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."
Programming... (Score:5, Insightful)
Make one mistake and support it for the rest of your life.
Unless you are Microsoft, of course.
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
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?
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:pry it from my cold dead hands... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would you want the interface? It sucks.
Linux has far better desktops than Windows.
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:Few companies work as hard to make bad decision (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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?
Re:XP Sucks, Vista is Better (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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: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!"
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.
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.
Re:Why not open it up (Score:3, Insightful)
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 lifecycles of most linux distros and see who comes out ahead.
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.
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.
Re:Wow I'm First (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wow I'm First (Score:1, Insightful)
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: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.
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...
Re:Few companies work as hard to make bad decision (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why not open it up (Score:2, Insightful)
Okay, so you have a Windows XP machine and you have to upgrade because it is EOL. ( prices are rough guesses )
Windows Vista: £300
New PC: £300
New software: £150
Total: £750
Same for an upgrade to the next version of *insert favourite Linux disto here*
Distro: £0
New PC: £0 ( don't need one )
New software: £0
Total: £0
This post may sound zealoty but it is to illustrate that once Linux was brought into the comparison, it became apple and oranges.
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)
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.
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.
Re:Why not open it up (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think microsofts suppport lifecycle policy for windows is unreasonable.
Their support policy for XP would not be unreasonable at all . . . if there were a decent replacement for XP. Many people, myself included, find that XP still works a lot better than Vista for them.
Compare that to the support lifecycles of most linux distros and see who comes out ahead.
That's true. Many Linux distros are not supported for all that long, relatively speaking. But the upgrades are free, and at least for me, they tend to get better over time. So it's worth the upgrade (and it would probably be worth it even if I were paying for support). I do agree that long-term support is good in some situations, such as for production servers in companies that cannot afford downtime or have many such servers, though.
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:XP Sucks, Vista is Better (Score:3, Insightful)
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 be able to run natively on 2020 PC's. Which OS is still able to do run 15-20 years unmodified on constantly-evolving hardware? And then there's my personal hope that we won't still be using i386-compatible PC's a decade from now.
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: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:Activation (Score:3, Insightful)
They sure will. The question is rather, will someone pick up and answer?
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.
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
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: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:Why not open it up (Score:3, Insightful)
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 migrate to Linux than upgrade to Vista, but not by anywhere the margins you're talking. Probably more like £100-250 difference. Which then begs the question from a complete Linux neophyte who would have to learn it all from scratch, "What is my time worth?".
For a lot of people it may be worth £750, but not a more reasonable £150. If you get really unlucky in the hardware lottery (say your wireless card AND your Printer AND your scanner won't work with Linux) it might even cost you MORE to migrate. Unlikely I'll grant you but hardly impossible. It's never quite as simple as "Use Linux! It's free!"
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: 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.
Re:Only ONE good year of Windows XP (Score:3, Insightful)
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 releases are paid vs free, and which versions are given new names vs service pack numbers is more marketing than anything else.
Maybe they should have followed OSX's paid point release cycle, instead of 7 years of free service packs. But at the end of the day it doesn't really make any difference.
Sooner or later the average buyer will realize that they don't need Microsoft's pushy "upgrades"
The average buyer hasn't paid for a Microsoft upgrade ever. He gets the new OS when he buys his new PC. How is that '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.
So, you are putting all the blame on microsft for the entire industry wanting people to buy new hardware? That is absurd.
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: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.