Windows Vista Enters Extended Support 330
yuhong writes "On April 10, the second Tuesday of April, Windows Vista will exit Mainstream Support and enter Extended Support. This means that no-charge (free) support will end, no further service packs will be created, nor will future IE versions (such as IE10) be available for Vista. Also, no new non-security hotfixes will be created or be available without an Extended Hotfix Support Agreement (EHSA). This will last for 5 years before support for Vista completely ends in 2017."
Re:Don't euthanize the able-bodied (Score:4, Interesting)
>Every time I have to go back to using Windows, it's like trying to work with mittens on ...
There, fixed that for you.
Re:I still have an Win 2000 Pro (Score:5, Interesting)
>old software and old OSes.
This is why you run a virtual machine and load up whatever software and OS you want from the old days.
It can be tricky, though. Because some of the really old stuff doesn't even expect a hard disk. I unpacked a .zip install of PFS Pro Write on to the "c:" drive in a DOS VM and it /demanded/ that I install to a drive location other than the install drive. Because the developers assumed the destination was a floppy, even with a c: drive letter.
Old software, all the games you missed playing over the years, etc. Load up a VM in a current computer. Install the legacy OS, boot it when you get all nostalgic or need to read really old files, and put it away when you're done. No need for separate hardware. DOS, Windows of all flavors, Linux, BSD, Solaris, OSX if you have an Intel processor, etc., can all be loaded in virtual machines. No need for a separate computer.
And when you're done, just close the VM and go on with your other business.
My favorite Windows for virtual machines is Windows FLP. It's like a pre-stripped XP. I tried 2k, but I wound up ripping DLLs from XP to put into 2k anyway. The same with NT4, which I needed to get DLLs from 2k and XP to just install Opera.
DRDOS 7.03 is out there for free download too. Unfortunately Windows 3.11 says that FreeDOS is "incompatible" and will refuse to run (wrong version). Hrmph. It also helps to have a serial mouse and serial port available for things like DesqView/X which demands an actual serial mouse.
My virtual machine software of choice is VirtualBox. There are others out there, like Xen, KVM, VMWare, Parallels (macintosh). Try them.
As for Win98, giving it any more RAM will be futile anyway. It maxes out at 512MB of addressable RAM. Windows 95 maxes out at 64.
A snapshot I took once to demonstrate the power of virtual machines: http://ompldr.org/vYXgzcA [ompldr.org]
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BMO
Re:Crap! (Score:4, Interesting)
You're missing out, Windows 7 is actually a lot better than XP was, Vista you have an argument on, but 7 has a lot of nice stuff, not least of which is 64 bit support which doesn't suck.