CWmike writes "Microsoft says it won't patch Windows XP for a pair of bugs it quashed Sept. 8 in Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. The news adds Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) and SP3 to the no-patch list that previously included only Windows 2000 Server SP4. 'We're talking about code that is 12 to 15 years old in its origin, so backporting that level of code is essentially not feasible,' said security program manager Adrian Stone during Microsoft's monthly post-patch Webcast, referring to Windows 2000 and XP. 'An update for Windows XP will not be made available,' Stone and fellow program manager Jerry Bryant said during the Q&A portion of the Webcast (transcript here). Last Tuesday, Microsoft said that it wouldn't be patching Windows 2000 because creating a fix was 'infeasible.'"
"Microsoft says it won't patch Windows XP for a pair of bugs it quashed Sept. 8 in Vista
The U.S. Navy's and Marine Corp's NMCI [wikipedia.org] computing infrastructure is all Windows XP. Let's see whether or not Microsoft withholds a patch from them.
I just had to post an invoice to the marine corp's web site. I luckily had one computer at work that was not upgraded to ie8. It would only respect ie6 or 7, and had some issues if I just changed the user agent on FF.
If people keep being forced to upgrade their browsers, no one will be able to use the government systems anymore.
I'm sure it will be an issue for the little companies billing, but you'll never hear about it.
The Navy will simply subcontract-out to Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and other defense companies to upgrade all their systems from XP to Windows 7 and fix any programs that "break" as a result. It will employ some 10,000 workers at a cost of 1.4 trillion dollars. Then it will fail to come-in on time, so they'll spend an extra 6 months and 0.3 trillion on schedule overrun.
Actually, this isn't funny and may well be the type of attention-getting answer we need to this problem. People should start sending off some emails to their representatives that points this problem out. Microsoft says they are supporting WindowsXP until 2014 for security matters and other serious problems. I'd say this qualifies. This "move" on Microsoft's part represents a squeeze play against all of its customers not the least of which is the U.S. Federal Government. And with all the attention on money problems, it can't be ignored or written off.
I foresee a congressional hearing on the matter should Microsoft continue down this road.
If the government plans to spend trillions on this surprise upgrade requirement, perhaps moving to another OS might be another consideration to weigh in. We KNOW Microsoft will leverage its position as "the" OS vendor to do nearly anything it wants. We can't force them to behave. Perhaps the best thing to do is push the misbehaving child to the curb and use someone else's product.
How about you read the article before you start yelling at your congressman? RFTA:
In the revised advisory, Microsoft explained why it won't patch Windows XP, the world's most popular operating system. "By default, Windows XP SP2, Windows XP SP3 and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition SP2 do not have a listening service configured in the client firewall and are therefore not affected by this vulnerability," the company said. "Windows XP SP2 and later operating systems include a stateful host firewall that provides protection for computers against incoming traffic from the Internet or from neighboring network devices on a private network."
Many people have compared defense work to "white collar welfare". I think the private companies are more frugal than that, since they are constantly cutting costs & laying-off workers, but having worked at the FAA it seems like a sound argument. I saw government workers sitting around doing nothing but surfing the net day-after-day. The FAA could lay-off 75% of the workforce and not notice any drop in output.
But of course if the FAA did that, then the politicians who represent those workers would scream bloody murder, and the layoffs would be canceled.
I have a friend who just got hired into group A working for the DOD. His job is to track how the stimulus money gets spent in group B. Actually his entire groups job is to track that money. Guess what group B's job is? Track how the money gets spent in group A. It's so ludicrous that you can't make this stuff up.
It's white collar welfare and has been for years. It's the advanced version of dig a hole and fill it in.
XP SP2 and later are fine by default. What does that mean? Does that mean it's the only possible configuration? Or is it reasonable that an XP SP2 computer could end up in a state where it does have a listening service configured in the client firewall? Doesn't Vista include "a stateful host firewall that provide protection for computers against incoming traffic from the Internet [...]"? I should think so, so wouldn't that invalidate their reasoning?
I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft is perfectly correct in not patching XP. The problem is how they communicate it. If they're patching Vista (a client OS) and they're patching Server 2003 (similar codebase to XP), then this makes it seem like they don't want to bother fixing XP, even though it's broken. If Microsoft had said, "the XP codebase is in no way vulnerable", I'd be completely satisfied. But they didn't. They said, "XP is broken, but by default it's protected".
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday September 15, @07:30AM (#29424715)
Ah so when it comes to patching severe holes the codebase is way too old with its 12 - 15 years, but when it comes to revealing the source it is still very relative. Then how does patching very relative code become "not feasible"? "Can't" or "won't"? Which is it MS?
Except I bought a brand NEW license of XP on my Acer netbook less than 1 year ago. That means Microsoft received NEW payment for that license in the last year (and a bunch of others) so obviously they're making money on it. Unlike patching cars you don't have to make additional parts, once you fix the problem in one copy of XP it is near-zero to fix the problem for ALL XPs as they're exactly the same.
My local stores still sell NEW netbooks with NEW licenses of XP on them... where's bug support for the new buyers?
The vast majority of DoD's systems are Windows XP with no plans of moving to Vista. US Central Command (CENTCOM) is the only command of which I've heard that has said it is moving to Vista, and FSM only knows why.
The U.S. Navy's and Marine Corp's NMCI computing infrastructure is all Windows XP. Let's see whether or not Microsoft withholds a patch from them.
Since 2008, the US Navy will acquire only systems based on open technologies and standards. That excludes M$ products explicitly in every way but name. The TCP/IP being just one example of failure on M$ part to implement standards. US Navy is ditching M$ [fcw.com].
They'll probably go with an American company like Red Hat or roll their own spin of Red Hat.
The question remaining is will Bill's father's political connections keep lil Bill out of Camp X-Ray or not? If you've got Windows on your network, then you have a personnel problem, not just a network security problem.
Interesting article. I work with the Navy, as well as other services, DoD, etc and have never heard this. I've also seen the DoN purchase proprietary systems this year alone, so at least some people haven't gotten that memo. Perhaps for areas where viable open source alternatives exist, I could see that, like for servers. But many of the workstation applications have no alternative. And with changes in command every few years, his successor is just as likely to continue with MS as not.
The U.S. Navy's and Marine Corp's NMCI computing infrastructure is all Windows XP.
I questioned the Navy's IT management for years, failing to see the long term wisdom behind the program and thinking it was a pork spending program awarded to political insiders. But, I'm forced to admit NMCI has been tremendously successful at bringing productivity to a near stand still. Patching computers no one can use is hardly even necessary.
As a bonus the Navy has an inexhaustible supply of boat anchors!
Whatever. I'll just keep using XP until it crashes-and-burns, and then I'll toss this PC into the trash and get a new $300 PC at walmart with Windows 8 already-installed. That's my upgrade path.
BTW anyone want to buy a Windows 95 laptop? It's harmless (mostly).
Translation: "Sales of Vista didn't go well due to Vista being crap, and Win7 isn't actually all that much better, so rather than offer a product people actually want we're going to exploit our monopoly and withhold necessary security fixes from others in order to force people to 'upgrade.'"
Ah, a car analogy. It's more like this: You go to the Honda dealership and take a look at their 2010 models and purchase a vehicle. You discover that the engine has a serious flaw in it and ask Honda for a fix. Honda refuses because that engine is based on an 8 year old engine design. Except in this case, instead of a Honda you bought a brand new netbook and instead of an engine it came with a new copy of Windows XP.
Your argument doesn't work either though IMO. For one thing software changes a lot quicker than car technology so I was being pretty kind saying 10 years for the car stuff. You might expect a dealer to service a 30 year old car, but you're probably going to have to pay through the nose for it (and I've read of at least one case where a dealer didn't have the parts to service a car because it was so old).
XP is not the latest software, it is simply the most popular. Even if the majority of people in the world preferred the original VW Beetle from the 30s (or whenever it started production, I think it was in production for something crazy like 50 years), it doesn't mean that VW are still obliged to find and fix design flaws in it. You'd expect a product recall if a large problem was found in the latest incarnation of the Beetle sure - but we're not talking about the latest version, we're simply talking about the most popular version, and it's getting out of its support lifetime. I don't think any other version of Windows has lasted so long.
In this case the WINE team or some group like that could probably produce a replacement version of the TCP/IP stack to stick into Windows, it would be the equivalent of having to buy 3rd party copies of OEM parts for an ancient car. Yes you can "keep it running", but the original manufacturer has stopped supporting it. MS are not shutting down all old copies of XP, they're simply stopping support.
IMO it would be nice of them to keep supporting it, and some companies would do so, but they have no obligation to. And it's definitely not MS's style to be 'nice'.
How does this rate insightful, when the fellow knows nothing about his topic?
Weird assertion: "Sales of Win7 are down so low MS isn't even promoting it in most places"
Newsflash: There is no retail release of Win7 yet.
Good point? "underpromise and overdeliver. They have been doing the opposite and wonder why people hate them.
Excellent diagnosis. MS should also learn how to sell to the business, preferably the CFO - not keep hyping 'features' to IT - often the most dysfunctional outfit in any org.
Wild claim: "There are lots of groundbreaking problems that people will not touch with a 20 foot pole"
C'mon! Cite a bloody reference, or just yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theatre!
In reality you make claims about Windows 7 sales that cannot be backed up - and use unspecific criticism to support the claim, without evidence. Allow me to explain some basics.
The bulk of Corporation and Government purchases? They already owned Windows 7, before it was released, through the Software Assurance benefit in their contract through their reseller. Microsoft measures "deployment", not "sales" with these folks... You know Home Depot, Wal*Mart, Hewlett Packard, General Motors, even Google.
Despite not even being offered as a public, retail item, Windows 7 will do very well on the day it goes to market. Retail sales are a tricky number. Most are through OEM installation on new computers - not shiny disc SKUs. So, for 2 months, these have been ramped through the manufacturing channels.
Let's talk in February - when the after-Christmas inventory purge is complete. Then we can compare notes.
It is unclear how large a threat this is to the end user. However the fact that XP is being loaded on netbooks suggests that Microsoft has a revenue stream that it should protect by writing a patch if it is serious.
Here you go [microsoft.com]. Extended support is well into 2014. Mainstream support has already ended though.... Which is very strange considering XP is still sold with netbooks.
Two questions: 1. Does 7's XP mode potentially have this issue, or is there a compatibility layer so xp doesn't talk directly to the network? 2. They seemed to be able to make massive security updates for code that was that old, and still patch a number of other issues. What about this REALLY makes it so hard to code?
In the end, while I understand not wanting to waste resources on way older products, I think it is a marketing move.
The XP virtual machine is not accessible from outside as it talks via a NAT router. Any attack would need to come from the Windows 7 host machine, but if that was pwned, there are many other ways to attack the XP virtual machine.
Isn't the codebase for XP and Windows 2003 essentially the same? Why can't the 2003 patch be modified? I don't remember reading that the TCP/IP stack was that different in 2003.
While the code may very well be 15 years old, that does not really matter to the user. What matters is how long ago Microsoft sold the product. If they sell software today that uses some code written 15 years ago you should be able to expect security updates for some period of time. Now, had they decided not to patch software they haven't sold in 15 years that would be totally OK.
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday September 15, @07:27AM (#29424701)
This is the key point. It doesn't matter when the code was written - if it was sold "today", it's current code. Current code (sold on the scale of an OS) should be fixed, or declared "broken" and not sold.
Since XP is still being shipped and supported [computerworld.com] on netbooks this seems a little strange. What's the message - spend extra on memory and hard drive so that you can run XP instead of Linux but we won't give you security patches?
A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 miles per hour. The rear differential locks up. The car crushes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now: do we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field (A), multiply it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement (C). A times B times C equals X...
If X is less that the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
The true cost of releasing a patch is not in compiling and distributing the fix. The money is spent on verification. By not releasing the patch to XP and w2k my estimates are that Microsoft is saving man-years in verification.
I guess these guys did not read: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy [microsoft.com] XP extended support goes thru 2014 and supposedly covers security fixes. I would think this counts as a security fix.
Today GM announced that the GMC trucks have some fundamental flaw and they are prone to explode randomly. GM said it wont fix the issue because the design is very old, and fixing it is unfeasible. When asked if they will when they stopped shipping trucks with the fatal flaw, GM spokesman said, "we have not stopped building or shipping them yet. We need to compete with the low cost competitors in the net-truck market and so we continue to make and ship the trucks, but we wont fix the safety issue. The drivers may wrap themselves in bags filled with thermocol peanuts to get some measure of protection.
Your analogy is flawed in three ways. First, MS doesn't make cars. Cars are useful. MS makes on OS which is a system component and pretty much useless by itself. Second MS is a monopoly, whereas GM is not. Third, the flaw in XP is unlikely to result in fatalities or even serious injury. Allow me to fix your analogy:
Today GM announced that the GMC trucks have some fundamental flaw in the lock mechanisms and they are prone to open and start the truck randomly. GM said it can't fix the issue because the component is supplied by EvilCorp and current law makes it illegal for them to change anything inside the locking mechanism device. Further GM can't buy locking mechanisms from anyone else because EvilCorp has a monopoly on selling them and has used criminal acts to drive all real competitors out of business. EvilCorp has already lost court cases to that effect, but after making campaign contributions to your elected officials decided not to punish them. EvilCorp says the design is very old, and fixing it is unfeasible. When asked if they will stop shipping trucks with the flaw, GM spokesman said, "we have not stopped building or shipping them yet. We don't have any real options here. We did try partnering with a company that repackages locking systems made for free by a nonprofit organization, but they aren't compatible with existing trailer hitches, AC systems, or tires and switching all of those is hard to do since all the component suppliers out there build them to work with EvilCorp products. Also EvilCorp gives away free gas tanks with every lock mechanism, but because they are really weird, gas has had to be reformulated so it has problems working in gas tanks from any normal company and nobody really sells standards compliant gas anymore. Car buyers are encouraged to remove the batteries from their trucks whenever they stop and park them in locked garages if they contain anything valuable."
Microsoft Corporation has announced a limited one-off extension of availability of its Windows XP operating system to April 2101 after criticism from large customers and analysts. This is the fifty-sixth extension of XP's availability since 2008.
Through successive releases of Microsoft's flagship Windows operating system, demand for XP has remained an important factor for businesses relying on stable XP-specific software and installations, who have pushed back strongly against the software company's attempts to move them to later versions. Windows administration skills have become rare in recent years and consultants have demanded high fees. Reviving Windows administrators from cryogenic freezing has proven insufficient to fill the market gap, as almost all begged to work on COBOL instead.
"Windows XP is currently in the extremely very prolonged super-extended support phase and Microsoft encourages customers to migrate to Windows for Neurons 2097 as soon as feasible," said William Gates V, CEO and great-grandson of the company founder. "Spare change?"
Microsoft Corporation, along with Monsanto Corporation and the RIAA, exists as a protected species in the Seattle Memorial Glass Crater Bad Ideas And Warnings To The Future National Park in north-west Washington on the radioactive remains of what was once the planet Earth, under the protection of our Linux-based superintelligent robot artificial intelligence overlords. Company revenues for 2098 were over $15.
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday September 15, @08:03AM (#29425055)
Best Buy's recent "training" slide #9, where they say that "Linux is safer than Windows" is a myth, the "Real Facts" states (referring to Linux) 'There's no guarantee that when security vulnerabilities are discovered, an update will be created. Users are on their own.' Here's proof that that statement is really talking about Windows...
Please..all underlying architecture has not changed from xp to vista, even though they want you to believe this...and for them to correct the wrapper on xp, would be trivial, however, they are testing the waters about phasing out xp, and want to see what the backlash will be like, seeing as no one wants vista garbage, and maybe even no windows7!
I prefer, being given the opportunity of just paying a yearly fee to keep getting updates on a system that runs properly compared to their new bloated versions of vista etc... too bad no one can pick it up like a linux distro and start their own version of windows...
backporting that level of code is essentially not feasible
in other words:
buy windows 7, damn it!
it's the same feigned argument as when they refused to port DX10 to XP to boost Vista sales - uh - I mean it was because it's technically impossible... it's just that hackers ported it to XP later....
Don't run an OS that you can't patch yourself. Seriously, if we put our trust in these guys after they've proven time and again that they really don't represent our best interests we are the only ones to blame. It's about time to let MS go gently into the night alone and without a sleeping bag into a rabid pack of wolves.
The fix is to NEVER buy Microsoft products, again. Microsoft is a defective corporation that has made a mint off of selling knowingly defective products and reselling the HOPE that these defects will be fixed in the next update but reneging again, and again, and again, and again. MSFT's example of no/low quality has become the new American metric of quality, its business plan, corroding our society's business and work ethic, a complete mockery of the consumer laws on mechantability, deservedly debasing our reputation for quality goods.
Since the government has been ineffective in enforcing these laws, falling for MS legal theories, only insistent market rejection will [partially] protect a consumer from the borg. No doubt we will be seeing more FUD IP attacks, like SCO, traceable to MSFT. Good luck to all. Fsck MSFT.
Yeah, right (Score:5, Interesting)
The U.S. Navy's and Marine Corp's NMCI [wikipedia.org] computing infrastructure is all Windows XP. Let's see whether or not Microsoft withholds a patch from them.
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Interesting)
I just had to post an invoice to the marine corp's web site. I luckily had one computer at work that was not upgraded to ie8. It would only respect ie6 or 7, and had some issues if I just changed the user agent on FF.
If people keep being forced to upgrade their browsers, no one will be able to use the government systems anymore.
I'm sure it will be an issue for the little companies billing, but you'll never hear about it.
Parent
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Insightful)
The Navy will simply subcontract-out to Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and other defense companies to upgrade all their systems from XP to Windows 7 and fix any programs that "break" as a result. It will employ some 10,000 workers at a cost of 1.4 trillion dollars. Then it will fail to come-in on time, so they'll spend an extra 6 months and 0.3 trillion on schedule overrun.
That's SOP for the government.
Parent
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, this isn't funny and may well be the type of attention-getting answer we need to this problem. People should start sending off some emails to their representatives that points this problem out. Microsoft says they are supporting WindowsXP until 2014 for security matters and other serious problems. I'd say this qualifies. This "move" on Microsoft's part represents a squeeze play against all of its customers not the least of which is the U.S. Federal Government. And with all the attention on money problems, it can't be ignored or written off.
I foresee a congressional hearing on the matter should Microsoft continue down this road.
If the government plans to spend trillions on this surprise upgrade requirement, perhaps moving to another OS might be another consideration to weigh in. We KNOW Microsoft will leverage its position as "the" OS vendor to do nearly anything it wants. We can't force them to behave. Perhaps the best thing to do is push the misbehaving child to the curb and use someone else's product.
Parent
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Informative)
How about you read the article before you start yelling at your congressman? RFTA:
In the revised advisory, Microsoft explained why it won't patch Windows XP, the world's most popular operating system. "By default, Windows XP SP2, Windows XP SP3 and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition SP2 do not have a listening service configured in the client firewall and are therefore not affected by this vulnerability," the company said. "Windows XP SP2 and later operating systems include a stateful host firewall that provides protection for computers against incoming traffic from the Internet or from neighboring network devices on a private network."
Parent
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Interesting)
Many people have compared defense work to "white collar welfare". I think the private companies are more frugal than that, since they are constantly cutting costs & laying-off workers, but having worked at the FAA it seems like a sound argument. I saw government workers sitting around doing nothing but surfing the net day-after-day. The FAA could lay-off 75% of the workforce and not notice any drop in output.
But of course if the FAA did that, then the politicians who represent those workers would scream bloody murder, and the layoffs would be canceled.
Parent
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Funny)
I have a friend who just got hired into group A working for the DOD. His job is to track how the stimulus money gets spent in group B. Actually his entire groups job is to track that money. Guess what group B's job is? Track how the money gets spent in group A. It's so ludicrous that you can't make this stuff up.
It's white collar welfare and has been for years. It's the advanced version of dig a hole and fill it in.
Parent
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Interesting)
XP SP2 and later are fine by default. What does that mean? Does that mean it's the only possible configuration? Or is it reasonable that an XP SP2 computer could end up in a state where it does have a listening service configured in the client firewall? Doesn't Vista include "a stateful host firewall that provide protection for computers against incoming traffic from the Internet [...]"? I should think so, so wouldn't that invalidate their reasoning?
I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft is perfectly correct in not patching XP. The problem is how they communicate it. If they're patching Vista (a client OS) and they're patching Server 2003 (similar codebase to XP), then this makes it seem like they don't want to bother fixing XP, even though it's broken. If Microsoft had said, "the XP codebase is in no way vulnerable", I'd be completely satisfied. But they didn't. They said, "XP is broken, but by default it's protected".
That's not good enough.
Parent
Re:Yeah, right (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Insightful)
Except I bought a brand NEW license of XP on my Acer netbook less than 1 year ago. That means Microsoft received NEW payment for that license in the last year (and a bunch of others) so obviously they're making money on it. Unlike patching cars you don't have to make additional parts, once you fix the problem in one copy of XP it is near-zero to fix the problem for ALL XPs as they're exactly the same.
My local stores still sell NEW netbooks with NEW licenses of XP on them... where's bug support for the new buyers?
Parent
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
US Navy already ditching M$ (Score:5, Interesting)
The U.S. Navy's and Marine Corp's NMCI computing infrastructure is all Windows XP. Let's see whether or not Microsoft withholds a patch from them.
Since 2008, the US Navy will acquire only systems based on open technologies and standards. That excludes M$ products explicitly in every way but name. The TCP/IP being just one example of failure on M$ part to implement standards. US Navy is ditching M$ [fcw.com].
They'll probably go with an American company like Red Hat or roll their own spin of Red Hat.
The question remaining is will Bill's father's political connections keep lil Bill out of Camp X-Ray or not? If you've got Windows on your network, then you have a personnel problem, not just a network security problem.
Parent
Re:US Navy already ditching M$ (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:US Navy already ditching M$ (Score:4, Insightful)
Red-Hat is commercial product. They're moving to the best of the two worlds: a cheap commercial product which they *can* adapt to their needs.
Parent
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Funny)
The U.S. Navy's and Marine Corp's NMCI computing infrastructure is all Windows XP.
I questioned the Navy's IT management for years, failing to see the long term wisdom behind the program and thinking it was a pork spending program awarded to political insiders. But, I'm forced to admit NMCI has been tremendously successful at bringing productivity to a near stand still. Patching computers no one can use is hardly even necessary.
As a bonus the Navy has an inexhaustible supply of boat anchors!
Absolutely brilliant.
Parent
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Funny)
Whatever. I'll just keep using XP until it crashes-and-burns, and then I'll toss this PC into the trash and get a new $300 PC at walmart with Windows 8 already-installed. That's my upgrade path.
BTW anyone want to buy a Windows 95 laptop? It's harmless (mostly).
Parent
Re:Yeah, right (Score:4, Funny)
So a bit like the old saying, "That's like buying a dog, and then having to spend your time barking to scare off any potential burglars."
Parent
Re:Yeah, right (Score:4, Insightful)
Translation: "Sales of Vista didn't go well due to Vista being crap, and Win7 isn't actually all that much better, so rather than offer a product people actually want we're going to exploit our monopoly and withhold necessary security fixes from others in order to force people to 'upgrade.'"
Parent
Car/engine = Netbook/XP (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, a car analogy. It's more like this: You go to the Honda dealership and take a look at their 2010 models and purchase a vehicle. You discover that the engine has a serious flaw in it and ask Honda for a fix. Honda refuses because that engine is based on an 8 year old engine design. Except in this case, instead of a Honda you bought a brand new netbook and instead of an engine it came with a new copy of Windows XP.
Parent
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Insightful)
> They would also be perfectly within their rights to stop making
> Windows altogether and start manufacturing refrigerators...
Knowing Microsoft, it'll probably be their first product that never freezes.
Parent
Re:you are off (Score:5, Insightful)
Your argument doesn't work either though IMO. For one thing software changes a lot quicker than car technology so I was being pretty kind saying 10 years for the car stuff. You might expect a dealer to service a 30 year old car, but you're probably going to have to pay through the nose for it (and I've read of at least one case where a dealer didn't have the parts to service a car because it was so old).
XP is not the latest software, it is simply the most popular. Even if the majority of people in the world preferred the original VW Beetle from the 30s (or whenever it started production, I think it was in production for something crazy like 50 years), it doesn't mean that VW are still obliged to find and fix design flaws in it. You'd expect a product recall if a large problem was found in the latest incarnation of the Beetle sure - but we're not talking about the latest version, we're simply talking about the most popular version, and it's getting out of its support lifetime. I don't think any other version of Windows has lasted so long.
In this case the WINE team or some group like that could probably produce a replacement version of the TCP/IP stack to stick into Windows, it would be the equivalent of having to buy 3rd party copies of OEM parts for an ancient car. Yes you can "keep it running", but the original manufacturer has stopped supporting it. MS are not shutting down all old copies of XP, they're simply stopping support.
IMO it would be nice of them to keep supporting it, and some companies would do so, but they have no obligation to. And it's definitely not MS's style to be 'nice'.
Parent
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Insightful)
How does this rate insightful, when the fellow knows nothing about his topic?
Weird assertion: "Sales of Win7 are down so low MS isn't even promoting it in most places"
Newsflash: There is no retail release of Win7 yet.
Good point? "underpromise and overdeliver. They have been doing the opposite and wonder why people hate them.
Excellent diagnosis. MS should also learn how to sell to the business, preferably the CFO - not keep hyping 'features' to IT - often the most dysfunctional outfit in any org.
Wild claim: "There are lots of groundbreaking problems that people will not touch with a 20 foot pole"
C'mon! Cite a bloody reference, or just yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theatre!
In reality you make claims about Windows 7 sales that cannot be backed up - and use unspecific criticism to support the claim, without evidence. Allow me to explain some basics.
The bulk of Corporation and Government purchases? They already owned Windows 7, before it was released, through the Software Assurance benefit in their contract through their reseller. Microsoft measures "deployment", not "sales" with these folks... You know Home Depot, Wal*Mart, Hewlett Packard, General Motors, even Google.
Despite not even being offered as a public, retail item, Windows 7 will do very well on the day it goes to market. Retail sales are a tricky number. Most are through OEM installation on new computers - not shiny disc SKUs. So, for 2 months, these have been ramped through the manufacturing channels.
Let's talk in February - when the after-Christmas inventory purge is complete. Then we can compare notes.
Parent
Re:Yeah, right (Score:5, Informative)
Sales of Win7 are down so low MS isn't even promoting it in most places.
Maybe that's because it won't be released until 22 October?
Parent
Unclear (Score:5, Interesting)
It is unclear how large a threat this is to the end user. However the fact that XP is being loaded on netbooks suggests that Microsoft has a revenue stream that it should protect by writing a patch if it is serious.
Re:Unclear (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Unclear (Score:4, Informative)
It does if you have 2 gig of memory. Bit cramped with 1 gig. Unusable with 512MB.
Windows 7 is more user-responsive than Vista, but its arse is just as fat.
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Infeasible? (Score:5, Funny)
That's unpossible!
Re:Infeasible? (Score:5, Funny)
Verbulating is commonstuff. What's surprisamazing is that the hypermajority of communicenglishers can simpquickly graspulate the vocabulextension.
Parent
Upgrade or Else (Score:4, Interesting)
So, basically, upgrade or you'll be hacked?
Two questions:
1. Does 7's XP mode potentially have this issue, or is there a compatibility layer so xp doesn't talk directly to the network?
2. They seemed to be able to make massive security updates for code that was that old, and still patch a number of other issues. What about this REALLY makes it so hard to code?
In the end, while I understand not wanting to waste resources on way older products, I think it is a marketing move.
Re:Upgrade or Else (Score:4, Insightful)
The XP virtual machine is not accessible from outside as it talks via a NAT router. Any attack would need to come from the Windows 7 host machine, but if that was pwned, there are many other ways to attack the XP virtual machine.
Parent
That's why I like open source (Score:5, Interesting)
Question (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Question (Score:5, Funny)
You are forgetting that code ages overtime. I think it has something to do with the proteins and atoms. That is why they have to make new versions.
Parent
15 years old (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:15 years old (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the key point. It doesn't matter when the code was written - if it was sold "today", it's current code. Current code (sold on the scale of an OS) should be fixed, or declared "broken" and not sold.
Parent
XP Still uspported on netbooks. (Score:5, Interesting)
In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news... 10 year old Linux 2.4 kernel patched yesterday...
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Informative)
Link in case you think this is sarcasm: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-2.4.37.y.git;a=summary [kernel.org]
Parent
My job is to apply "The Formula" (Score:5, Funny)
A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 miles per hour. The rear differential locks up. The car crushes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now: do we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field (A), multiply it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement (C). A times B times C equals X...
If X is less that the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
"Infeasible": Translation.. (Score:5, Funny)
...we lost the source code, we kept it in Microsoft Source Safe and it ate it.
the true cost (Score:4, Insightful)
2014 ???? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bad Car Analogy. You know it is coming ;-) (Score:5, Insightful)
Today GM announced that the GMC trucks have some fundamental flaw and they are prone to explode randomly. GM said it wont fix the issue because the design is very old, and fixing it is unfeasible. When asked if they will when they stopped shipping trucks with the fatal flaw, GM spokesman said, "we have not stopped building or shipping them yet. We need to compete with the low cost competitors in the net-truck market and so we continue to make and ship the trucks, but we wont fix the safety issue. The drivers may wrap themselves in bags filled with thermocol peanuts to get some measure of protection.
If not, why do we let Microsoft get away with it?
Re:Bad Car Analogy. You know it is coming ;-) (Score:4, Interesting)
Your analogy is flawed in three ways. First, MS doesn't make cars. Cars are useful. MS makes on OS which is a system component and pretty much useless by itself. Second MS is a monopoly, whereas GM is not. Third, the flaw in XP is unlikely to result in fatalities or even serious injury. Allow me to fix your analogy:
Today GM announced that the GMC trucks have some fundamental flaw in the lock mechanisms and they are prone to open and start the truck randomly. GM said it can't fix the issue because the component is supplied by EvilCorp and current law makes it illegal for them to change anything inside the locking mechanism device. Further GM can't buy locking mechanisms from anyone else because EvilCorp has a monopoly on selling them and has used criminal acts to drive all real competitors out of business. EvilCorp has already lost court cases to that effect, but after making campaign contributions to your elected officials decided not to punish them. EvilCorp says the design is very old, and fixing it is unfeasible. When asked if they will stop shipping trucks with the flaw, GM spokesman said, "we have not stopped building or shipping them yet. We don't have any real options here. We did try partnering with a company that repackages locking systems made for free by a nonprofit organization, but they aren't compatible with existing trailer hitches, AC systems, or tires and switching all of those is hard to do since all the component suppliers out there build them to work with EvilCorp products. Also EvilCorp gives away free gas tanks with every lock mechanism, but because they are really weird, gas has had to be reformulated so it has problems working in gas tanks from any normal company and nobody really sells standards compliant gas anymore. Car buyers are encouraged to remove the batteries from their trucks whenever they stop and park them in locked garages if they contain anything valuable."
Parent
Microsoft extends XP downgrade option to 2101 (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft Corporation has announced a limited one-off extension of availability of its Windows XP operating system to April 2101 after criticism from large customers and analysts. This is the fifty-sixth extension of XP's availability since 2008.
Through successive releases of Microsoft's flagship Windows operating system, demand for XP has remained an important factor for businesses relying on stable XP-specific software and installations, who have pushed back strongly against the software company's attempts to move them to later versions. Windows administration skills have become rare in recent years and consultants have demanded high fees. Reviving Windows administrators from cryogenic freezing has proven insufficient to fill the market gap, as almost all begged to work on COBOL instead.
"Windows XP is currently in the extremely very prolonged super-extended support phase and Microsoft encourages customers to migrate to Windows for Neurons 2097 as soon as feasible," said William Gates V, CEO and great-grandson of the company founder. "Spare change?"
Microsoft Corporation, along with Monsanto Corporation and the RIAA, exists as a protected species in the Seattle Memorial Glass Crater Bad Ideas And Warnings To The Future National Park in north-west Washington on the radioactive remains of what was once the planet Earth, under the protection of our Linux-based superintelligent robot artificial intelligence overlords. Company revenues for 2098 were over $15.
illustration: A background wallpaper for your insecurable XP desktop [today.com]. (Anyone got a pointer to the 1024x768 version?)
Best Buy's Training FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Best Buy's recent "training" slide #9, where they say that "Linux is safer than Windows" is a myth, the "Real Facts" states (referring to Linux) 'There's no guarantee that when security vulnerabilities are discovered, an update will be created. Users are on their own.'
Here's proof that that statement is really talking about Windows...
They could, they just dont want to... (Score:5, Insightful)
Please..all underlying architecture has not changed from xp to vista, even though they want you to believe this...and for them to correct the wrapper on xp, would be trivial, however, they are testing the waters about phasing out xp, and want to see what the backlash will be like, seeing as no one wants vista garbage, and maybe even no windows7!
I prefer, being given the opportunity of just paying a yearly fee to keep getting updates on a system that runs properly compared to their new bloated versions of vista etc... too bad no one can pick it up like a linux distro and start their own version of windows...
In other words... (Score:4, Insightful)
in other words:
it's the same feigned argument as when they refused to port DX10 to XP to boost Vista sales - uh - I mean it was because it's technically impossible... it's just that hackers ported it to XP later....
The solution is rather obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
TCP/IP, selling knowingly defective products (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the government has been ineffective in enforcing these laws, falling for MS legal theories, only insistent market rejection will [partially] protect a consumer from the borg. No doubt we will be seeing more FUD IP attacks, like SCO, traceable to MSFT. Good luck to all. Fsck MSFT.