Internet Explorer 9 Will Not Support Windows XP 454
MojoKid writes "As it turns out, news this week is that the same features that made IE9's hardware-acceleration possible probably aren't compatible with Windows XP. Microsoft initially dodged giving a straight answer to the question of XP support but has since admitted that the new browser won't be XP-compatible when it launches. This has created a small tempest of protest from those users still using XP, but this is less of an arbitrary decision than some appear to think. It's literally impossible to port Windows Vista/Win 7-style hardware acceleration backwards to XP. Microsoft would have to either develop a workaround from scratch or create a CPU-driven 'software mode.'"
Thats ok , as an XP user (Score:5, Funny)
I don't use Internet Explorer, I use Firefox
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>I don't use Internet Explorer, I use Firefox
So do I (plus I don't use MS-Windows).
But the real problem is that there are still many, many, many websites that DO NOT WORK unless you are using MS-Windows with Internet Explorer (and at our nearly 100% Linux shop at work, we know VERY WELL that this is the truth). We can all agree how horrible that is, but it doesn't change anything. So, those wanting to or forced to use IE-only websites might also be forced to upgrade from XP. Welcome to the effects of
Re:Thats ok , as an XP user (Score:5, Interesting)
So, those wanting to or forced to use IE-only websites might also be forced to upgrade from XP. Welcome to the effects of proprietary lock-in.
Forced to upgrade? IE8 works just fine on XP and will continue to do so. It also doesn't have any of the exploits that IE6 has.
Also, how does it differ between proprietary and open source then? If you're using some 10 years old version of your Linux OS and it doesn't support some feature that the newer OS/kernel versions have, you're not going to be able to install programs that require said feature.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it really a genuine problem anyway? Given the number of web sites in existence someone can probably claim "many, many, many" that do any given weird thing. I'm sure there's ones out there that still demand Netscape Navigator. But in real world web browsing does anyone really find that internet explorer is required? It doesn't happen to me. Company intranets are a different matter but that's a choice the company makes and burdens itself with (if it is a burden).
Re:Thats ok , as an XP user (Score:4, Informative)
munitions (Score:4, Interesting)
Unless something has changed recently, all South Korean bank sites for instance require activeX and as such have to be used with IE.
ActiveX banking applets in the Republic of Korea came into being because the United States once classified SSL browsers with more than 40-bit encryption [wikipedia.org] as munitions and banned their export outside the United States and Canada. (This policy ended sometime in the late 1990s.) So Korean banks used homemade crypto applets as an alternative to SSL. I'm sure at least some banks have switched to SSL by now.
Yeah, Citi Bank (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course in their case it just that they are too stupid to breath.
Their site works fine with Linux and Firefox, but they deliberately refuse to work with anything but Windows and Mac. Spoofing the user agent string lets the site work perfectly with any OS and pretty much any browser. They tell me they do this for "security" but it doesn't actually work that way.
Yeah, a bit off topic. But, I posted this as an example of the hold MS has on the *minds* of their customers. I've gotten fairly high up into Citi banks IT folks by being polite and telling their customer service people that what they just told me doesn't make any sense. That it goes against the very mathematical basis of computer science that governs the way networks and computers work. And then demanding a valid explanation. You have say things like, "Yes, I understand that that is what you were told, and I know you are not lying to me. But, you have been lied to, and you don't have the technical training you would need to know that. Please put me through to someone who can answer my question or cancel my account." That works, especially if you are willing to try to explain what is really going on. So, after many hours I finally get to a guy who is so locked into the idea the MS is Lord and Linux is the Devil that even though he is very technical he can not think reasonably about my question.
I've had several similar experience in my life. Trying to explain to a fundamentalist Christian or Muslim that not believing in his God does not make you an Atheist is a lot like trying to explain to that guy why Linux is not evil.
Belief is not subject to rational discussion.
Stonewolf
Re:Thats ok , as an XP user (Score:4, Informative)
I'm using a three months old version of a 'Linux OS', with Firefox 3.6. I know of several dozen websites that deal in financial transactions and related, and which will all check for software versioning and require downloading active x controls onto the user's machine for at least some functions. I have been informed by a large corporation's legal dept. that attempting to spoof those sites into thinking I was browsing with IE/Windows from a Nix box would not just be a TOS violation, but in at least some of those cases, securities fraud, a violation of Sarbanes-Oxley, or otherwise just not done, and all we can do is use a Microsoft product to visit those sites and perhaps ask them to broaden their website's support. Yeah, in some cases, there's probably a bunch of crooks easily defeating those sites version checking, they're being idiots, and some of them probably get ritually abused by 14 year old script kiddies every weekend, but these are not fly by nights, they are major financial partners in stock trading, banking, sale of treasury securities, and such, they pay a small fortune every year for VPN security and encryption, and everyone else in the financial industry has to occasionally deal with them. For my company, which has begun transitioning to FOSS by adopting Open Office, this is an impediment to completely dropping either Windows or IE completely.
So we will probably upgrade the machines that still run Windows in every office, yet again. While those are getting fewer, it's still vendor lock-in with bells on. Your comment about 10 year old OS versions isn't just a red herring, it shows a complete lack of understanding.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe use virtual machines, with pre-packaged disk images specially prepared for those websites (like, IE pre-configured to only connect with their servers, only accept their SSL certificates and completely locked down to any configuration changes), and a policy of returning the VM to the initial state (requires a VM with snapshotting) after each use? Most decent VM engines support RDP too, so the actual hypervisor with its VM images doesn't even need to exist on the workstations, you can put it on a secure
Re:Thats ok , as an XP user (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Thats ok , as an XP user (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes... on your part. The vendor is not Microsoft. The vendor is your financial partners. Microsoft is not imposing version checking. Microsoft has long provided alternative interfaces which negate the need for ActiveX controls. It is your financial partners who are refusing to support later browsers and alternate browsers. It is your financial partners, and not Microsoft, who control the gateways to the services that you want.
Thank your financial partners, not Microsoft. If those financial partners only provided service through the old CompuServe interface, you wouldn't be blaming CompuServe for failing to completely overhaul their service to be web and HTML based. If those financial partners only provided service by telegraph, you wouldn't be blaming Western Union for failing to upgrade your telegraphy machines on demand.
The machines that still run Windows in every office should still work. The machines are even security supported for four more years (assuming that they're on XP). If you're bitter that you can't replace them with the new shiny exactly in the manner that you want, then suck it up and blame your financial partners, not Microsoft. You're obviously no longer Microsoft's customer, so why should they solve your problem in a way that doesn't generate revenue rather than telling you to pound sand?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank your financial partners, not Microsoft.
But this is precisely what Microsoft was trying to make happen. It did, and now you want to remove all blame from them? I don't think many of us would agree.
Re: (Score:2)
>Forced to upgrade? IE8 works just fine on XP and will continue to do so.
It is true that IE8 works on XP, so it will really only be a problem when an IE-Only site also requires 9 for some reason. And that is probably far in the future. By that time, XP really will be VERY old, indeed.
>Also, how does it differ between proprietary and open source then?
Because I can choose to upgrade Linux when I choose to, and at no cost. And when I upgrade, it is not going to suck in tons of DRM and licensing restri
Re:Thats ok , as an XP user (Score:4, Insightful)
While yes there are different licensing restrictions by Ubuntu box certainly does support DRM just like Windows 7. I'll grant its not nearly as widely support but who cares? Seriously? That tired argument needs to go away, the DRM in Windows gives it the ability to play DRM content and without DRM content it doesn't do anything. I have no idea where that bit of fud came from.
I also think there is a very tiny chance that you will ever see a site that says IE 9 only except in Intranet situations where corporations can specify which browser they want to standardize on. With web standards and HTML 5 most of the browser specific add-ons will not be required. As long as your browser is W3C compliant most of the web should be available to you in the coming years.
As for motivations in the FOSS world, that's mostly irrelevant when it comes to the mainstream distros. Most of them have non-free add-ons to make them useful. Ubuntu without Flash and mp3 support would be seriously lame. Same with Mandriva, Fedora, or any of the big guys. Oracle, SUSE, and Red Hat enterprise distros even require current support contracts to receive updates. Since they have to release the source you can always compile them yourself for free but unless you have staff dedicated to this task that is a huge waste of effort. Most people like to make money. Many understand that lock-in is a waste of effort although the strides Apple has made suggests otherwise. Even Microsoft is learning to play nice with others. My Windows and Linux servers have no trouble communicating. Hell, Ubuntu is my main desktop and it works fine even with Exchange.
Re: (Score:2)
If you have the source, you can port it to the newer version even if it's not profitable for the developer.
For example, the free drivers for the ATI cards based on the Mach64 chip (released in '92) are still supported in current Debian [debian.org].
Re: (Score:2)
Which is good by the way, because one of my boxes still has a Mach64 card, as many servers do which just have 1024x768 graphics just to support a graphic installation process.
Re:Thats ok , as an XP user (Score:4, Insightful)
How does the DRM affect you? It's merely there to enable/ you to play DRM'd files. It doesn't restrict you with anything. But if you have such files, it allows you to play them. How is that worse than Linux where you can't play them at all?
Re: (Score:2)
Meh, it's not that much of a problem. I can't see there being a subset of websites in the future that only work in IE9, but not IE7 or IE8, So you can keep doing what you do now- run Firefox except for the few times you need a craptacular website, in which case you can carefully an old IE.
Re: (Score:2)
>so you can keep doing what you do now- run Firefox except for the few times you need a craptacular website,
>in which case you can carefully an old IE.
Unless you don't want to use MS-Windows. (And no, I don't count IES4Linux, which is now not stable nor updated anymore)
Re:Thats ok , as an XP user (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this true?
The only time I run IE is about 5 minutes after I build a computer and only then to download Firefox.
Can you give a partial list of these "many, many, many" websites, and by chance are any of them fur-fag sites?
Re: (Score:2)
I've been using Firefox since it was called Phoenix & I cannot remember the last time I've stumbled across a public website that you *had* to be using IE to view. My bank, credit union & insurance company all render just fine with Firefox.
Re: (Score:2)
But the real problem is that there are still many, many, many websites that DO NOT WORK unless you are using MS-Windows with Internet Explorer
Perhaps you can provide some examples. I can't think of a single site I've been to for several years that didn't work on my Mac. The only sites that don't work on my FreeBSD box are ones that require flash (which does work on FreeBSD, I just never got around to installing the plugin on that machine).
Re: (Score:2)
You're always forced to upgrade software eventually if you want to continue to use new features, that's no different on Linux. You'd have a hell of a time getting Compiz on the 3.0 release of Xfree86 as well. I suppose you could do it if you really really wanted to, but what you'd end up with would resemble the new version an awful lot more than it did the old version.
Re: (Score:2)
Natwest - I'm looking at you.
Re: (Score:2)
>What websites? I've been using Firefox on Linux exclusively for a long time,
You are obviously a home user and not a business user. There are at least 3 critical website apps that we have to access at work that will not work under anything but MS-Windows + IE.
There has been a TREMENDOUS progress in making websites cross-platform and more standards-based over the last several years. Most home users will now rarely, if ever, find a website that requires MS-Windows + IE, except for that horrible Silverlig
Re: (Score:2)
We're talking about the Internet. We really don't care about your companies intranet.
Re: (Score:2)
>We're talking about the Internet. We really don't care about your companies intranet.
I am not talking about "my company's intranet". While the sites I am talking about are not public sites, they are on the Internet, not a private network, and not an Intranet. And they aren't "mine", because if I designed them, they certainly wouldn't require using MS-Windows and/or IE. Finally, while I can understand your not caring, you really should care, because most people do work for some type of company. Being
Re:Thats ok , as an XP user (Score:4, Insightful)
If they aren't public websites then they are of little concern to the rest of us. Firefox still works just fine for 99.9% of the Internet, not including little walled gardens like you are referring to.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And, since learning just a few moments ago that Google is developing 3D support for Chrome, I may never need to use IE again.
Hell, if a certain mock-turtleneck wearing pud-hugger would just take the enormous rod out of his ass and release OSX for non-Apple hardware, I'd never use anything of Microsoft's again.
Re: (Score:2)
Moving away from IE will certainly be the case for more and more users in the future. If that means that they will move away from Windows is a different issue.
Firefox on Mac OS 10.3 (Score:5, Insightful)
When Apple drops support for not very old versions of the OS or hardwar, it's called brilliant marketing strategy. When MS does it, it's called abandoning compatibility
Not surprised (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And who exactly flips their monitor more than twice EVER? You buy the monitor you go oh cool it can be viewed in both modes. You try it then you leave it in the mode of choice for basically every after that. Sure some wise A$$ is going to say the opposite. There is such a minority of people that ever move the monitor after plugging it in.
So again how is this on topic?
Re:Not surprised (Score:4, Interesting)
You forgot tablets, and XP/Vista/Win7 are used in those too. With those you might actually flip the screen quite often - I do with my mobile phone too.
Re: (Score:2)
In practice it's not such a huge disadvantage, since 2D hardware-acceleration is still rather flaky. Too often I have to turn OFF hardware acceleration because the video card makers make crap drivers (both Nvidia and ATI).
I find that the hardware acceleration stuff often doesn't work so well when you use multiple monitors - e.g. the video doesn't show - all you get is a black box.
As for XP vs Windows 7,
Re:Not surprised (Score:5, Interesting)
XP's graphics handling is really crappy compared to 7 and Vista, so this is no surprise. Flip an LCD to portrait mode in XP, then try to turn on vsync because horizontal tearing just became vertical tearing. Can't be done.
Whether or not XP can handle it doesn't really matter. Windows 7 is where Microsoft's focus is now and their money is better spent supporting the road forward. One other thing worth looking at is why people are still using XP? Chances are in a couple of years once Windows 7 has proved itself many companies will upgrade to the new OS, invalidating any effort Microsoft put into making IE9 work with the older platform.
Beyond companies, who are probably still using IE6 anyhow (ugh), people who really want to stick to XP and want to have the latest version of IE might end up being gifted by some hacker making it possible.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So, not to be a zombie, you must constantly spend money on upgrades that you don't need?
If someone uses his/her PC at work to create/modify Office documents and browse the internet, odds are that his old PC, OS and Office is enough. Why would someone need a quad core CPU and 4GB RAM to edit 10 page Word document? You can do that on a 486 50MHz 16MB RAM and Win95 with Office 97. Now, browsing the internet is different, but browsers like Firefox and Opera are better than IE and still support XP.
Now, you can s
So XP users will be stuck with IE8 forever.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So XP users will be stuck with IE8 forever.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I know what you mean but there is not need to express it though lies.
98 was the best of it's line.
And 2000 supported games very well thankyou. Unless you were still playing dos games, in which case you were an idiot.
2000 was great. ME was released because microsaoft marketed 2000 wrong. 2000 was ready for the home user as long as they did not want to play dos games (and dos games died out years earlier (beyond a few games that were dos/windows with 2 clients on the disk)) (and the lack of dos games was just
Re: (Score:2)
2000 didn't support games
I think you're confusing 2K with NT 4. I replaced a dual-boot NT4 / 98SE install with 2K precisely because 2K did come with proper DirectX support (NT always had OpenGL) and ran all of my games. Before then, I needed to reboot to play games.
For a student, the cost of 2K was the same as the cost of Me (around £45, as I recall). For everyone else, it was a lot more expensive. I don't think it ever got more than about 1% total market share; most big companies didn't upgrade from NT4 before XP was
Re:So XP users will be stuck with IE8 forever.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because Netbooks are STILL being sold with XP (Score:2)
Netbook users obviously dont give a rats ass about hardware acceleration, they just want their websites they shop and bank
and watch little youtube videos to work. They are not asking for 720p performance, just want their web to work.
Re:So XP users will be stuck with IE8 forever.. (Score:5, Informative)
Time will tell whether Windows 7 manages to convince a majority to upgrade again, but it will be a long time before there's the kind of critical mass that happened with XP.
Current Market share (March 2010):
Windows XP 32 bit (-3.48%) 40.33%
Windows 7 64 bit (+3.95%) 22.99%
Windows Vista 32 bit (-1.51%) 16.88%
Windows 7 (+1.16%) 10.92%
XP is losing 3.48% of it's market share each month, and Windows 7 is gaining nearly 4.64% market share each month. How long exactly at that rate will it take for Windows 7 to reach this critical mass point?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, that should have read Windows 7 is gaining 5.11% market share each month.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure there are a few corporations like that. But they don't represent a significant percentage of the market by any means. I'm sure there are (for example) more Macs in the world than systems with Windows 2000. Hell, there are probably even more PC's with Linux as main desktop operating system than Windows 2000.
There will always be people using old or weird software. But we're talking about mainstream here. Right now, XP is still mainstream, but it's share of users is declining rapidly. I don't see any reas
Re:So XP users will be stuck with IE8 forever.. (Score:4, Insightful)
XP users savvy enough to upgrade to IE8 probably also have another browser. Very few corporate intranets have mandated XP/IE8. I foresee many developers having to support mainly IE6/XP and Firefox* in the near future, and maybe a quickie test on IE7 and IE8 if you have resources to do so.
* The idea is that if you wrote a reasonably standards-based site and tested with Firefox, it will work well in Chrome/Safari/Opera. Feel free to test with any other standards-based browser instead.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Very few corporate intranets have mandated XP/IE8.
MS has the centralized deployment and management tools you must have in the corporate work-space.
Re: (Score:2)
Waddaya mean “stuck”. Those who are incompetent use whatever came/comes with their computer (IE on Vista/Win7), and the competent don’t use IE, no matter what the OS is.
Except in Europe, where we have the browser ballot.
Oh, and don’t bet on my sites caring if you got a browser with a buggy implementation of an outdated standard.
IE9 will be the first IE I’m going to support again. But only if they adhere to the standard by the same means as other browsers.
(MS: That does not mean
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Any stats done by a third-party advertiser are utterly worthless. The biggest upside of Firefox is AdBlock, so scum-peddling companies will be blocked, won't see you and thus will overestimate IE's market share.
Re: (Score:2)
Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes XP just worked. It still works better than win 7 in my regard.
However XP + ie is basically an invitation to be hacked / malwared / infected / ripped off.
ie6 is still around basically because xp is. Any one who does any sort of web stuff hates ie6. ie6 is point blank holding back the web. Of course ie 7-8 also have a truck load of issues. But it's the combination of ie + xp that is the real killer.
Lets hope win7 takes hold with ie9 and relegates the other lesser M$ combinations to the bit bucket.
( Of course I say all this and I personally only use FF and Linux )
XP + ie = unsafe? (Score:2, Interesting)
However XP + ie is basically an invitation to be hacked / malwared / infected / ripped off.
Although I'm inclined to agree with you, you're making an overly broad statement here.
XP != XP SP1 != XP SP2 != XP SP3.
2 year old, never updated install != fresh + patched install.
IE6 != IE7 != IE8.
Browsing random pornsites != browsing a small set of trusted sites != using apps on corporate intranet.
So with "XP + ie = unsafe" you're lumping things together that in reality are many, vastly different things, and how (un)safe their use is depends on many factors.
Win 3.1 (Score:2)
It reminds me of Windows 3.1 -- how one had to purchase Trumpet to connect to the Internet.
Except the difference now is XP satisifies many user's needs, while Windows 95 provided compelling reasons for users to upgrade from Windows 3.1.
People need to stop bitching (Score:5, Insightful)
It is unreasonable to expect a vendor to continue to support their old products forever. MS has quite a long support cycle, and it is a pretty predictable one too. XP has now entered what one might call "sunset" support. They still patch it, their answer to security issues isn't "Just upgrade to a new one," but they are done adding features. It is the final version, feature wise. That ended at the end of 2009, when general support for XP was terminated. We are now under extended support, the "sunset support", until 2014.
Windows 7 is of course being upgraded and supported as it is new. General support is scheduled to end for it in 2015, and extended support in 2020, though they've been known to extend the support dates before.
That is not bad at all. XP was released in 2001. It got nearly a decade of mainstream support, and it going to have 13 years in total support. Compare that to Ubutnu LTS or OS-X and you find it is extremely long. Solaris is one of the few OSes that has support cycles of that length.
So people need to STFU. No, XP is NOT going to get anymore new features. Deal with it. If you wish to continue using XP, then you can do so without those features. If not, upgrade to a newer OS.
This isn't the first new feature XP hasn't gotten either. DirectX 10 and up are Vista and 7 only, the DWM is Vista and 7 only and so on. XP is an old OS. It's a good one, but it is an old one. They are not going to offer new stuff for it indefinitely.
For that matter Windows 2000 won't get IE9, and didn't get IE8, though it's extended support doesn't end until mid this year.
I could see people being mad if Vista weren't getting IE9 or something, or if XP wasn't getting security patched. If MS had a policy of "As soon as a new Windows comes out we completely drop the old one," that would be reason to complain. As it stands, they support their OSes for a long, long time. You get at least a decade of total support, which is quite a lot.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Compare that to Ubutnu LTS or OS-X and you find it is extremely long.
Comparing XP's worthless out-of-box installation to any other OS which comes with (and MAINTAINS) hundreds of third-party apps is an extremely invalid comparison.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And if Microsoft were bundling lots of applications (third party or otherwise), people would be bitching that Microsoft doing so limits choice.
There is no winning for Microsoft here, clearly.
XP is almost 10 years old - they have to move on at some point.
I have a 2008 Nissan, but the 2010 has a better navigation system. Should I be insisting that Nissan upgrade my navigation software to match that of the newer model of my car? After all, it is software.
Re:People need to stop bitching (Score:4, Interesting)
Comparing XP's worthless out-of-box installation to any other OS which comes with (and MAINTAINS) hundreds of third-party apps is an extremely invalid comparison.
Unlike Canonical and Red Hat, Microsoft has market power [wikipedia.org] in operating systems for commodity desktop and laptop PCs. If Microsoft included basic versions of Office, Visual Studio, and the like with Windows, it might get in trouble with competition regulators, just as it did with Internet Explorer in the EU.
Re: (Score:2)
I bought a brand new computer two weeks ago. Want bet what the OS in it was?
Re: (Score:2)
IS isn't a "feature" of the OS, it's an application that runs on the OS. Considering XPs market share, it's obviously more of a business decision than a technical one to drop support. Every other browser has found a way to work with XP and if IE was a separately responsible business area of Microsoft this problem would get solved.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
While I agree with everything you say, I'll point out the following (and I usually support MS on many issues):
Comparing XP and ubuntu support is flawed (Score:2)
Upgrading Ubuntu is like installing a service pack. It costs nothing and all you usually have to do is run the upgrade and restart.
You dont have to pay anything to upgrade from a three year old version of Ubuntu to the current version,
you just have to run the upgrade a couple times. Since new versions of ubuntu are free most users will upgrade reasonably
quickly(in one version counter tool 80% of the users were using 9.10 )
Re: (Score:2)
Vista was a mess as we all know and most business users have skipped it entirely.
Except Vista isn't a mess. I didn't see it when it was first released (because I believed the naysayers here and avoided it), but post SP1 Vista works fine. Mind you, I was used to running as a non-Administrator user. As for business skipping it, why wouldn't they? Unless there is a compelling reason to upgrade, why spend the money? At my work, we are only just upgrading most of our workstations from Windows 2000!
Talk to me when Windows 7 Service Pack 2 comes out. That's when I'll start installing it for business users.
What is wrong with Windows 7 now? What are the deal-breaker bugs that you need to get fixed? I
Re:People need to stop bitching (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that you say XP is their only stable operating system shows the fact that you are just an anti-MS zealot, or very not up to date on their OSes. Windows 7 is exceedingly stable, as is Vista. So long as you are running on stable hardware that has tested drivers, you aren't going to find any stability problems. Certainly not more than XP and probably even less.
If your metric for a stable OS really is number of service packs, then you are a fool who's got no business doing computer support. I rather suspect that's not the case, and you simply don't like MS.
Also this all misses the point that in no way is MS getting rid of XP. They are simply not bringing their latest browser, as of yet unreleased, to it. If that really is something you find to be a big deal, you've got extremely strange priorities, or a case of anti-MS zealotry.
Re:People need to stop bitching (Score:4, Insightful)
You're so full of it. 7 is rock-solid out of the box. I've been testing it since beta and we were ready to upgrade as soon as it hit the stores.
Windows 7 without any SP is faster and more secure than XP-SP3. But not even SP1 is good enough for you, you need SP2; why not SP4?
Tell me, make a list of issues that prevent your company from upgrading. I'll wait.
Not a problem (Score:2)
I use Opera and Firefox as backup for those very few pages not standard conform enough to work with Opera. I have not had a page that does not work with either but works with IE in ages.
Thank you, Microsoft (Score:2)
Back in the days when the 'net was a IE-only turf, things were rather ugly, and somewhat hopeless. Then came Mozilla, and slowly things started to change. But really slowly, with some minor accelerations here and there: Chrome kicked up some dust when it appeared, so did the EU's mandate to have multiple browser options in Win7, but the biggest acceleration in removing IE's dominance will come, apparently, from Microsoft itself: the large majority of people still use XP, and there is no sign they're giving
Microsoft Did Abandon Windows XP (Score:2)
Yes. That's all very well, but that doesn't mean customers shouldn't complain. Were I a customer of Microsoft's, I would be less interested in excuses and technica
what a riot (Score:2)
not sure what is more funny, Vista/Win 7-style hardware acceleration, or that everyone else will continuing to support XP
Hardware accel is pretty sweet (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure what you think is "funny" about that, but maybe you just have an odd sense of humor. Actually, I suppose if you were the sort to bash anything that MS does which looks like a mistake, without any idea of what was involved, yeah it might be funny.
Go visit this page, in whatever browser(s) you please: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Performance/01FlyingImages/Default.html [microsoft.com]
Is this an incompatible carrot? (Score:2)
Okay, so far, MSIE9 is technically an improvement, but not close enough to its competitors to be taken seriously.
Is this how Microsoft wants to persuade people to buy new computers and stop using WindowsXP?
Re:Is this an incompatible carrot? (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, so far, MSIE9 is technically an improvement, but not close enough to its competitors to be taken seriously.
It is a year away from being released, and not even in alpha yet. The only thing we have seen so far is a tech demo of the trident engine that didn't even have a full browser user interface. How can you be making any sort of judgement call about it is already?
So what? (Score:2, Insightful)
I honestly cant see a problem with this. XP is now a 9 year old operating system that has been superseded but 2! newer versions and has entered extended support. I wouldn't expect apple to release the new version of safari on OS 9, I wouldn't expect Debian sarge to have the latest version of firefox back ported, why is IE9 any different?
What acceleration does XP not support? (Score:2)
This article is confusing - I apologize that I don't know much about IE9, so maybe these questions sound lame.
What features of IE9 will be hardware acceleration? Why is that acceleration required, not just a benefit? What APIs are they using that XP does not support? The only thing I can think of is that they are using DX10. I'm impressed that IE9 would really have any use for that, but I supposed they wouldn't code against DX9 just for backward compatibility.
Re: (Score:2)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd370990(VS.85).aspx
I Just now upgraded to Firefox 3.58 (Score:2)
from 1.5 so I don't think this really concerns me...
Literally impossible? (Score:2)
Wasn't DirectX supposed to save us from the walled fortress of NT's Win32 API? I don't see how any hardware acceleration features couldn't be implemented on XP and if the API gets in the way just bypass it. If root kits can Pwn XP there's no reason why MS can't do the same.
Why still use XP? (Score:3, Insightful)
"hardware acceleration"? (Score:2)
Hardware acceleration in a browser? What am I missing?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hardware accelerated SVG, Video rendering, font smoothing, etc.
Why should your cpu do all the work when any modern system with a 5 or so year old video card can render it faster, with less power used, and better quality?
Some of IE's demos at mix showed them rendering an architectural drawing (where even the letters on the page for room numbers) are drawn using paths, paths can be hardware accelerated very easily, and then scaled to your resolution/zoom by dedicated hardware.
the html5 canvas crowd are also g
Artical FUD (Score:2, Interesting)
Has anyone actually RTFA?
It's quite funny, because they are saying that the reason IE9 can't be released on XP is becuase of hardware acceleration - meaning it's using the GPU for rendering - and hence is much faster, and then they show a pretty bargraph showing how much faster it is than ie8 at *javascript* benchmarks. Do they really think the javascript code is being run on the GPU? Of coarse not, it's faster because it's been re-written - the old ie8 javascript engine was basically a pile of poo.
I've seen many stupid things in my life but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Repeat after me: "Anything one program can do, another program can do."
Before you go investing your faith in some web article about what's possible, try to get read up on the classics like Alan Turing's amazing body of work. Especially if you're going to go to a site like Slashdot and air out your ingnorance in front of the world.
Thats really annoying (Score:4, Insightful)
IE is simply the best firefox downloader around.
Bogon overload (Score:3, Interesting)
It is literally impossible... in the same sentence where they list two ways to do it.
My bogosity meter just blew up.
What they are saying is that they can't do it without spending more money on it than they want to. More accurately they are saying that they want to get people to move from XP to 7. They do not make a dime pushing out a patch for XP. In fact, doing that costs them money. OTOH, if they refuse to provide features on XP such as DIrectX 10 and 11, and now IE 9 a bunch of people run out and buy Windows 7 either in a box or in a new computer and that mean income for MS.
Do you remember when it was "impossible" to release DirectX 10 for XP? It was impossible for MS to do it, a bunch of "amateurs" did it almost no time at all. That is, by the time I had heard the news one of my students had already installed DirectX on XP and was running the demos that came with it.
Have you looked at a list of the games that only support DirectX 10 and/or 11 that will not run on any version of DirectX 9? The list is very short. Shorter than this post... So, what is really happening is that MS was abandoning its real customer base, the 72% of windows users who use Windows XP. They don't make money off of them so they have no interest in spending money on them. You know why their are so few DirectX 10 and 11 games? Because 72% of Windows user are running XP. The game companies have to write code for machines their customers have. In fact, a lot of smaller companies are moving to OpenGL because they can get all the new 3D features of DIrectX 10 and 11 on XP. sheesh...
It is unbelievable what a company is so certain of retaining its customers that it can abandon them and mistreat them and still assume they will be customers in the future. But, they can because they own the *minds* of their customers.
Well... I notice I'm starting to rant... so...
Stonewolf
OK, just one last rant... I've had to explain to a students that memorizing the DIrectX API would not help him write games for his favorite game box, the PS 3. He called me a liar. His world view did not include a computer that ran an OS other than Windows or a game that was written using any thing but DirectX. It is so sad...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, then they aren't new enough :P
Re: (Score:2)
How do you judge the age of the OS? From when it was first released, or from when they stopped selling it? I just checked on the Dell site, and they're still shipping machines with Windows XP.
This announcement isn't really surprising. The new rendering code in IE9 uses DirectX 10, which hasn't been back-ported to XP. The official reason, of course, is that it's impossible. For some reason, this hasn't stopped GPU manufacturers exposing all of the DX10 functionality via OpenGL extensions on XP. Mayb
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
This. Exactly. They are looking for every excuse they can to NOT put things on windows XP. What will happen though is that they will claim 'new features'...and 2 months down the line some hacker somewhere is going to find out that it's just a string or something somewhere that has to be changed in a DLL and Microsoft will be caught.
No. What part of "XP does not support hardware acceleration on it's desktop" do people not understand?
XP is an ancient OS. It cannot support new technology because it just simply cannot, to put it in layman's terms. The only way to make it support newer and newer stuff is if it was engineered in a way that any component can be removed and replaced (it wasn't) or do a complete rewrite.
Now if you're going to spend time on a rewrite, you might as well make a new OS because a complete re-write is a ton of work that will need to be compensated with money.
The fact that nobody has managed to somehow find any of these secret strings in a DLL in the 3 or so years that DirectX10 has been available would prove this. Yes, they may make some moves to entice people to upgrade - but there are seriously things that cannot be backported to XP, not even by Microsoft. The damn OS came out in 2001. Nobody would be running a Linux from that time on their desktop and nobody would be running a MacOS version from that year, either.
They already did that with directx 10 (Score:2, Informative)
They have a modified directX 10 file out there that will run on xp. The reason why they dont want directX 10 for XP is that XP will run directX 10 faster than vista or windows 7
I wonder if Microsoft offered an XP--2 edition (Score:2)
For say $20 or so that offered XP users DX 10 and IE 9 would XP users be willing to pay for it???
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd prefer to stick with IE6
Yeah, who needs transparent PNG's anyway, right?
Re:Bye Bye XP (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Hell, FreeDos is still an active project. XP is infinitely more useful and flexible in comparison. "Sunset" support until 2014? They'll probably extend that "another six months" every 6 months until 2016 or so. I can't imagine XP fading into "win98" obscurity until 2020. Many of the computers at my office run win2k, possibly due to the happy coincidence that win2k and XP share essentially the same codebase.
I'd hope by 2012 people still running XP will have migrated to some webkit or mozilla based br
Re: (Score:2)
10. World peace.
I'm pretty sure you need a proprietary driver for that. No wonder no one's found it yet.