusual position of no longer offering mainstream support for its most widely used product. Windows XP will pass another milestone next week on the road to retirement when mainstream support ends on 14 April 2009, over seven years after the OS originally shipped. While the company said that it will continue to provide free security fixes for XP until 2014, any future bugs found in the platform will not be fixed unless customers pay. Windows XP accounts for about 63 percent of all Internet-connected computers, according to March 2009 statistics from Hitslink, while Windows Vista makes up about 24 percent."
ok.. so where is it? (Score:5, Funny)
I went to microsoft.com and looked around- I did not find the "donate now" button anywhere
how exactly are we supposed to pay?
Re:ok.. so where is it? (Score:5, Funny)
how exactly are we supposed to pay?
I'm not sure how the whole process works but I'm guessing that it involves bending over at some point.....
Re: (Score:2)
Re:ok.. so where is it? (Score:5, Funny)
Damn. I knew using Open Office would backfire on me one day.
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Re:ok.. so where is it? (Score:4, Funny)
Its a good thing that the devil has infinite patience.
Re:ok.. so where is it? (Score:5, Interesting)
how exactly are we supposed to pay? ;)
Through the nose
Seriously you buy a volume license and then buy the extended hotfix agreement through your volume license account. You also have to pay for the individual fixes on top of that. MS don't seem to show prices on thier website but I doubt it is cheap.
Re:ok.. so where is it? (Score:4, Insightful)
MS don't seem to show prices on thier website but I doubt it is cheap.
If you have to ask you can't afford it
Re:ok.. so where is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously you buy a volume license and then buy the extended hotfix agreement through your volume license account. You also have to pay for the individual fixes on top of that. MS don't seem to show prices on thier website but I doubt it is cheap.
The most interesting comparison, of course, would be how it compares to hiring J. Random Linux Hacker to work on $OLD_DISTRO.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Migrating to a different distro is typically much easier, and cheaper. I worked on a machine in 2008 that was a version of RHEL from 1999. I made a full system backup to a separate partition on the same disk, migrated it to CentOS, cleaned up dependencies, rebooted into a new kernel, then ran yum to update CentOS. After that, it was just a matter of time taken to download updates for each release up.
It really involves a bit of research, I spent about 2 hours reading release notes before actually starting
Only ONE good year of Windows XP (Score:5, Interesting)
The Slashdot story is excessively pro-Microsoft, in my opinion. Quoting the Slashdot story: "... over seven years after the OS originally shipped..." That gives a much more positive impression than is warranted, in my opinion.
Windows XP had very serious problems until the release of Service Pack 2. So Windows XP release version is only 4 1/2 years old [microsoft.com].
Service Pack 3 fixed many, many, many bugs that Microsoft itself called "critical". So the final, fully usable version of Windows XP has been available less than a year [microsoft.com]. A year of good use is not much in return for 6 years of numerous cases of grief and hassles and huge maintenance expense.
Vista was an attempt to get people to abandon Windows XP. Vista was first released about two years ago.
So, one version of the Windows product, Windows XP, was not fully finished until more than a year after the next version, Windows Vista, was first sold, although Windows Vista was so unfinished that it was rejected in the marketplace.
When the version of Windows called Windows 7 is released, many people will be buying their third version of the Windows OS in only two years, even though one of the versions, Vista, was never finished.
That's product churning.
Sooner or later the average buyer will realize that they don't need Microsoft's pushy "upgrades", which all must use much more CPU power, because Microsoft's real customers, the big computer hardware manufacturers, want everyone to buy new hardware. Microsoft is trying to continue creating an artificial market, and the average buyer is becoming more aware of that.
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Service Pack 3 fixed many, many, many bugs that Microsoft itself called "critical". So the final, fully usable version of Windows XP...
Is still to come? Its not like SP3 has solved all the bugs. So its not 'final' yet.
Of course, I'm still waiting for the final usable version of Ubuntu come out too. They've been fixing critical bugs and releasing new alliterations every few months for years now.
At the end of the day, windows software has evolved over time, and the distinction between version numbers, which r
Re:Only ONE good year of Windows XP (Score:4, Insightful)
+4, Interesting... Wait, What??? That nonsense gets modded +4, Interesting??? Only on slashdot man, only on slashdot.. Let me tell you how it actually works:
The Slashdot story is excessively pro-Microsoft
The tone of an MS article doesn't matter. They're 95% negative, sometimes they're full-on FUD, and sometimes they're just anti-MS pr0n, but in any case they're just there to induce mass hysteria and foaming at the mouth. People (sorry, sheep) just need to be reminded who their enemy is from time to time.
Windows XP release version is only 4 1/2 years old
Maybe I should show you a sales chart of the 3 years you're missing. What do you think people thought they were buying? Do you think they were clamoring for ME or 98 over XP? Try to recall what the state of the art was at that time. Try to recall even what state linux was in at that time, and the fact that MacOS had just finished dying and OS-X had just recently been born. Recall that Firefox wasn't even Phoenix at that time (and Mozilla was still a bloated beast with all the cruft from Netscape still in it). At launch, XP's only legitimate competitor was Windows 2000 -- unless you're on slashdot, in which case Win2k was a dismal failure as well.
Service Pack 3 fixed many, many, many bugs that Microsoft itself called "critical". So the final, fully usable version of Windows XP has been available less than a year
SP3 mostly contained a "roll-up" of critical patches that anybody with an updated system would already have. Pretty good customer service, if you ask me.
Vista was an attempt to get people to abandon Windows XP
Vista was the simply next step in Window's evolution. Show me some software that does not participate in the cycle of continuous improvement/evolution and I'll show you obsolete software (perhaps I'll even show you a company that's out of business).
Vista, was never finished.
By what yardstick? If you're using your non-sequitur logic about critical updates, then by that yardstick there has never been a finished version of windows or linux or any OS for that matter. Maybe BeOS or OS/2 are finished OSes by your logic. I'm using ubuntu 8.10 to type this, and I have a red star/asterisk in the system tray area on the top right telling me that I have critical updates available right now. Or at least it would do that if it were finished enough to display a proper toast - instead I just get an icon and no text. No - Vista at launch was light-years ahead of any desktop Linux - and it's only legitimate competitors are XP and OS-X, and Windows 7 when it comes out.
Re:Only ONE good year of Windows XP (Score:5, Informative)
And Microsoft thinks it is OK to discontinue support?
Microsoft is still providing support; security updates will be available until sometime in 2014. There is right now one, and only one Linux distribution available today guaranteed to still be supported in 2014: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (and its knock-offs like CentOS)
The things Microsoft is not support is updates Microsoft has been giving XP over the years like giving XP Clear type support, support for WPA2 networks, support for SDHC cards, etc.
New drivers will continue to be available for Microsoft Windows XP for the foreseeable future, it's up to hardware makers to decide when to stop supporting XP.
This, should I point out, is better than the situation with RHEL 5 where new hardware doesn't work since the Linux driver model isn't stable; I tried to install CentOS 5 last week and gave up when I couldn't get drivers for my touchpad (Windows XP, of course, has drivers) nor current stable drivers for my WiFi card (supposedly there are drivers, but the last time I was able to use WiFi with my laptop in CentOS 5, the driver would crash unless I pinged the router every second).
Re:ok.. so where is it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Programming... (Score:5, Insightful)
Make one mistake and support it for the rest of your life.
Unless you are Microsoft, of course.
Why not open it up (Score:5, Interesting)
I wish more companies would start opening up their software once it has run out of life. If Microsoft really thought that XP was no longer going to be good enough for pc's, open it up to the community and let people learn from it and tinker with it.
Oh... wait, it is Microsoft.
Re:Why not open it up (Score:5, Informative)
Because while Vista may have changed quite a bit, I'm sure there's still a lot of XP code in there.
Re:Why not open it up (Score:5, Insightful)
If they did this, their old XP codebase would be competing with new Vista / Vista 2 sales. Given full options, most companies wouldn't open them to the community. Most companies would erase all previous installs, burn all install disks, and sell upgrades left and right.
Also, I severely doubt any commercial project as large as XP has the rights to open all of their code.
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Re:Why not open it up (Score:4, Insightful)
Nonono, you didn't get it. They don't want to stop supporting XP. They want you to buy Vista/Win7. There is no money in supporting systems, there is some in selling you a new one. Not to mention that they certainly don't want another "people refuse to buy $new_ms_system" PR disaster.
In other words, "Yes, you can still get XP. But do you really, really wanna be stuck with a system that's no longer supported, hmmm? Here, look, new and shiny! Buy Win7!"
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I don't think microsofts suppport lifecycle policy for windows is unreasonable. Mainstream support (hotfixes free, bundled support incidents valid) for at least 5 years from release and at least 2 years from release of the successor. Then extended support (security hotfixes free, other hotfixes chargable, bundled support incidents not valid) for at least 5 years from the end of mainstreams support.
They even give you two years to upgrade from one service pack to the next.
Compare that to the support lifecycle
Re:Why not open it up (Score:5, Insightful)
Compare that to the support lifecycles of most linux distros and see who comes out ahead.
Alright. Windows: Pony up $199 for Vista now and Win7 next year, or pay for each separate XP hotfix.
Linux: Free upgrade to either a cutting-edge new distro or a year-old stable distro, free updates of each component from apache to KDE via the package manager of your choice (or you can pay for development of hotfixes as well if that floats your boat).
I think it is pretty clear who comes out ahead.
Re:Why not open it up (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux is only free if you know how to use/maintain it.
Let me put it differently: I didn't have to pay for my OS, but I did spend countless hours learning how to make it work for me. For Windows, most people have already spent that time, and only need a step-up to the new features and annoyances. For Linux, a far larger number are starting from scratch, and let's be honest: Linux help is rare, good help is virtually impossible to find. Google anything and you will find a million forum posts and mailing list aggregators, all repeating the same question with zero answers.
I like my Linux desktop, as a coder it works well for me, but with so many cooks in the kitchen, a lot of stuff can and does go wrong, and the general attitude is "Well, you have the source. FIX IT YOURSELF, LUSER!".
The motivation simply isn't there for the developers and project maintainers, because Linux won't feed your kid or put fuel in your Honda. The free software model has very real limitations, it's amazing that things have gotten this far and continue to evolve, but we're still struggling on some aspects that cannot be solved via technological means.
Re:Why not open it up (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux is only free if you know how to use/maintain it.
And Windows is only $STICKER_PRICE if you know how to use/maintain it. Otherwise, it's much more expensive. So? Whatcherpoint?
the general attitude is "Well, you have the source. FIX IT YOURSELF, LUSER!".
As opposed to the oh-so-helpful Microsoft Support [joke-archives.com]. :)
Granted, the MS "support" may be more polite. Aside from that, I don't see much benefit.
(As a side note, you might want to check out Ubuntu support rather than Gentoo!) :)
The motivation simply isn't there for the developers and project maintainers, because Linux won't feed your kid or put fuel in your Honda.
Except, of course, for the many many many many MANY people for whom it does.
Actually, while I'm picking on some of the more egregious parts of your post, you do raise some valid issues. Support really isn't there for a lot of people yet (although the same can be said for MS). But just like MS, Linux can develop more of its own homegrown support infrastructure--the reason MS isn't a total disaster isn't an 800- phone number that directs to India. The reason is the number of people who more-or-less understand it and help each other. Linux hasn't grown to that point yet, but it's silly to think that it can't or won't. It is, in fact, getting there.
Re:Why not open it up (Score:5, Insightful)
Compare that to the support lifecycles of most linux distros and see who comes out ahead.
When MS gives me the successor of a system I use for free (or at least at a discount) we can start talking.
Re:Why not open it up (Score:5, Informative)
They do already. It's called the "Upgrade Edtition" which, contrary to popular belief *CAN* be used to perform a clean install of the OS, rather than requiring an older version to be installed first.
As can be seen on Microsoft's own website [microsoft.com], the upgrade editions are all discounted $100 from the price of the full (new license) version.
Re:Why not open it up (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why not open it up (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the policy is not unreasonable in general. However, XP is the OS that works, and they have nothing that is better to replace it. And doesn't it take less money to support a solid, familiar OS than it does to support a new, flaky one?
I don't get it. Isn't XP a cash cow?
Does this mean MSFT engineers will no longer "talk users through" the downgrade process.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9040318 [computerworld.com]
re: Is XP a cash cow? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I have a suspicion that with Microsoft's way of viewing their internal accounting, XP is no longer a "cash cow" at all.
I have no proof of this, since I'm not privy to any of their internal workings or memos - but I do see a lot of evidence to back it up.
For example, when you call in to Microsoft to activate a copy of Windows XP by telephone, you usually just reach an automated system with voice recognition capabilities, vs. a live human. You can go through the entire process without ever speaking to a real person. (It actually asks you the famous "questions", like "How many computers is this product installed on?" and "Have there been any major hardware changes to your platform since the last time Windows was installed?", and decides if it will re-activate an existing key based on your responses.)
Microsoft doesn't shuttle off these "anti piracy" measures to automated systems unless they feel it's only to support a "legacy product" that's no longer considered important enough to protect with the "higher level" of protection of interacting with a real customer service person.
I could easily see where their viewpoint might be; We already recouped our costs many times over for the XP product, and most new XP buyers are only buying heavily discounted licenses intended for refurbished machines, OEMs, etc. The money spent on manpower to keep supporting it is now just a net "negative" for us, vs. focusing on Vista and Windows 7, which will command higher retail prices on many licenses sold, and which still need to recoup their development costs ASAP.
Re: Is XP a cash cow? (Score:4, Insightful)
> For example, when you call in to Microsoft to activate a copy of Windows XP by telephone, you
> usually just reach an automated system with voice recognition capabilities, vs. a live human.
Doesn't mean anything. You don't get a human with Vista either. I did it a month ago and got the same robot attendant.
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But.. What about people who bought XP yesterday?
Anyway the support lifecycle of linux distros is way less of a nightmare because under linux it is
Easy to try out new iterations before deploying.
Easy to switch to a different distro.
Easy to work with your old hardware, usually making it faster.
Easy to keep the applications that were working on the previous iteration, and keeping them updated.
Easy to keep the old peripherals since drivers are not binary blobs depending on a vendor which obsoletes stuff intenti
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft's support lifecycle policy was reasonable, when the company stopped selling a given operating system years before its mainstream support ended. But since they were allowing the sale of new computers with Windows XP installed pretty recently, and are still selling new computers with Windows XP install disks, perhaps they should extend the mainstream support a little more as well.
Just Sayin'
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> I don't think microsofts suppport lifecycle policy for windows is unreasonable.
I think it is totally bogus because it measures the time from the wrong start point. It isn't time of release it should be time when sales stopped. I don't give a rats ass when a product was introduced I care about when I bought it and so do you.
Since this is slashdot every argument should include a car analogy. So lets suppose Ford has decided the Mustang has had a good run and announces today they are ceasing all suppor
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This post may sound zealoty but it is to illustrate that once Linux was brought into the comparison, it became apple and oranges.
It sounds like Zealotry because it is. You don't need to spend 300 quid on Vista, because you'll get it with your new PC. Alternatively, you don't need to buy a new PC because you can just buy a Vista upgrade (or OEM) for your existing machine.
You don't need to spend 150 quid on new software, because it's almost certain that it will work fine on Vista.
So an honest comparis
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The vast majority of people buy Windows as an OEM part of their new £300 system. If you're paying full price for the OS, it's highly unlikely you're buying a new computer and vice-versa. And unless you've bought your hardware specifically for Linux (Unlikely if you're migrating from XP)it's at least fairly likely that you'll have to replace some of it when you migrate due to lack of, or partial support.
None of which invalidates your argument completely, it is still very likely to be cheaper to migra
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Also, many software vendors will not even officially support new OS's/IE versions for multiple years after their released.... and if their not supported by the vendor, the business will not willingly jump on board. So it's very likely a business wont even start to deploy the next new OS for 3 years after it's released.
And, then, when you do finally upgrade, it's suicide to try a partial or gradual deployment of a new OS, based on some of my testing.
I ran into an issue where I cannot get printer drivers that are the same name as the drivers installed with XP, even though they are for the same printer. Because of this, I can't serve the driver from the Win 2003 print server machine, unless I have two different printers defined.
This means I can't tell people to connect to "HP LaserJet in room 123", but must tell them "HP L
Re:Why not open it up (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh... wait, it is Microsoft.
And is Apple going to open source OS X 10.4 now that 10.5 is out? Can we criticise them for not doing so?[*]
Don't get me wrong, I agree with the general principle of opening old products that are abandoned by the company. But it would be complete madness for any company to open source one of their major products, one that is still widely used. Working out how to encourage people to upgrade is bad enough of a problem as it is - but open sourcing a discontinued product would create a major new competitor for them.
Yes, we know how the source code for Doom was released just 4 years after Doom's release, but the computer games industry moves much faster, such that in 1997, Doom was no competition for ID's new releases, nor would it provide much of a boost to anyone wanting to update it to be a competing engine. The OS market, by contrast, is fairly mature now - indeed, this is why Microsoft have so much trouble getting people to upgrade, because XP is good enough for most people.
(Are there any examples of application software that get open sourced, OOI?)
[*] For the pedants - yes, I know Darwin is open source, but that's not OS X.
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Re:Why not open it up (Score:5, Informative)
I remember something about headers for the kernel being no longer available, but I just logged into my Apple Developer account and was able to download all the publically available source for the kernel for OS X 10.5.6 just fine: http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/10.5.6/ [apple.com]
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Technically Darwin includes the kernel, which Apple closed down when they started releasing an x86 edition, in the name of preventing people from running OSX on non-Apple computers. This of course failed.
Really? Because when I go to the Apple OpenSource [apple.com] page, the XNU kernel is there and under the APSL [apple.com], which is an OSI approved license.
I think there was a kind of long delay after they released the first x86 Macs before they released the source, but it's there.
Wait.. (Score:3, Insightful)
any future bugs found in the platform will not be fixed unless customers pay
Does that mean they will fix all the bugs that have been found in the past? No.
Can someone else fix them? No.
+1 for open source
Re:Wait.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Does that mean they will fix all the bugs that have been found in the past? No.
Can someone else fix them? No.
That does raise an interesting discussion... if a company is officially going to stop supporting a product that is still heavily in use, should they have an obligation to open up the source? I think so.
Of course with xp goes an obvious problem... imagine just how much worse the malware scene would be if they had access to windows source code? (tho from the levels of sophistication seen in modern malware, it's painfully obvious they've already grown very skilled with a decompiler)
Guessing the main reason MS would say NO is that many security problems in XP also exist in Vista/7 also due to inheritance, most of which MS is relying purely on protection from security-through-obscurity, and we all know how good a model that is. "Hmm this is vulnerable in XP, wonder if it still works in 7? well isn't that useful!"
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The source for Windows XP and Vista is available for just $20 at your friendly Russian-speaking guys. Too bad, I don't know of any torrents for it which you can get for 2000.
Criminals do have the source for Windows, it's just you who doesn't have it.
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Exactly because malware writters are so good with a decompiler it won't make a huge difference for them to have the original source. Alternatively, Windows is still worse than we think, and malware writters aren't that good, but I'm more willing to bet at the first option
Re:Wait.. (Score:5, Insightful)
That does raise an interesting discussion... if a company is officially going to stop supporting a product that is still heavily in use, should they have an obligation to open up the source? I think so.
No. No such obligation should ever exist.
Re:Wait.. (Score:5, Insightful)
How about: Because the XP Source code is private property and obligating any company to give away their private property is basically theft via laws.
I'm as much of a fan of Open Source as the next guy, but Open Sourcing something MUST be a voluntary thing that a company is Free to do if they think it best. Obligating via the law is nothing short of legalized looting of IP. YOU wouldn't want to be forced, would you? Neither should Microsoft or any other company be forced. Open Source must remain VOLUNTARY if it is to continue to represent Freedom.
Re:Wait.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I can very well understand why people feel that Microsoft should open source ( at least older ) Windows.
I think the reason why is because what they do with their code affects *everyone* ( if not everyone, very close ) with a computer. Even ones not connected to any other computer! For example, the BIOS re-ordering of drives to work-around the fact Windows can only boot from the "first" drive can cause issues when installing Linux.
I do agree that open source should be voluntary because it undermines the core concept if it is forced.
Re:Wait.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think we'd see drastically more malware for Windows if it were open sourced, partly because bits of source have been leaked in the past and partly because there is an upper limit to the number of competent malware authors out there.
But the codebase for one Windows version does not stand alone. It includes code licensed from third parties that Microsoft may not have the right to open, it includes large chunks of code which will still exist in more recent versions. You don't honestly think Microsoft started out entirely from scratch when they wrote Vista, do you?
Furthermore, if the codebase can still be maintained by someone else then that someone can simply say "Continue to install XP and we'll support you!". Microsoft are having a hard enough time selling Vista as it is, that would really hurt.
not really.. (Score:4, Insightful)
So nothing has really changed then, it's still being supported with security fixes. No one really cares about features at this point. How exactly is this suppose to move people to update?
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No one really cares about features at this point. How exactly is this suppose to move people to update?
With more and more services moving to the web the average user is less motivated to upgrade.
I rely mostly on web services in my every day computer usage, so as long as browsers are updated I don't really care what OS I run.
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Nice way to shoot themselves at the foot. But I don't think MS will be that stupid.
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No more new graphics drivers updates?
That's up to graphics card vendors.
no chance to upgrade to IE8 (i don't believe in that though.)
Good thing, as IE8 was already released for XP.
No new silverlight updates?
Not necessarly.
No new service pack updates for office and similar programs?
I would think that depends on when Office is no longer supported.. bugs won't be fixed in XP, but I don't think it means bugs won't be fixed for 2007 Office on XP.
Oh. But i can name you two bugs that really DO bug people.
- proces
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No new service pack updates for office and similar programs?
Where did you get that from? This is only about the OS itself, it has nothing to do with end of life on support for Office or any other separate product.
pry it from my cold dead hands... (Score:2)
innovation (read adoption of what the surveyed herd wants and whoever we could purchase a look from, or failing that, what apple did last quarter, visually) in windows sucks.
The next step is to divorce the windows graphic interface from the underlying operating system, and make it a desktop for linux. Like apple. But with Linux.
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Why would you want the interface? It sucks.
Linux has far better desktops than Windows.
Few companies work as hard to make bad decisions (Score:3, Insightful)
There are few companies that work as hard at making poor decisions as MSFT. They fielded a loser OS at a time in computing history that they really needed a home run. To placate enterprise users and stop the bleeding in the netbook space they turned to XP at a time they should have been phasing it out.
So now they rush Windows 7 out the door with many of the capabilities Vista should have had and they're chopping off support for XP before Windows 7 is established.
It's not the computing world's fault MS dropped the ball on Vista but, as usual, they're making it your problem. Instead of owning up to the mistake and supporting XP until it's clear Windows 7 is an adequate replacement.
Re:Few companies work as hard to make bad decision (Score:5, Insightful)
Small shop (Score:5, Interesting)
But for small shops, this is a win! Since MS won't support it any more, people will have to turn to small local shops instead. It should be quite a boon to them.
Re:Few companies work as hard to make bad decision (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the computing world's fault MS dropped the ball on Vista but, as usual, they're making it your problem.
People are always bashing Vista at every opportunity, but it's never caused me any problems, never crashed, has support for all the devices I wish to use and pretty much checks all the boxes I want from an operating system. I'm speaking as a software developer, before I get mercilessly flamed as being some kind of computing retard.
/.? Surely not..."
Now XP, before I upgraded, would crash semi-regularly and had at least as many bugs as Vista does. I think at least some of the people critcising Vista are sheeple expressing a popular opinion without much foundation. "What's that?" you cry, "People regurgitating supposed facts without verification on
Re:Few companies work as hard to make bad decision (Score:5, Interesting)
Vista is slow to boot.
Vista helpfully stops me running programs I want to run at startup.
Vista takes absolutely hours to update itself.
Vista is always telling me no, I don't have permission to do that, or to look there.
Vista is generally annoying.
Vista also has a couple of more geeky irritations to me as a software engineer and a linux user. But still, it runs my games OK and that's all I ask of it these days. I don't hate it, I just don't think it's that good.
That said, you should here the vitriol and emotional reactions that come out of my none-geek family and friends. This vista hatred may have started here with us, but it's been taken to a whole new level by the general computer-using-but-not-understanding public. I don't know if that's a reflection of them buying all the media hype or if it's a genuinbe reaction to the product, but it seems that it's no longer us penguin-loving kernel botherers that are the main source of the anti-MS vitriol.
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Then you're lucky and I'm not. It takes much, much longer than debian on my VAIO. I'm not ruling out that Sony set it up badly, but quick it is not.
You've never tried installing an ext2 filesystem driver then. Every boot I'd get this nice helpful message telling me windows had prevented programs from running a
Re:Few companies work as hard to make bad decision (Score:5, Insightful)
I boot vista when I want to play a game. At that point the boot time is relevant.
There should be a way for me, as administrator and owner, to tell it to allow things to start that aren't signed by MS. It's that simple.
Last time it was 19 updates. Came out somewhere around 32MB. I have a 24Mb connection, it took a long, long time to download them. It then sat and took the rest of the hour applying them, shutting down, applying some more during shutdown, booting and applying more during startup. And then it found more. It's slow and a bit of a shambles.
19 updates totalling around that size on debian linux would take a matter of seconds.
Yes, eventually I found out it could be disabled. I switched it off and some of the annoyances went away. Great, I have to switch off the new security system to get anything much done.
FUD. Right. User experience and me explaining my annoyances, despite already having said I don't think it's awful, just wrong in a few places, that's FUD?
And you've already decided I'm some sort of Linux zealot despite my saying I use vista adequately well for what I need it for and I'm surprised by the hatred it gets from non-technical people.
Fuck off.
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activation support for resetting and other updates (Score:5, Insightful)
Will there still be activation support for resetting it or will activation be turned off / hardware check be turned off?
Will xp uses still get IE8 / IE7 updates / fixes?
windows media player 12?
Will there still WGA updates? .net framework updates?
daylight saving time updates till 2014?
Lack of support won't mean lack of use (Score:2)
After seven years, what's left but security fixes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, they've shipped a near-infinite number of Windows XP licenses, and there are millions and millions of users exercising the code, so really, what is left to "debug"? But let's be clear - you may want Windows XP to function differently, but that is not a bug, that's a preference. By now, Windows XP is a tested code base, and it has value as demonstrated by the steady stream of stories discussing the end of support for Windows XP, downgrade rights from Vista to Windows XP, etc.
Not enough time until Windows 7 (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if this makes Windows Vista the only generation not to outsell the previous one.
-m-
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Vista sales, per Microsfot's counts, have been pretty high. Those numbers don't include, however, the business customers who opted to exercise their downgrade rights and run XP. The stats presented here appear to reflect what people are running moreso than that which was purchased.
And people still choose XP over Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Hard to believe, but an 8 year old OS with life support turned off is still overwhelmingly preferred to Linux, OS X and so on...
Microsoft's real problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Their real problem is that many people are satisfied with XP. There's no "killer app" or compelling reason to upgrade. If new computer purchases didn't foist Vista (or soon...Windows 7) on consumers, nobody would bat an eye if the machines came with XP instead. As long as XP continues to get security patches, I can't imagine bothering with "upgrading" in the foreseeable future.
A netbook question (Score:5, Insightful)
At that point Linux (either official like RedHat or Novell, or a community Ubuntu / Feodra / Debian / Mandriva) becomes better supported than the XP version by default. Is it legal to sell an unsupported PC? Or will Microsoft be responsible and withdraw all XP netbooks from the market on April 15th? Will they be forced to?
It does show a company in desperation to make money, regardless of their customers wishes. When the carrot (advertising and shill PR) won't work use the stick. Any company behaving like this does not deserve any customers, and will eventually bring that to pass by it's own actions.
Time to move on. (Score:3, Insightful)
Vista is a failure, Windows 7 seem to be more of the same, so go with something you can buy support for after that the vendor no longer is interested in you.
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"When you run Vista on the hardware that it was designed for (two cores and two gigs of RAM is about the minimum), it's easily the best released Windows yet, and you would be a fool to run XP on such a machine."
1. Why does it need so much?!?
2. Err, that pretty much describes my laptop. Vista does not behave well and Sony eventually released free XP downgrade disks due to demand. Not that I used them, I don't boot windows often enough for it to be an annoyance.
I disagree that it can be described as "best". I
XP will be back (Score:3, Insightful)
Meanwhile, Linux will keep showing up in places where Windows XP can fit but Windows 7 can't. And if it's a big enough market then Microsoft will be forced to keep Windows XP running even longer.
Microsoft just doesn't get it. There is a huge market for operating systems that just give you the brass tacks
Cash cow (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:XP Sucks, Vista is Better (Score:4, Informative)
Funny. I just bought a laptop and it came with Windwos XP installed. If Vista is the "current version of Windows" why are they still shipping new PC's with XP?
Re:XP Sucks, Vista is Better (Score:5, Insightful)
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Vista is the current Windows version whether you like it or not and since you don't like it retailers keep selling PCs with XP installed.
You are defining "current" along the lines of Microsoft's development. However, consumers define "current" along the lines of "what can I buy new in the store today"? If XP is installed, and the computer is not marked "used," then how is it not current?
Re:XP Sucks, Vista is Better (Score:4, Informative)
Umm. Netbooks are shipping with XP and only XP right now. Not downgraded...
Microsoft is still selling XP as a current OS for that class of machine.
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HP seem to be just plain weird in thier handling of this, they make the XP option the default option in the selector on thier small buisness site yet afaict they will only sell you machines with XP installed under the following conditions
"To qualify for this downgrade an end user must be a business (including governmental or educational institutions) and is expected to order annually at least 25 customer systems with the same custom image." unlike dell who make vista the default will happilly sell you XP on
Re:XP Sucks, Vista is Better (Score:5, Insightful)
So? If Microsoft doesn't want to support XP any more then fine, but that doesn't mean I have to switch from it.
Re:XP Sucks, Vista is Better (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only is what you say 100% true but is there actually going to be any reason to upgrade even a decade from now? XP is far from perfect but I feel it marks the point at which computers became "good enough" and changes became mostly minor bug fixing and moving things around. Barring a major revolution which I don't think anyone expects any time soon (e.g. hard AI) XP will continue to do everything people want for a very long time.
What will be interesting is to see how / if Mac and Linux eat into Windows market share over time. Since Windows has essentially stopped changing it gives other players a chance to become highly compatible. I don't suppose they will knock Windows off the top spot any time soon but I could imagine it getting to a point where it doesn't really matter what OS you run.
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Security. XP was built in ancient times as far as Internet security is concerned. Not to mention taking some idiotic approaches (blacklisting via antivirus software and such).
Will you dare run XP connected directly to the Internet when you won't have up-to-date antimalware software on it? Or when that "security" model finally breaks for good under the assault of modern malware?
Plus, XP shouldn't
Re:XP Sucks, Vista is Better (Score:4, Interesting)
I like Vista, Its just so dam slow!
I like Windows 7. I run them both. 7 is better in every way (except media playing. Beta has bugs)
I'm liking 7's ui and library features. Its performance is better than vista... but honestly not by much.
I would run linux if the applications were there. But as we all know... thats not the case.
I'm honestly looking at Apple for my next laptop. Honeslty i wont replace my PC workstations with MACs, but... I wouldnt mind testing the waters.
I would try linux again if they applications were there but they just arent. You can browse, IM etc... but I do more than that.
Re:XP Sucks, Vista is Better (Score:4, Informative)
I would try linux again if they applications were there but they just arent. You can browse, IM etc... but I do more than that.
I have pretty good experience at running Windows as VM guest on Linux. Linux as host for VMs is quite good. But of course it depends for what purposes you use your Windows...
Value of Linux becomes apparent only after you are once forced to buy batch of Windows licenses. But as private buyer concerned - who generally get "Windows [whatever]" from OEMs - there are not much reasons to even try.
Re:XP Sucks, Vista is Better (Score:4, Informative)
You might want to take a look at Wine [winehq.org]. It does not support all applications 100% (Adobe products being notorious for not working as they should), but it's getting there. Take a look through their appdb page, maybe your applications and all you need is already quite Linux-Ready.
Re:Went with Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Me too just a few months ago. I really don't like Linux. It has the same flaw as Macintosh OS (tends to be ignored by software vendors), but far far worse. Example: I couldn't get my Netscape Dialup to work, so I called for help and they said "We only support Windows and Mac," and then hung-up on me. Nice.
I did eventually get my Linux to connect to the ISP, but the compression engine/accelerator refuses to run, which makes everything extremely slow (50k versus ~500k). Another problem happened when I changed my resolution to 1024x800 - when I tried to change it back to 1280x1024 the dialog box was too big, and I couldn't access the OK button since it was offscreen. I'm still stuck at the wrong resolution. (With Windows pressing the enter button auto-selects OK, but not with Linux.)
So I think I'm going to use the WinXP Restore CD to wipe Linux off my laptop. From what I can see, XP and Mac OS are both more user-friendly than Ubuntu.
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Service packs are supposed to fix things.
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I would suggest wine, but it doesn't look good: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=79 [winehq.org]
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VirtualBox [virtualbox.org] would be better for unsupported OS. I wouldn't risk plugging Windows apps/services into any internet connected LAN. Even though they run under Wine.
Re:This may push me away from MS for good. (Score:4, Interesting)
Ah, I seem to recall a lot of people vowing that the changes from Win2k to Windows XP would push them into switching to Linux. Most people always seem to wind up back on Uncle Gates' products though. More's the pity.
I just need to see what's holding me back from just moving to Linux. Ah MS Money. I wonder if I can import years worth of financial data into a F/OSS version.
I have this same problem although I'm tied into Quicken and not MS Money. I've never found GNUCash to be worthwhile. You might look into Moneydance [moneydance.com]. It's not FOSS but it runs on anything (Java) and is lightweight enough to put on a thumb drive for extreme portability. I'm still married to Quicken because I like the attachments feature but a buddy of mine swears by Moneydance. He keeps it on a thumb drive within a Truecrypt container and uses it everywhere he goes.
Dual boot? I don't know. I have had issues in the past with GRUB locking up machines and no being able to rescue my system. I had to reinstall everything.
I've thought about going back to dual boot and just keeping Windows around for Quicken and games. Strange that GRUB has corrupted your whole system though -- how does such a thing happen? I've always stuck with LILO (and Slackware... yes, I'm a purist) and never had any issue with it that would have caused me to lose data. I've had LILO itself get corrupted a few times but it never took my data with it.
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Well, I could make a plug here for Slackware, if you don't mind getting down and dirty. I've run it on all sorts of systems. Dunno what the rest of your box is like but the 512MB Ram probably wouldn't be an issue.
Re: (Score:2)
Good news for you: a number of popular Windows games (such as Civ 4 [winehq.org]) run well in Wine [winehq.org]. (hint: look up "winetricks" and use that) Some versions of MS money [winehq.org] are reported to work, though I have not tried them. You might instead want to try installing GNUCash [gnucash.org] for Windows and see how easy it is to migrate your data.
As to your dual-boot issues: I have not had the same problem as you, but I do sympathize. I think dual-boot support has come a long way in the pas
Re: (Score:2)
Virtualize maa-aan (In my best hippie voice).
No good for games, but MS Money can live in a dedicated, protected XP virtual machine indefinitely. The database is safer that way anyways -less chance of malware based data theft and easy to back up the whole system.
Re:Wow I'm First (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Dilbert's Boss (Score:5, Funny)
Who the hell is going to run out and buy Vista just because XP left mainstream support?!?
Pointy Haired Bosses?
Re:Wow I'm First (Score:5, Interesting)
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They sure will. The question is rather, will someone pick up and answer?