Microsoft Extends XP For Low-Cost Laptops 388
Ian Lamont writes "Microsoft says it will extend the sales of Windows XP Home to OEMs by several years, but it's not in response to the SaveXP petition. Microsoft is supposedly making the move in part to ensure that Linux doesn't dominate the market for certain types of 'ultra-low-cost' laptops. XP will be available for OEMs until June 30, 2010, or one year after the availability of the next client version of Windows, whichever date comes later. This greatly extends the earlier XP deadline of June 30 of this year (which was an extension itself), and means XP will potentially be installed on new computers nearly a decade after its original release. The author of the article suggests that the post-June 2008 release of Atom-based laptops encouraged Microsoft to extend XP, even though Intel says Atom can support Vista. Intel also claims that 'Moblin' Linux will be available on Atom-equipped mobile devices starting this summer."
cool... (Score:4, Informative)
wow. this is good news!
Re:This shows Microsoft's priorities (Score:5, Informative)
Re:NEW SERVICE PACK NOW? (Score:4, Informative)
What's suprising here? (Score:3, Informative)
Some Clarity in the Post (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This is why they are failing over and over (Score:1, Informative)
Monopoly logic.
Re:It's really sad... (Score:2, Informative)
exploit the current multi-core CPUs as today's freshly minted operating systems.
These problems aren't exactly brand new. They've been around for a LONG time, even
on PC based systems.
If you OS from 2000 can't handle multiple processors then it's just crap.
In part true... (Score:3, Informative)
Linux has evolved a lot since the simple tools that it was once comprised off... but as many who tool around with Linux From scratch can tell you, it is still a relatively simple system, if only a sort of tank which is carrying a train's worth of bells and whistles.
Whereas Microsoft Windows is more like a small Trabant dragging along the same bells and whistles. Eventually the Trabant breaks down, regardless of the fact that it might be rugged as a simple vehicle. It is incapable of dragging the extra weight for very long.
Also don't forget that Microsoft went and fucked up the network stack in windows (Service Pack 2 for XP anyone?) to deny libpcap (or winpcap as it is known to windows users) for the various and sundry network analysis tools out there. Until the rework was available, most tools (starting with nmap) were severely hampered on Windows rigs.
Remember the ICMP port 139 "win nuke" ? Yeah, remember how the repeated "fixes" only actually fixed "some of the time" attacks? Every time MS fixed them, someone running the patch would complain that "it still works"? As in, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I found that if I had a firewall that dropped the packets, it stayed alive, but anytime it actually "processed" the packets the system dropped.
I STILL don't understand how that stuff worked (and no, i'm not about to hex edit my way through an entire windows core dump to try to figure out what happened, not worth my time)... but thankfully ever since I dumped Windows98 as a browsing environment, I haven't had to figure it out.
Remember those so called "tear drop" privilege escalation attacks in Windows NT, 2000 and XP? Each time they said they were fixed, and yet each time they resurfaced on patched systems? Before I quit working on Windows for a living (my last IT "job") I was given a system to 'clean' that had a virus (the name of which I forget) which utilized a privilege escalation (tear drop, yeah, the one MS said it patched a dozen different times) in order to create an account which it somehow ran as a nested parent account to that of the user. As a result it was able to capture all input and output and forward them to gods only know where. Curiously, it also slagged the system, and thus seems that it wasn't exactly what one would call an "elegant surveillance hack", not anywhere like "Sub 7" used to be.
The only logic I can get, is that Microsoft was simply trying to keep its "licensed professionals" in business. I am willing to even stand by that remark, as I am (until it expires) a Microsoft Licensed Professional, thanks to a company I worked for that paid for all of us to be "certified".
Re:It's really sad... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Speak for Microsoft. I see great improvment. (Score:5, Informative)
in the years leading up to 2000 there were major advances in the windows/PC world every couple of years
* 1993 - windows NT, a proper 32 bit version of windows.
* 1995 - windows 95, introduced plug and play allowing users to easilly add devices. Unfortunately based on a rather crummy 16/32 bit hybrid codebase that gave better support for older apps but limited stability and security.
* 1998 - windows 98, introduced decent support for USB (there was some support in the last OEM service releases of 95 but USB seriously got going with 98) allowing much easier addition of arbitary external devices.
* 2000 - windows 2000, brought together the stability of the NT line with support for critical things like plug and play and USB.
Since then the windows world has really stagnated. MS is adding new features but by and large they just aren't that significant to most users particually when the performance cost is considered.
Meanwhile linux has as you say been really catching up and even surpassing windows in many areas. For people with no apps tying them to windows (or who are buying a machine they don't plan to run such apps on) linux is now a very viable choice.
Windows XP could become the new Windows CE ? (Score:4, Informative)
Haven't you heard of "Windows XP Embedded" [wikipedia.org] It's a componentized version of Win XP Pro and is based on the same binaries as XP Professional. It's is marketed towards developers for OEMs, ISVs and IHVs that want the full Win32 API support of Windows but without the overhead of Professional. It runs existing Windows applications and device drivers off-the-shelf on devices with at least 32MB Compact Flash, 32MB RAM and a P-200 microprocessor. "XPe" was released on November 28, 2001. As of February 2007, the newest release is Windows XP Embedded SP2 Feature Pack 2007.
XPe is not related to Windows CE. They target different devices and they each have their pros and cons which make them attractive to different OEMs for different types of devices. For instance, XPe will never get down to the small footprint that CE works in. However, CE does not have the Win32 APIs XPe has (although CE has an API that is similar to the Win32 API), nor can it run the tens of thousands of drivers and applications that already exist.
The devices targeted for XPe have included ATMs, arcade games, slot machines, cash registers, industrial robotics, thin clients, set-top boxes, network attached storage (NAS), time clocks, navigation devices, etc. Custom versions of the OS can be deployed onto anything but a full-fledged PC; even though XPe supports the same hardware that XP Professional supports (x86 architecture), licensing restrictions prevent it from being deployed on to standard PCs :-(
I was just thinking as I was reading this topic of how I would love to be able to load only the components I want. I'm a great fan of XP Pro and use it daily in my work. I hope I will never have to downgrade to Vista. These days I am developing software for Adobe Flex & Action Script 3. If I stay at this, I may just switch to Linux when full support for that comes out next year.
The above is directly quoted from Wikipedia.
Re:This shows Microsoft's priorities (Score:3, Informative)
Customers are people who buy Microsoft products. Hardware manufacturers are #1, followed by corporate purchasing departments.
Developers might be third.
That doesn't mean that they don't care about developers, that just means that developers are not Microsoft's customers, any more than authors are the customers of Random House.
Re:NEW SERVICE PACK NOW? (Score:2, Informative)
so, in my line of work, where i am repairing or fresh installing customer machines, i'd have to GIVE them a copy of the slipstream disc i use, which microsoft frowns upon, unless i want them to NOT be able to fix their machines themselves, which would just piss a lot of them off.
so i will wait for sp3, and when it comes out, rejoice, as it takes 2x as long to install updates as it does the OS it self, with or without autopatcher....
Re:It's really sad... (Score:5, Informative)
An OS, a window manager, a desktop environment, tons of games, an office suite, an image editor, a DVD writer, a ton of 3D effects, a ton of screensavers, etc.
To compare, on the vista DVD, you get:
An OS+window manager+desktop environment (and you can't choose which ones), some games, a few screensavers, 3-4 3D effects, and that's pretty much it. And when installed it takes up what, like 10 gigs?
And as far as the 6 CDs or 1 DVD Linux downloads, these include ALL packages, so if you don't have internet access you can still install all your stuff. But Most of them you don't even need. I just set up a LAMP server today (no gui). I used CDs 1 and 2. That's it. And about 90% was from CD1. So yeah, I would say Linux is pretty damn small [damnsmalllinux.org] indeed.
Re:No, it's market distortion (Score:3, Informative)
Kernel updates = more speed too (Score:3, Informative)
The re-release of XP is a sign that Linux really is starting to move in on MS's turf, and that it's becoming a real worry to MS in terms of becoming a viable alternative to regular users. I ran into a guy with an Eee in the subway just awhile ago. He's wasn't a coder. He wasn't a hacker. He was just a regular guy who wanted a cheap but useful laptop that he could surf the net and do regular day-to-day stuff on. Now that is what's going to scare Microsoft.
Re:It's really sad... (Score:3, Informative)
The Live CD aspect saved me a few times when mucking about on a computer where the installed OS was unstable and/or virus-ridden.