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The Death of Windows XP
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Mar 24, 2008 08:53 PM
from the alas-poor-yorick dept.
from the alas-poor-yorick dept.
bsk_cw writes "Although many Windows users intend to hold onto their copies of XP until it is pried from their cold, dead fingers, Microsoft fully intends to phase out the OS in favor of Vista. If you're unwilling to move to one of the alternatives, and really don't like Vista, the least you can do is be aware of what's in store. David DeJean offers a rundown on Microsoft's timeline for Windows XP, why the company does things that way, and what you can do about it."
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Satisfying (Score:5, Insightful)
This will be very satisfying. I've had so many people tell me they absolutely HATE Vista, but they're stuck with it when they bought their new computer. They frequently ask me to put XP on, no matter what it takes (buy it, hack it, put their mothers key on).
Killing XP off finally, while I love the idea of killing Windows will really hurt Microsoft. Since people hate Vista so much, they'll start being more open to other options.
Maybe it'll mean friends and family will be asking me to do more Linux installs. I like those better anyways, they go a lot faster and they don't involve 2 hours of install plus 2 days of Windows Updates.
Re:Satisfying (Score:5, Insightful)
When they started developing Vista, they could not imagine the rise of Ubuntu's success or the coming of the XO PC and, eeePC, which is why they thought they'd give a hand to their friends the computer vendors by making 2G of RAM a requirement. (I would check the dates if was not in a hurry).
It looks like they understood this now, and reacted by making that "minimal kernel" stuff on the next windows (even a non graphic server version), and by planning to release it one year early.
What I'm saying is: we (linux evangelists) have a huge opportunity right now, but it might not last. So let's make the most of it.
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Re:Satisfying (Score:5, Interesting)
Developers and sysadmins were always allowed to run linux. Now anyone else can via a supported corporate image.
if you don't want linux (Sales, Product Managers, etc) you now get a MacOSX laptop or desktop.
This has impacted other Software vendors, Our ticketing system with a windows client (dev/sysadmins rdesktopped in to use) got replaced with a cross platform solution.
I think in 2 years we will be windows free, previously 60-75% of the employees were windows users. The reasons for this was the LAN department hates MacOSX less than Vista, and people heard all the buzz about Macs and were willing to give it a shot.
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Re:Satisfying (Score:5, Informative)
Are you serious?
You should think about that for a moment. Then think about a little bit more, and then you might realize how astronomically stupid of a statement that is. (Not you, just Microsoft attempting to do it).
Those stickers that are on the sides of computers, or in my case on a piece of paper, are worth 175$ approx. right now. The EULA forces Microsoft to provide activation FOREVER.
That's right. FOREVER. If they don't provide you with a activation key to accomplish an installation, they are in default of their contractual agreement. That's the problem with activation. A customer has purchased the right to use that software for an indefinite amount of time. It is the software developers responsibility to provide the activation service for as long as their customers EXIST.
Pain in the Ass huh? Well that's what they get for being Big Brother. Big Brother has to always be there to hold your hand and make sure you are doing the right thing. It's like kids. It's a lifelong job, with no end in sight, except DEATH. For any company that uses activation as a protection mechanism, there are costs associated with it. The only way out is to file bankruptcy to protect them from pissed off customers who cannot activate anymore.
Of course, there is always the option of running a pirated copy that bypasses activation. Nothing wrong with that, especially since you still possess the Certificate of Authenticity.
I have always felt there should be a congressional investigation into Microsoft's practices with bundling software. I feel it should be illegal to do so, without methods in place to obtain rebates through the mail. Why? That sticker.
You have the right from the EULA agreement to transfer that product FOREVER. Without Limitations Even.
Furthermore, Microsoft made no provisions in the EULA, which "constitutes the entire agreement", to actually stop providing the activation services. If they did you would be well within your rights to sue them.
Check out this link: http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/default.aspx [microsoft.com]
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Re:Satisfying (Score:5, Interesting)
So they disable the internet activation, and make the telephone activation an expensive call, thus recouping the costs.
There's their privilege to disable the Internet-based registration. Heck, there is their privilege to disable _your_ Internet connection. Maybe in 2014, the Windows IP stack stops working (hmm, that's one way to stop the botnets...)
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A short play (Score:5, Funny)
31 June 2008, 8:00 AM EST: Nasdaq and NYSE both crash as the big three PC vendors and their suppliers discover nobody's willing to buy a PC any more.
Midmorning Bill and Steve get a call from Ben Bernanke.
Afternoon DHS executes warrants on One Microsoft Way. Attorney general reopens antitrust investigation. Steve gets a call from the IRS regarding the structure of financing for one of his sports teams.
Evening: XP gets a reprieve! We're all friends again.
Downgrade (Score:5, Informative)
Wow. Just for changing my hard drive.
I fully intend to downgrade to XP in the near future.
-JB
Security Fixes until 2014 (Score:5, Insightful)
---Dedicated Ubuntu user
Opportunity for Third Party -- maybe even Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
(1) Microsoft Systems shops that have the ability to provide support or
(2) Competition that's open source ("Don't like being moved off your platform when your *vendor* decides it's time, not when you decide it's time? When you have the source, you can maintain or hire someone to maintain it as long as the cost is worth it to you.")
Eee PC (Score:4, Insightful)
Nature of an OS (Score:5, Insightful)
This is sort of empirical proof, to me at least, for what I have long thought, and I'm sure a lot around here thought as well. The days of an OS revolutionizing or vastly enhancing the way someone, especially a consumer, computes are long behind us. The OS has suffered from feature bloat for forever, and for the most part, a successful new OS is one that just doesn't hinder the work to be done. For most people, their computing needs have been satisfied, but they are pushed into a perpetual cycle of upgrading for upgrades sake. This "rebellion" is a symptom of this. XP satisfied people, and some of them are starting to realize what the terms "lock-in" and "monopoly" actually mean.
We're coming to a point where freedom in software is gaining in market value. I know it's cliche, and people have been spouting it for a over a decade, but I suspect that the general populace has come to a point where they can see that dollars and cents are in favor of not being tied to a corporation that makes money by selling solutions for the same problems over and over again. I don't know what iteration of "free" software will fill this void, but this mess with XP is not good for them. It won't be the downfall of Windows, they are far to crafty and firmly positioned for that to happen. However, the old business model of theirs is losing its effectiveness.
I hope I'm right, but even more so I hope I'm not turning into a linux nut that shouts "It's the year..." every time MS slips up.
Re:Nature of an OS (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure the issue is that people with XP are unwilling to fund Microsoft. The issue from where I'm standing is two-fold: first, XP works. It's a fairly stable system, and one that people have been using for the past *seven* years. Second, everybody has "heard" that Vista is terrible. My dad, not a techie by any stretch of the imagination, simply refuses to use it. Why? Well, it's not because of first-hand experience -- it's because a few of his co-workers "heard" that it was a terrible OS. More tech-oriented people are more resistant because we don't really see the advantage of switching over to a new OS when the old one works just fine. The general populace is not as savvy as you might think. They're not as concerned about Microsoft's monopoly as they are about spending an extra couple of hundred dollars to upgrade to a new OS that they've "heard" is not so great.
Besides, their business model is just fine. The product that they're selling, on the other hand, has a terrible reputation - deserved or not. I've used Vista, but I haven't put any real time into it, and I'm completely unwilling to do so until... well, I suppose until I have a final-patched Windows XP SP3 system that's been hacked because of an unfixed security hole. Let's see what happens in two years.
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What about activation servers? (Score:5, Interesting)
When Microsoft turns off the activation servers, that basically REALLY means the end of WinXP... or is there a chance, any chance, that Microsoft will release a super-secret "unlock all" patch in 2014 that will allow XP to be activated. I am pretty sure the answer is NO, but I can still hope.
Bend over, just not yet (Score:5, Insightful)
THIS is what's wrong with proprietary software. If Vista were better - more compatible with existing software, less buggy, less DRM crap, I would WANT to move. I don't, but in the long run I don't have a choice. If you'd told me 3 years ago I'd be fighting to keep XP, and buying older hardware to ensure support for it, I'd have laughed at you.
XP, then Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
I used Vista, and I don't really like it. I like Ubuntu, but there are some things like games, that it doesn't run. I feel choosing the OS, then the applications is like putting the cart before the horse. When I can run rFactor(a PC driving sim) in Linux, I can migrate to it. I fully believe I'll be able to do this before XP is dead.
Unexpected Benefits (Score:5, Interesting)
Vista's reputation is justifiably bad, and I'm never buying a copy. If I suddenly need a new Wintel machine, there's always someone like tigerdirect that has overstocked machines with XP pre-installed, and they'll probably be selling them for a year after XP is pulled from the shelves. But I think MS is only going to cause customers to truly hate their guts for this. They'd be smarter to allow XP sales until Windows 7 is ready (assuming they don't fuck that up.... a big if).
I've already done it (Score:4, Interesting)
I may get forced in the Vista direction at some point, and I'm pretty sure that at some point I'll be forced to at least support it, but so far I've been able to pretend it isn't there and just hope for it to go away. My company is the main locus of such possible force, but they are so far mostly avoiding Vista. Unfortunately the in-house Linux that they prefer is Red Hat... It might be more secure, but I feel Ubuntu is much closer to being ready for the masses to work with.
Put all your efforts behind KDE (Score:5, Interesting)
One could say we in the free software business are our own enemies. We shoot ourselves in the feet all the time. Imagine...after all this time, with the [free] availability of specs of every kind, there is no decent ODF application beyond OpenOffice.org...which at version 2.4, still sucks bigtime by the way! Do not think I blindly support KDE because KDE's KOffice is a joke!
By the way, some author outlines ways for that other environment to improve. [earthweb.com]
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt they know though if they would install XP or Linux on there the laptop would absolutely fly and that's why they don't seem to have problems with it, if they would install XP or Linux and compare it to Vista they would find Vista is a major slow down on their computer.
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Re:Well... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
I don't really have a hard time believing this. Between video acceleration (non-restricted drivers) and things like networking support (ndiswrapper aka the spawn of satan) it might be easy to get a situation where some things are or just feel more speedy on Vista. I have Vista on a desktop at home just trying it out and performance (aside from file copying) has never been a problem. While I think there are some serious design issues with Vista I do not find any fault with response time or performance on moderately new hardware.
An extreme case is startup/shutdown/hibernate times. On XP/Vista it takes about 30-45 seconds goes from off to usable and about 8 seconds when in hibernation. I may as well shut down the Ubuntu partition since coming out of hibernation is no faster than just starting it up normally (which takes a lot longer than 30 seconds) and occasionally hibernation fails to resume correctly.
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Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
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Flash 9 on Linux is terrible. (Score:5, Informative)
But Flash 9.0.115 on Linux is TERRIBLE. That plugin is so unstable it crashes Youtube every other video and eats RAM. This isn't Linux's fault its Adobe's.
But there is a work around. Extract the FLV and use ffmpeg or mencoder and change it into another format, it looks MUCH Better. Just get it out of that horrid flash plugin.
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Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably, but I don't know that speed is everything to the average user. They'll put up with a bit of slowdown for an OS that feels powerful, looks pretty and has lots of neat little toys. And Linux has certainly had issues with looking pretty, which is understandable as talented designers aren't as generous as programmers,
And yes, I could be talking about OS X here too; only in the last few years has it not been an OS that's slow as molasses.
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Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed, but as someone who has just painstakingly managed to install Windows XP on a Dell XPS 1530 (which is officially Vista-only) I can attest to the fact that it's not "a bit of slowdown" - it's an imprecise measure but I'd say my laptop now "feels" at least two times faster/more responsive. We are talking about a pretty zippy dual core machine with 3 gigs of RAM and a powerful video card, too (256MB DDR3 nvidia 8600gt), which ran like treacle with Vista on it.
I have since played with another, similar Vista laptop trying to figure out what is doing all the damage. The worst individual offenders seem to be the (well documented) user account control bullshit which interferes with every aspect of the operation of the computer, and "supercache", which would have to be in the top 5 worst Microsoft innovations of all time.
For the uninitiated, supercache watches everything you do and records a log of what you cause to be loaded into memory and at what time/date it happens (this automatically introduces an overhead into every single memory related operation because Vista has to spend some resources on surveilling you). It then attempts to predict what you are going to use at a given point in time, and pre-caches as much of it as it considers to be reasonable. So for example, if I played Quake III every Wednesday night between 7-8pm, Vista would start grinding away at about 7pm on Wednesdays loading the texture files into RAM. Supercache apparently considers about 1.5 gigabytes on a system with 3 gigabytes of RAM to be a reasonable amount of physical memory to use for this process.
The net effect of all of the above is that Vista spends a hell of a lot of time sitting there churning away using your disks and RAM to load "stuff" into memory that you "might" need. All of this for the 1-2 seconds you are likely saving by not having to load Word or Quake III or whatever from disk should you happen to want to use it.
Turning UAC and Supercache off (both pretty straightforward once you know where to look) improves performance a lot - but not enough. Vista still has an offensively huge footprint and runs like a dog compared to XP.
Which returns me to the original point - XP is already a challenge to get running with some newer hardware. But if hardware manufacturers have the guts to stand up to Microsoft and keep producing XP versions of their hardware drivers (which should be trivial if they are doing 32 bit Vista drivers) then there's really very little we need from Microsoft.* XP is a stable, solid, mature OS which does what it does pretty well. I for one intend to keep using it into the foreseeable future.
* This is the main issue at the moment - most laptop manufacturers in particular have abandoned XP support on newer machines.
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Tried it lately? (Score:5, Informative)
When you post stuff like this people are just going to point out the youtube.com video WINDOWS VISTA AERO VS LINUX UBUNTU BERYL [youtube.com]. 3 million people have seen it. Why haven't you? It's from February of last year. Compiz has improved some since.
Here is Compiz running on a seven year old 800 MHz PIII with 128 MB of RAM. [youtube.com] It runs better than Vista did on the last dual core notebook with 1GB I tried it on, and it looks better too.
Here's Compiz running on an eee PC [youtube.com]. Isn't that sweet? I hate lugging around 15 pounds of kit and the eee will be my next PC purchase. It weighs two pounds. Did you hear they're only 300 bucks (No, not the software. The whole thing!)?
I hear Vista comes with a few docklets or widgets or whatever they're calling them now. Ubuntu comes with this small collection [ubuntu.com] of neat little toys. I didn't count them. I think there's thousands of them in there. People might find one or two interesting things in there.
Now what were you saying again? Oh, yeah,
Now you're projecting. In design are you? Apparently others are more giving. Perhaps that's because what they get back is "Progress" and that's good value.
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Re:XP? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:So there is still a reason? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:XP? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:XP? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:XP? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:XP? (Score:5, Insightful)
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DOS apps (Score:5, Funny)
VMs and emulating the A: drive doesn't help if the auditing office insists on receiving the data via snail-mail delivered floppy (no joke!)
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Re:XP? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh... wait... you meant "Point Of Sale"... well, yeah, I guess that it could run on those too.
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I am too - seriously! (Score:5, Interesting)
The key is to install FireFox, never use Internet Explorer or any of the apps that use it (like Outlook), and don't ever expose it directly to the Internet. (The one time I did, it only took an hour or so to get clobbered by the Welchia worm.)
My wife runs XP, but mainly because that's what came on her laptop. The only real advantage I see to XP is the fast user switching. But she's never going to be a Vista user: she just bought an iMac, to run Final Cut on for her video artwork.
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Re:It's nice to share. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:It's nice to share. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:It's nice to share. (Score:5, Informative)
Other Win98 'drivers' are actually just hacks - code that must run in Ring 0. They are VxDs, a system that was originally designed to virtualise devices underneath multiple Dos boxes. Antivirus software and the like used this environment to hook filesystem access for example. Obviously this can't work on NT since there are no VxDs and the filesystem layer is completely different.
Even between successive releases of NT based OSs, there isn't any guarantee that drivers will work. Most people know this and write their inf files so the device will only install on one of the OS versions they tested.
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Re:It's nice to share. (Score:5, Informative)
Unless, of course, you want to run shiny new things. I'll bet he's not running any games past D9 on it.
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Re:It's nice to share. (Score:5, Insightful)
Since DX10 is only available for Vista, I'd say that's a pretty safe bet.
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Re:It's nice to share. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ideally I would run the scan by unplugging the network cable and booting from directly the malware-scanner CD. Unfortunately nobody makes such a thing -- it's like the "antivirus" companies don't really care about reliability. Running the scan on the target system itself is pointless, since some system-level malware could be tampering with the results. That's why I take the hard drives out of the target systems and attach them to a known-clean system (fresh OS+scanner install, no network) to run the scan.
But really the elaborate malware scan is just window dressing so I can provide some tangible evidence that my systems aren't infected; I know they're clean because I keep them clean on a day-to-day basis by not installing tons of random crap I found in the net.toilet, keeping applications and plug-ins (and pointless upgrades!) to a bare minimum, and keeping an eye on the security bulletins. It's not rocket science, but it is kind of computer science.
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ClamAV + Slax, or something (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:It's nice to share. (Score:5, Informative)
Which is why every computer shop, or company worried about security, or technician, should make their own.
It's pretty easy actually - through about a dozen methods, including *nix or eComStation live boot disks with ClamAV, et al installed, or using BartPE and building the tools into the ISO, or using Hirens and doing the same, or... well, you get the point... the list of choices are plenty.
And with a rewritable, it is pretty easy to update the disk every day by dragging the updated definitions/apps into the correct directory (or with the tiny cost of CDs, burn a new one every day - or with a good selection of NIC drivers on a Bart disk, let the programs auto update the definitions through the Internet before it even touches the machine's hard drives).
I agree it would be kinda nice if a company made such a product - but what company out there does a good job at dealing with all the threats possible on a PC? You'd still need multiple solutions... the only one I know of that comes close is Spyware Terminator since you can enable ClamAV support. But even so, I prefer the "multiple solutions to each issue" method, namely because even with every program updated, while there is a high level of overlap (eg: they all agree on/find 99% of the viruses and spyware and trojans on a computer; each finds just a few more that the other programs in their category dont). As a neat example, one machine that the customer insisted we could not wipe and needed to clean (5 digit list of infections) required 6 different software packages to find them all... oddly there were two viruses that everything but an outdated McAfee found (we checked, they definitely were infected)... yet ClamAV and 3 other packages missed it. On the other hand, we clean one of our customer's systems with ClamAV to grab everything that Norton and McAfee miss.
So, I prefer the "roll your own" approach :-) And I am guessing that anyone who needs to do true scans/cleaning of their systems also use multiple tools if such issues are critical to them.
Sadly, as anyone who does this day in and day out can tell you, that is not enough to ensure a system is clean. Windows (any version, any service pack) does not need any user intervention or use to get infected. I'm not saying it is horrendous (nor am I saying it's not - not making any statement either way)... what I am saying is that machines do get infected even with all updates installed - and no user in front of the keyboard.
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Re:It's nice to share. (Score:5, Informative)
Mcafee [aol.com] disagrees.
AVG [grisoft.com] disagrees.
Or... if you don't want those, you can just make a "live cd" using any of the countless utilities [nu2.nu] out there for it.
Or if you're feeling crazy, toss vmware onto a knoppix dvd and boot windows from either an image on the dvd or boot it straight from the drive, isolated in vmware.
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Re:XP? (Score:5, Funny)
We're cool with that. Hey, we've been on the internet for a while. We've seen guys who like their nuts being smacked with bricks, someone using ME willingly is only a notch up from that, I'm pretty sure we can accept that. Somehow. Someday. Well, maybe in a while, at least.
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Re:vista's not really that bad.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not? Generally the reasons that people use Windows when they know there is Linux is because of legacy apps, if they don't work in Vista there is no need to move from XP and not move to Linux/OS X. On most other OSes unless there has been a major change (Like 9X to NT, major changes in scripting languages such as python, PPC to x86) you should expect backwards compatibility. With Linux you don't have that problem, most apps written 3 years ago for the first Ubuntu will work fine with 8.04 or any other distro. With OS X the OS had such a major change from PPC classic mac based to x86 Unix-based you can't make a claim of backwards compatibility but in general there's no reason to expect that NT X App shouldn't run on NT X+1. MS killing backwards compatibility is killing the entire MS monopoly and moving people to OS X or Linux.
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Re:vista's not really that bad.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely. Backward compatibility is always blamed as the problem, but these legacy apps cost MONEY for new versions (if they are even available). This is one thing that always irritates me about Microsoft. Even on products they don't make any money on, like IE, they have to re-invent the wheel every time they release it.
Absolutely. The other great thing about Linux, if you are using FOSS, you can probably just download a version that works with your distro. A pain in terms of time, but at least it's not cash out of your pocket. If that doesn't work out for you, you next option is to modify the source code and recompile under the latest OS. Again, doesn't always work, and can be difficult for some apps, but in general a viable solution.
In general, Microsoft is an incredibly wasteful company. They spend millions of man-hours re-inventing products with minimal improvement. I have heard very little about Vista that is an improvement on XP, yet they spent a ton of work on it. Their whole business model is banking on the idea that software is continually obsolete, and that just isn't the case. A Word Processor is a Word Processor. An OS, as long as it's compatible with the hardware, is an OS. I can write a letter in Word 95 just as easily as I can in Word 2007, gets the same job done. Why would I spend thousands of dollars on all of the upgrades between now and then if Microsoft didn't periodically break all the backward compatibility.
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Re:vista's not really that bad.. (Score:5, Informative)
Er, Compiz isn't a memory hog though. I just measured it, and with all the standard features turned on it seems to use about 8MB more than a standard non-compositing window manager (e.g. metacity). It's also very fast and responsive with even minimal hardware acceleration (I'm using a machine with built-in intel 845G graphics, and compiz works very nicely).
I don't know what MS did to fuck up Vista so much, but you can't lay it at the feet of "compositing window managers."
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Re:Recognize the error and wait for Win7 (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never cared for XP's eye candy or Vista's eye candy... all I want in a Windows-compatible OS is a Windows 2000-like GUI, support for the latest hardware, updated security patches, and a minimum of bloat. XP can do it, Server 2008 can do it, and any future OS (or OS emulation like WINE) that can do it will be fine with me, too.
I don't use a computer to look at pretty transparent windows. I use a computer to run applications. Any OS "feature" that steals CPU cycles away from my applications does not give me warm fuzzy feelings. Such "features" send me on a search for the method to turn them off and get back to the stripped-down, efficient GUI of Windows 2000. My hardware and my apps are where it's at for me. If the OS wants to be the star, it can take a hike. That is where MS went wrong with Vista.
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Re:for those of us old enough to remmeber... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's what you're missing... Win95 did have a number of significant improvements over 3.11. Vista does not have significant improvements over XP. It's a few security fixes, lots of eye candy, and lots of DRM or similar protectionist practices that mean you have to contact MS every time you switch your hard drive.
There is no benefit whatsoever in switching to Vista. There are, however, consequences in terms of performance and in the freedom to change hardware etc. It might have been a different story if they'd delivered the Vista they initially promised -- the one with the new file system etc. The Vista they eventually delivered had none of that -- no significant improvements, no "must have" features whatsoever.
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