Why is Microsoft Patching XP?

akkarin noted a story about a new Service patch for XP. Dubbed SP2c, the new service patch contains no bug fixes or features. Instead, this exciting patch exists only to add new valid active product registration keys. Oops.

well...

[silverkniveshotmail. (713965)]

Without a service pack it just doesn't feel like windows.

Re:well...

[that IT girl (864406)]

Haha, good point! I like this because it's kind of like they're admitting that nobody likes Vista and that they're still going to have people wanting XP, despite the fact that you can't find a new computer loaded with it anymore. People are willing to go out of their way to get XP versus Vista.

Re:

[Barny (103770)]

Still sell about 95% XP vs Vista at place where I work, kinda makes all the hard work I put into the PoS Vista pre-installer go to waste :/

Will likely become more and more in favour of Vista as the years wind on, and of course in 2009 XP OEM supply will finish.

Re:well...

[beckerist (985855)]

Why do you think the ribbon is horrible? Sure it takes some getting used to, but I've found the interface much more intuitive. Try telling your grandmother how to print in Landscape all the way up to Office XP... It required at least 3 levels of menu-digging and a half-dozen clicks. Now, it's 2 clicks and she's on her way to printing out cheap-ass birthday cards!

I had a problem moving from using only a keyboard in Windows 3.1 to using a mouse in Windows 95, I thought it was too "clunky" and "bubbly" (pre-XP.) In the 10+ years since those 4 months of annoyance, nothing has really changed!

Re:well...

[MightyMartian (840721)]

I'm dealing with a reasonably large staff which has grown incredibly accustomed to, over the course of a decade, the Office 97/2003-style interface. Whatever the "intuitiveness" of the ribbon, the fact remains that it would be a rather large effort on their part (and mine) to move in that direction. Even I, a guy who has been using computers in one form or another since the early 1980s, and considers myself fairly adaptable to new interfaces, found the ribbon and the general displacement of all the important functions I use in Office to be very hard to overcome.

Re:well...

[gad_zuki! (70830)]

I'm dealing with a reasonably large staff which has grown incredibly accustomed to, over the course of a decade, the MS DOS 6.0 interface. Whatever the "intuitiveness" of the GUI, the fact remains that it would be a rather large effort on their part (and mine) to move in that direction. Even I, a guy who has been using computers in one form or another since the early 1970s, and considers myself fairly adaptable to new interfaces, found the GUI and the general displacement of all the important functions and macros I use in Wordperfect 5.0 to be very hard to overcome.

Re:well...

[bhtooefr (649901)]

Actually, it was a while back that I've done this, but I ran SO 7, and I think it was OOo 1.2 on the same machine.

SO 7 was blazing fast.

OOo 1.2? Dog slow.

Same machine. Same codebase.

Re:well...

[bladesjester (774793)]

The thing that gets me is how much less responsive new hardware is running Vista.

My neighbor got a couple of new laptops a couple of months ago. Naturally, they run Vista. He asked me to set them up on his network, and I was amazed at how much slower they are than my laptop (which I got in 2004) that runs XP.

Re:well...

[AndersOSU (873247)]

Methinks theres a pattern here:

Win95 - compelling reason to upgrade
Win98 - pass
Win2000 - compelling upgrade
WinME - hahahaha
WinXp - compelling upgrade
WinVista - Jury's still out, but probably pass

Re:well...

[NaDrew (561847)]

Win98 - pass

98se was such an improvement over 95, even over 95osr2, that it was definitely a "compelling upgrade". XP was not "compelling" for me until SP1.

Re:well...

[Holmwood (899130)]

Anyone else care to venture forth an opinion here?

This is /. Does that question even need to be asked?

Maybe when the default system is twice as powerful as what we have to day, maybe people will just say what the hell, accept Vista, and what we're seeing here today will just be a footnote.

Which will be in about 18 months, if Moore's Law holds up. (Yes, I know, technically merely the doubling of transistors).

But I'm not sure. It seems like Microsoft has kinda screwed the pooch here, offering nothing compelling and new with Vista.

The reality is that XP is a 'pretty good' OS. It's not a magnificent OS, but it's 'good enough'. OS X looks a lot nicer and in many respects is (along with being less vulnerable). Locked down BSD is a lot more secure than XP. And Linux is a lot cheaper. But for a large number of people, XP is 'good enough'.

The two big markets that Windows is tough to beat in are gaming and certain legacy enterprise applications. In both cases, Vista performance is inferior to XP.

There's no reason for people to upgrade.

Right now, nope.

Re:well...

[Vulva R. Thompson, P (1060828)]

Each Tuesday morning everyone in our office kneels, faces west and screams "Blessed Be Ballmer!" repeatedly. We know He's listening because sometimes the angels reward us with a little icon in our trays.

We tried it once with the Ubuntu god but it just felt blasphemous and unclean.

Re:well...

[pla (258480)]

You mean every second Tuesday of each month? Fourth Tuesdays are OK too, but they're not critical updates.

Know ye not any better than to question which Tuesdays work and which don't? Ballmer works in mysterious ways, after all. Why, on several occasions, updates have even appeared on non-Tuesdays! Surely He has blessed us only to reward our dilligence in praying to Redmond 4.25 times each month?

In any case, you come very near blasphemy, Brother, in asking too many questions about Tuesdays - That sort of thinking can lead the mind in dangerous directions. Why, next you might start to question whether The G*tes (Blessed be his name, which we may not write upon anything impermanent) meant to pass the mantle of his fold on to his nephew or his brother-in-law. Such things only lead to tears and Danish mockery, my friend, so stray not onto that path!

Blasphemer!

[nlinecomputers (602059)]

...The G*tes (Blessed be his name, which we may not write upon anything impermanent)

And you dare to imply that Slashdot isn't permanent? Never have I witnessed a more true blasphemy.

We are permanent. We are one. We are +5 Karmawhores and can afford to burn. You promote a false God. There is only one root.

Re:well...

[antikristian (856519)]

The reason for it is easy:

If they sent it out as a normal update, people could choose to ignore it. As a servicepack they can set it as a requirement for future security updates. This is just what they did with SP1 & 2, only this time without any added features for the user.

Also: they really have to sell Vista...

So....

[by Anonymous Coward]

Why is this labeled a service patch?

Re:

[Opportunist (166417)]

Service Pack, please. Patch makes it sound like it's some kind of thing you're entitled to because the system is buggy, while pack sounds more like you get something extra. For free!

And it's due. I mean, how old is SP2? Two years? Three? Who'd take MS serious if they didn't release a service pack every few years?

Re:

[Himring (646324)]

I hate to be persnickety, but it's actually called a "Service Pack" not "Patch." The actual developer's name for it is CSD or, "Corrective Service Diskette" which can be seen in the registry if you look. I believe the term comes from the days of OS/2 and shows yet another example of IBM's legacy in Windows....

Re:

[Corporate Troll (537873)]

Because we can have a Vista-bashfest? No, really.... I'm serious....

Re:So....

[improfane (855034)]

a large portion of the world uses XP and it is likely a lot of people on Slashdot have to administrate it.

Why would it not be on the frontpage?

Re:

[setirw (854029)]

Why would it not be on the frontpage?

Because this is the equivalent of Microsoft's changing one obscure icon in shell32.dll and then releasing it as a fullblown patch? I have no problem with noting major XP/Vista patches on the front page, but this is simply too trivial to be frontpage worthy news.

Re:So....

[Silver Sloth (770927)]

The story here is not that the patch contains no fixes but that Microsoft are having to release a 'patch' because sales of Vista are not driving down sales of XP as much as was expected. From TFA

Last month, the company's chief financial officer said that he tweaked the fiscal year 2008 forecast to account for XP's longevity. Rather than count on an 85/15 split in sales between Vista and XP, said Chris Liddell, Microsoft now expects a 78/22 split, an increase of nearly 50% in anticipated XP sales.

Whether we like it or not Microsoft is the dominant player in the personal computer market and what they do and why they do it is important to us techies.

Re:So....

[geobeck (924637)]

Why would it not be on the frontpage?

Because it's along the lines of "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead. Doctors report his condition as 'unchanged'."

Re:So....

[rbanffy (584143)]

It's front page material because it allows us to have fun bashing Microsoft. ;-)

This is Slashdot, after all.

NT4 called...

[thatskinnyguy (1129515)]

... and they're kinda nervous about their service release record being broken...

you can patch in new keys?

[192939495969798999 (58312)]

So if hackers figure out how to patch in some new "valid" keys with this mechanism, does that mean that no one will need to hack out a key anymore?

Re:you can patch in new keys?

[Calinous (985536)]

Depends. If the new keys are Volume License (which don't call the Microsoft servers), the hackers could add whatever keys they choose. If the new keys are for normal Windows XP Professional (to be activated using Microsoft sites), the validation is done on the remote site, so it won't work

Re:you can patch in new keys?

[sqrt(2) (786011)]

The coolest MS activation hack I've seen is for vista. They emulate an OEM bios (usually asus) and install a key that allows the OS not to have to be activated via the internet (lest consumers have to deal with that after buying their new Vista machine). Works flawlessly, well from what I've heard it does. How would I know?

missing a few

[Phil246 (803464)]

What happened to A and B?
Did they elope together and disappear into the mountains - and now C is their lovechild?

Uninstall

[sjaguar (763407)]

I wonder how hard it will be to uninstall when it does not work.

Oblig Holy Grail quote

[A_Non_Moose (413034)]

FTA: Other signs of the not-dead-yet OS's...

I'm not dead yet.

Aw, you'll be stone dead in a moment.

No, really, I'm feeling much better.

This clearly shows...

[tgatliff (311583)]

That the balance of features versus benefits in Vista are not correct. Meaning, in Vista they were too interested in providing features that consumers did not care about, such as drm and copyright protection, and not enough benefits above XP. Not only that, but the XP version is even cheaper...

I suspect this is a shorterm problem only. Meaning I checked the Dell website and they are not providing XP as an option on all laptops, so I suspect M$ is simply providing this option to their larger customers until wider adoption occurs. Over time, it would be my guess they will slowly "fade" out XP and the forced Vista adoption will be complete. Longterm this will be seen as a major mistake made by them, in my opinion....

Re:This clearly shows...

[gstoddart (321705)]

Over time, it would be my guess they will slowly "fade" out XP and the forced Vista adoption will be complete.

Why would you need to guess about something which is already publicly known and their obvious policy?

XP will eventually become unsupported, they won't have any new patches for it, and they'll expect everyone to upgrade to Vista. Oddly enough, Windows 3.x, 95, 98, and ME have all gone through this.

Believe it or not, every software company does the exact same thing. Just than when Microsoft does it, it's on a massive scale, and it gets rammed down the throats of everyone no matter what they think.
Longterm this will be seen as a major mistake made by them, in my opinion....
Long term, none of our opinions seem to alter what Microsoft does. It just happens.

Cheers

Slow day?

[JustASlashDotGuy (905444)]

I just love it when the subject line of a article is a question answered by the summary just below it.

MS is running out of keys, so they are releasing an updated build. mmmmm ok. so?

It's just a different build number, what's the big deal. The same thing happened back in the Windows 95 when they had SR 2, 2.1, and 2.5. The changes between those build were minor as well.

"oops?"

[buddyglass (925859)]

Way to spin it, Slashdot. Making the "mistake" of underestimating how well a product is going to sell: not a bad mistake to make.

Except they're supposed to be selling Vista now

[Attaturk (695988)]

Way to spin it, Slashdot. Making the "mistake" of underestimating how well a product is going to sell: not a bad mistake to make.

I think it's more a matter of making the mistake of underestimating how many people are still going to be buying your old product line (XP) instead of your brand spanking new all-singing and all-dancing product line (Vista). And actually that is a bad mistake to make. :p

Vista's "suckiness" is not a claim; it's a fact =/

[Attaturk (695988)]

XP is fine now (when they're not breaking it remotely [slashdot.org]), Vista was delayed and Vista sucks. If Vista didn't suck then I wouldn't still be reading horror stories about DRM, HD-crippling, driver issues, kernel vulnerabilities etc. etc. etc. long after it has been released. Barely a week goes by without a handful of things like this [slashdot.org] or this [slashdot.org] cropping up.

Are all of these kinds of stories just trolls with spin skills worthy of Karl Rove? If the answer is no then Vista sucks. If the answer is yes then there are lot of people angry at MS - probably, at least in part, because Vista sucks so very much: http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=vista [slashdot.org]

I've been part of several discussions trying to ascertain what advantages Vista actually offers to outweigh the drawbacks and it ain't pretty. The bottom line for us, and I daresay hundreds of thousands of other organisations, is that XP works, is mostly stable and is well supported. Vista can't compete with that - and they're calling it an upgrade?

So if you need Microsoft - and unfortunately we still need to develop with DirectX - then XP will do fine. Vista has to bring something really worthwhile to make us want to go through the hassle of the upgrade and to put up with all the unwanted baggage that Redmond seems to think we all need.

And of course if you don't need Microsoft then you're already laughing. Whatever OS you're using will be just as secure as Vista (if not more so), fully extensible, support all sorts of open formats and not try to wrestle with you for control of your own computer.

I really am glad that Vista's working out for you but unfortunately for most of us the "nifty new features and new look" just aren't enough to justify a broad OS upgrade - certainly for anything other than a home or hobby rig. And my home'n'hobby rigs all run XP or Linux and serve me just fine. =D

no rollup?

[dickens (31040)]

I'd like it if they rolled up all of the 80-90 critical patches since SP2.

Re:no rollup?

[n0dna (939092)]

SP3 is in late alpha, scheduled be released later this year with Vista's SP1.

Here's the rollup

[Weaselmancer (533834)]

Microsoft hasn't done it, but these guys have. [autopatcher.com]

Not really a patch/service pack/whatever

[webrunner (108849)]

It's only for OEMS and stuff- it's for new OS installs, not for ones that are already there. In fact its' pointless on systems that already are installed because they already have working keys.

Let's see someone reverse engineer this

[initialE (758110)]

There are 2 red flags on this that would concern me. One that Microsoft would secretly bundle more rights restrictions into XP (admit it, it's certainly tempting, and it's not like they haven't done it before), and two, that this SP would seemingly make it easier to crack windows keys - I mean, here's all the necessary components, isolated and laid out for you to decipher. Well, that's just my 2 cents.

End-Of-Life on an O/S seems bizarre

[Morgaine (4316)]

"Due to the longevity of Windows XP Professional, it has become necessary to produce more product keys for system builders in order to support the continued availability of Windows XP Professional through the scheduled system builder channel end-of-life (EOL) date, wrote the Microsoft system builder team on its blog Thursday.

A hardware product has an official End-Of-Life date beyond which it is no longer sold nor supported. That's fairly logical, because it is a standalone physical item, and its physical end of life is inescapable.

But the concept of EOL'ing an operating system that's at the heart of bazillion old machines out there seems completely wrong, to the point of being bizarre. Those machines will (mostly) never change their operating system, and why should they --- after all, their manufacturer created them as XP machines, not as Vista boxes, and their manufacturer-supplied drivers might not even work with Vista.

Yet, except in the case of non-networked machines, their continued survival requires fairly regular O/S updates in response to the changing face of the Internet. End-Of-Lifing XP reflects a very myopic stance by Microsoft, as if their product Windows XP were somehow standalone. Well it's not.

Microsoft enjoys the $$$ benefits of Windows being adopted worldwide as the most popular operating system, but with that comes the responsibility of maintaining the heart of those myriad machines which use it ... even when they are old ones beyond the current retail life cycle.

Yes, it's a responsibility. Operating systems are not toasters. They sustain the continued viability of machinery that uses them, and can't be treated as independent items. Their manufacturers committed to a dependency on Microsoft support.

While End-Of-Life is a common concept in commercial products, there is something fundamentally wrong with declaring an operating system as dead. While the hardware survives (at least 10 years, maybe 15), a degree of support should continue to be provided, as I see it. The rate of support calls will dwindle to zero over time, so "It would cost us too much" is not really a good excuse. Especially given the size of MS coffers.

Killing off older machines by denying support for their O/S seems irresponsible by the O/S manufacturer, regardless of which O/S that is.

Re:the beginning of the end

[CaptainPatent (1087643)]

XP continues to be in demand

Oh yeah, they'll be brought under very quick with all those sales they're making. Vista doesn't need to be quick to the gate for Microsoft to do well. What would hurt them is if the demand for XP dropped too.

Re:the beginning of the end

[sammy baby (14909)]

Oh yeah, they'll be brought under very quick with all those sales they're making. Vista doesn't need to be quick to the gate for Microsoft to do well. What would hurt them is if the demand for XP dropped too.

That's not entirely true.

Microsoft has bet significant bucks on the success of Vista, in both R&D and research. On the other hand, XP is nearing the "end" of its product cycle (in theory), having been supplanted by Vista. Or, to use a different turn of phrase, "old and busted" versus "new hotness."

Imagine you have an old and busted car, and you're buying a new sexy one. For some reason, you need to hang on to both, but you fully plan to get rid of the old & busted one at your earliest convenience. But it turns out that the new car has some serious problems with it, and it's constantly in the shop: but because of your family's needs, you can't just ditch it and start over. Now you're stuck with two cars, and paying upkeep on both of them...

Anyway, it's a flawed analogy, but suffice it to say that MS stands to lose a hefty chunk of change if Vista dies on the vine.

Re:

[mwvdlee (775178)]

What I find incredibly is that they reached such a limit at all. Every single f****n programmer knows by now that if you plan for a certain maximum limit, you multiply that number by a factor of 10,000, then raise it to the fourth power and add a few billion just to be sure.

Re:More incredible

[SCHecklerX (229973)]

It's a good thing airplanes aren't designed that way. Solid steel and cement probably doesn't fly so good.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

It's a good thing that airplanes aren't completely built in software, then.

Re:More incredible

[Dunbal (464142)]

Every single f****n programmer knows by now that if you plan for a certain maximum limit, you multiply that number by a factor of 10,000, then raise it to the fourth power and add a few billion just to be sure.

      Which explains why a mouse driver needs to be 500MB.

Re:I'm so glad ...

[by Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad I stayed with Windows 98 Second Edition so I don't have to deal with all these endless updates and patches.