Microsoft Extends XP To May 2009 For OEMs 605
beuges writes "Microsoft has announced over the weekend that it would allow computer manufacturers to receive copies of XP until the end of May 2009, shortly before Windows 7 is expected to hit the market. This should allow users to skip Vista entirely and move straight to 7, which has been receiving cautiously favorable reviews of pre-release and leaked alphas."
Microsoft might actually care (Score:5, Interesting)
Skip (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not uncommon for companies to skip OS's , so this works out great for our 40,000 users. So we can go from XP sp3 direct to Win7 , but we will probably wait for SP1 of Win7.
Re:Microsoft might actually care (Score:5, Interesting)
It took two service packs for it to be decent.
I like Vista a lot actually. (Score:3, Interesting)
I have both Ubuntu and Vista and I prefer dual booting into Vista... I actually like the apps more on Ubuntu (kdevelop/bash), but, Vista's start bar, control panel, and user interface just nails it for me. Makes ubuntu feel old fashioned.
Unix people can complain about Vista as much as the want, but the fact is, they screwed up as bad as MS did. Microsoft doesn't hand out opportunities to attack its desktop and certainly with some of the bad Vista buzz, they did. But, the linux community blew it.
Gnome is moving at a glacial pace, and KDE is in no man's land. It's almost like, had KDE either finished 4 or just polished 3.x, or Gnome just moved more quickly, either could have had a real Vista killer, but, both missed.
Re:Meet the new version, same as the old version. (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure, Apple did it twice, but guess what? That's why Apple isn't very populer within enterprise-level companies.
Re:Windows 7 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Windows 7 (Score:3, Interesting)
What are the unsorted problems with Vista?
I mean, it's not the greatest OS in the world, but it's not horrendous. Yeah, there was the crap with the 'Vista ready' BS when it came out, but at this point, most new PCs should have no problem running it with Aero.
There were tons of driver issues when it came out too (Just like when Win 2k was new, god that was a nightmare), but again, it's been a few years and the driver support seams pretty top notch at this point.
The UAV system is annoying, but easily disabled. Hopefully they will tweak it to run more like Ubuntu where I can log in as a power user with out admin rights, but perform admin tasks by providing admin credentials when attempting the task.
Other than that, I'm pleased with the system. It's a tad more bloated than my XP build, but the hardware is a bit more beefy, so the extra memory and clock cycles are negligible and it can perform all of the tasks I normally do faster than my older PC with XP.
If Windows 7 makes iterative improvements on Vista the way 98 did to 95, then I'm all for it. I'd shell out $90 for an upgrade version next time I build a PC.
-Rick
you're still buying vista even if you skip it (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if they will let you buy the windows 7 upgrade for xp though? Or will you have to buy the full retail for 7, in which case they've as good as sold you a vista upgrade (plus a windows 7 upgrade) even though you didn't want anything to do with vista?
I personally find it hilarious that they keep extending xp as the consumer mass keeps threatening to make a "true" upgrade to another os...
Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Interesting)
The justification? simple.
To require all MCSE's to re certify. Oh and to get the millions of employees using windows out there to take new training courses in windows. The test users here we switched to Vista were non productive for 1 week. WORSE than the linux trials we did last year, and they required more training.
that is the ONLY reason they pull that crap.
tiny step in right direction (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, what Microsoft needs to do is:
(1) Offer free DOWNGRADES for anyone with a Vista license.
(2) Offer free UPGRADES to Windows Seven for anyone who buys a machine loaded with Vista.
Today I shall be installing a replacement IDE hard drive in a 6 year old system, a 1.8 GHz Pentium 4, which I'd much rather upgrade but won't simply because anything I bought today would be running Vista.
Windows 7's most important feature (Score:4, Interesting)
...will be the name. By not being called "Vista", users won't associate it with all the horror stories they've heard about Vista, so they'll be willing to give it a chance.
It will have a handful of minor improvements, but otherwise I expect it to be mostly identical. Vista's biggest problem is third-party compatibility, which should mostly be worked out by the time Windows 7 ships.
Personally, I hate Vista a lot less than I hate XP. Most people can't understand how I would say that, but that's because they actually like XP. Blech.
I *want* Windows 7 to suck (Score:3, Interesting)
I really like the benefits of Linux, and I think that given a little more time to mature, it could really take off with less-technical users. I wouldn't mind Windows 7 sucking just to give Linux a bit more of an incubation period.
(And, given the things MS has pulled in the past, I still think it's got a big karma deficit to work off. I'm still overwhelmed with a sense of schadenfreude against MS.)
Trying to lock users again (Score:3, Interesting)
As usual, after Vista's debacle, Microsoft communicates about their next generation OS, trying to keep the users focused on their software, to prevent them for looking for competition.
What has changed recently is that the economy crisis will force most of the companies to reduce their cost.
This will be done in two phases:
- the first one is reducing the number of employees.
- the second phase will be about reducing the cost of software.
Microsoft is as always very expensive, even though the cost of their development has been largely returned.
I think they will need to reduce the price of their software, or the next years will be difficult for them, especially when competing with free software.
Re:Meet the new version, same as the old version. (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft, however, owns 90% (i'm guessing 98%+) of the corporate desktop space. Enterprise applications. Clustered applications. Outlook. MS Office. These dekstops are integrated to server applications that also run Microsoft products. SQL Server. Exchange. Sharepoint. its all an extension of the windows space. To create a sandboxed strategy and execute upon it, would be almost impossible. Their market share dictates slow, incremental steps in between generations. Look how long it took them to get to an NFTS based file system!
Anyone who thinks Microsoft should be moving faster, doesn't have an enterprise view. Look how slowly other products and vendors progress their technology. Solaris. IMS. DB2. Oracle.
I don't see Microsoft losing the corporate desktop space anytime soon, but they're losing the retail battle (mainly due to some clever market by Apple) and it stings them. Microsoft's counter-campaigns have been extremely weak IMHO which has bolstered the impresseion that Mac OS > Vista.
Re:Isn't Windows 7 just Vista R2? (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess I'll really care when they have a new OS that will run on an Atom based netbook.
Windows Embedded Standard 2009. You can actually download the trial and play with it. Build some various loadouts of the operating system. You can included exactly what you want and do some fairly cool things with how it accesses the HDD and loads.
It costs too much, so you won't actually be able to afford more than the trial as individual end user, but you will at least get to see what windows would be if Microsoft would just let us use it how we want.
It better be fast and sleek. (Score:3, Interesting)
Windows XP is all the 32 bit OS anyone should ever need. It's fast, and pretty much scales as far as 32 bit will go. Windows 7 better have an option to be as sleek and unobtrusive as Windows XP. They lost me 2 years ago when I switched to Linux, but I spent 5 years learning the ins and outs of XP so it's almost as comfortable as my custom Fluxbox configuration (which took me all of a week to get to a reasonably functional level.)
Anyway, even if it does, $150+ is way to much to pay for an OS that has regressions in functionality (whether coming from XP or Linux, this is definitely the case on Vista, and I'd expect it for 7.)
An OS is worth about $50. Don't get me wrong, I understand the energy that goes into optimizing it. But it's unnecessary. I've used new Macs running quad cores, I've run new Fedora machines running the same, I've used Vista... sparingly, and I have to say, the performance gains of the past 4 years over my single-core integrated graphics machine are negligible. If I'm paying, I'm paying for security fixes and continued driver support plain and simple. I have yet to see anyone give me something that so blows away Windows XP that it really sounds like it's worth more than $50.
Re:Hahahaaa 7 before vista isnt cold dead yet (Score:2, Interesting)
There has been a huge communication effort at my company, training videos, websites, emails, the works. We will be going to Vista throughout 2009 into early 2010 with something like 20,000+ machines will be affected. As a strategic customer of MS (I think, I haven't worked in procurement) I doubt that this will affect their ability to sell us on the next generation.
Re:Its the monopoly stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
I have seen the way out.
It is virtualization.
Upgrade all your existing workstations to a secure OS (Linux, Mac, whatever you think is appropriate) and create a Windows VM that runs the old applications. Now you can keep access to all that old stuff in a more controlled fashion, while still locking down the host OS.
Re:Meet the new version, same as the old version. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Windows 7 (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, the ME disaster was a plus for MS.
They couldn't get people off the 9x platform.
Windows ME forced people to go to Windows 2000.
Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Interesting)
if MS just dumped XP and FORCE-FED Vista on Business
Then we'd move to full volume licensing for all machines that require Windows, and use our downgrade rights for XP (unless Windows Seven is actually worth using).
I've been running Ubuntu at work partially as a test to see how easy it would be to move people over to it if necessary. Things are working pretty nicely so far, I'm thinking everyone but our engineering design department could do their jobs fine with free software. In fact our Fabrication department would probably be better off with free software than the OmniForm crap that they're using at the moment. Sure, Evolution's Exchange integration isn't perfect - the unread messages number for each folder isn't updating like it should - but apart from that it works great. If MS try to force any shit onto us I'd be happy to move all our general office workers over to Linux, and yes I'd provide full support for them - it's part of what I get paid for after all ;)
Re:Windows 7 Supporter (Score:2, Interesting)
I earn my living supporting a few Vista laptops used by some impatient execs so I know of what I speak.
I have had absolutely no issue with it.
Well, then I'm not sure you do much with either then. There are user issues and oh there are plenty. I'll hit the highlights for you.
1. Copying large files. Why so slow? Execs want to check email while opening the latest *large* spreadsheet off the network. The dual-core 2GB RAM equipped nice laptop grinding to a halt is an issue.
2. UAC. After the first complaint I disabled it. Nevermind that UAC isn't sudo. Security is NOT shifting the responsibility of security onto the user. "Are you sure?" is not security. It's a blame-shifting mechanism and they paid handsomely for it.
3. Why is it **so** slow and suck **so** much battery power doing nothing? The disk thrashing is annoying to me, but they don't seem to notice it. The execs had way more battery time on their old XP's and they know the difference.
Vista has been far more stable than both of these,
That is a lie. Or, maybe you are using some kind of special Bill-Clinton-legal-gymnastical definition of "stable." It's one thing to prefer Vista over a Mac or Linux distro. It is another thing entirely to lie about the other OS's you do not prefer. At this point you have lost all credibility and believability.
and the support is no contest.
Another Clintonian definition of the word support perhaps? Is it the *fabulous* phone support from script readers to configure your printer? Mac users get that too. Most on slashdot have moved way, way beyond phone CSR.
Re:I *want* Windows 7 to suck (Score:2, Interesting)
I want windows 7 to be pretty good, just to give the Linux devs a run for their money. I want competition. I want linux to be the best it can, I don't care about linux "winning".
Keep in mind that the linux community doesn't really benefit if the general user is using any linux-based OS. Winning "the war" isn't really the strategy from the FOSS camp.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
XP is good enough for me... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:New security process (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Its the monopoly stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, Word was dirt cheap/'free' with PC and only good enough.
For a significant number of people, Word was substantially superior. Not needing a keyboard overlay cheat-sheet to perform basic tasks and WYSIWYG (in Word for Windows) were two fairly high-profile advantages to the average end user.
Microsoft put a *massive* amount of effort into making Word better than Wordperfect by talking to end users and asking them what they wanted. It's a textbook example of a product winning because more people wanted it.
Re:Windows 7 (Score:3, Interesting)
Then you explain the Incredibly stupid task of renaming and rearranging everything.
It started with XP, oh let's move things HERE, let's change it HERE, etc...
it's like some interior designer got on the programming team and said, "users is too angry of a word, let's call it 'experience prefrences' as that has more fung-schway in it."
you say it does not make any sense, then you tell us WHY they do the stupid move of rearranging and renaming things in the UI?
Re:Meet the new version, same as the old version. (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft is the 800# gorilla in the room because it doesn't break backward compatibility.
This is not precisely accurate, at least in my case. I have a lot of 16 bit programs that date back 10 years or more, and with every MS OS "upgrade" fewer and fewer of them work.
Also, a lot of new stuff is written in .NET 2.0 which only installs on XPSP1 and newer. There is no reason for MS to make it not work with for instane 2000, except to force OS upgrades.
It is why I will not proceed past XP. If I have to buy/write new programs, I might as well go with another platform that doesn't force "upgrades" for the sake of revenue.
Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows 95/98/ME were just graphical shells running on DOS.
Will that myth never die? Just because you booted to DOS doesn't mean Win95 was a DOS app. Win95 was a 32-bit OS with a protected memory model. It was also the most amazing piece of backwards compatibility I've seen: it could run 16-bit drivers that expected a shared memory model.
Of course, this backwards compatibility made it Hell for those stuck supporting it, as it had all the unreliability of the old crap drivers, but it was certainly the right business decision for MS, and a heck of an engineering feat.
Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Interesting)
All that aside, I'm trying to be optimistic that 7 will be what Vista promised to be.
Except it won't be. None of the features that were promised to be in Vista but were dropped to keep from sliding the release even further will be in Windows 7. As far as I can tell, there aren't really any new important features in Windows 7. It's a new OS in name only (and bit of spit polish and debugging) and unfortunately that might just be enough.
And that's on top of Vista having few new important features. They did of course manage to cram in all the protected path DRM crap. Guess we know their priorities.
Re:Microsoft might actually care (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Meet the new version, same as the old version. (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft is going to have to sever all backwards compatibility at some point if they want a fresh start. Microsoft BOUGHT an Emulator/Virtualizer (Virtual PC), how hard would it be to make a seamless sandboxed XP install?
We don't really want all our XP malware and viruses to run seamlessly in a virtual layer.
Microsoft wants (needs) running really legacy stuff to be a least a bit of a hassle.
A guy I know runs XP in parallels on the Mac with some key windows apps he uses, and got it all infected with malware. Sure, at least he can kill the malware by shutting parallels down, that's not really a practical solution though, since he can't use the apps he needs.
That is the fundamental unique challenge Microsoft faces. They need to ensure backwards compatibility, and simultaneously ensure legacy malware won't run.
Not to sound to fanboyish, but Apple has done this TWICE in the last 10 years.
And its one of the reasons enterprises are leery about being heavily invested in Apple. If you still depend on something from 10 years ago your fucked.
SEVERAL companies I work with still run software written for MS-DOS. And it works on Vista, most of it just works. Some of it required a bit of coaxing. And a couple apps runs in a VM (and Virtual PC from microsoft is a free download).
There is exactly one and only one application I've been unable to get working under Vista in any form. (And I wasn't able to get it working under Windows 2000 or XP either.) Its a dos application for programming a certain era of Motorola 2-way radios via a RIB box attached to a serial port. And for that... I made a bootable usb dongle with win98se, that they plugin and reboot from when they need it.
Good luck getting a System6 or 7 or even OS9 app running on your new intel macbook. Sure their's pearpc, but it hardly qualifies as official support, and there are lots of caveats.
Re:New security process (Score:3, Interesting)
That's what all those Cancel or Allow prompts are. They just don't ask for your password again like linux and OSX does.
The "run as admin" is for one thing: programs which can be used as a with OR without elevated privileges and be useful. For example, if you don't "run as admin" an installer or application that writes to Program Files that doesn't properly elevate privileges (which results in a Cancel/Allow prompt), it will virtualize the Program Files to your profile directory. This can be useful or it can be really confusing, depending on the scenario.
Of course, no data should be stored in Program Files -- only programs. Data should either go to the user's profile if it's user specific, or the public profile if it's systemwide. But I have seem many pieces of software that store ALL their data in Program Files. tsk tsk. Better run those as admin, too, or you'll end up with a lot of confusion if multiple users use the app. (Though you can change the properties on the executable file to always run as admin.)
All the issues you bring up are because the security model changed, and old software doesn't conform. Not because the new security model is bad. It's basically the same security model that linux and OSX use. If they had the old XP security model for years and years, and suddenly changed to the Vista/linux/osx security model, there would be similar problems.
Microsoft's only real problem with the UAC is that they didn't implement it in a much earlier windows product line.
Re:Windows 7 (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot of really interesting new Vista features are under the hood and only visible for developers. For example, how about a true transacted file system & registry [microsoft.com] - so you can start a transaction, create directories and move files around, write into those files, maybe delete some - and then just roll it all back with a single API call or on a system crash, with guaranteed atomicity, while no other process in the system sees any of your changes until you commit them? I'm not aware of anything even remotely similar in previous versions of Windows (or any Linux-supported FS, for that matter). And the utility of this feature should be pretty obvious to most developers - finally, you won't need a full-featured journalled database (on top of an already journalled FS) for small-scale data storage just because you happen to need atomic updates!
Re:Meet the new version, same as the old version. (Score:5, Interesting)
Serious suggestion: try them in Wine on Linux. Wine is frequently a better Windows than Vista.
It's still beta-quality, but we use it on production machinery at work (one app which we didn't want to run a whole Windows box for, so it runs on CentOS in Wine). So it's "enterprise quality," whatever that is.
It's a good way to get rid of that one last Windows box you have running because of one legacy app you can't even find the developer for, let alone ask them to port or open source it.
Wine doesn't work well under Cygwin as yet, unfortunately, so Wine on Windows is not so good yet. More development eyes needed ;-)
Re:Where are they going to go? (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally I wonder why they want to abandon Windows XP support at all, Windows XP looks like a perfect cash cow for me, no need for further investments, most of the bugs are fixed and you can even skin it to look like Vista.
I don't understand why they want to abandon XP. I other word, they want to leave the Netbook market to Linux. Fine with me as long it is not Xandros. If you take LXDE [lxde.org] instead of GNOME [gnome.org] and KDE [kde.org] it still provides you with all you need. The Desktop is mature. It doesn't matter which operating system you run as long as it is fast and saves your battery.
Microsoft does not get it. The Desktop is mature. You don't need to provide Vista to your users. No one likes Vista. Instead they come up with Windows 7, in other words Vista++. Be sure Windows7 will eat even more memory. And users will again say: get us XP or we switch to Linux or we switch to Mac.
The real debacle for Microsoft is the merging business of software reselling [usedsoft.com]. In other words, if Microsoft does not get you a Windows license, your used software vendor will, and you also have all the old machines and their licenses you can sell for cheap. Because Microsoft is going to get "cheap XP" and zero-cost Linux as competitors of "Windows Azurecloud".
If you run XP and your computer gets damaged then why do you have to get a new XP license with your new notebook? Bundling is a total ripoff! Time to complain [europa.eu]. In some nations the courts made bundling illegal!
The day the bundling business dies we kiss Microsoft goodbye.