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XP Deathwatch, T Minus 2 Weeks

Posted by kdawson on Monday June 16, @06:46PM
from the how-to-really-spike-linux-and-mac-adoption dept.
Windows
CWmike writes "June 30 is Microsoft's deadline for mainstream computer makers to stop selling new PCs with the old operating system, and the date that it will stop shipping boxed copies to retailers. That's just two weeks away. Computerworld offers a FAQ about XP's approaching retirement after Microsoft's most recent relaxation of the retirement rules, with some details about which machines big-brand computer makers will be selling with XP after June 30. First FAQ: Any sign that Microsoft will reprieve Windows XP's retirement? Sort of."

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Firehose:FAQ: XP Deathwatch, T Minus 2 weeks by CWmike (1292728)
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  • This is a clear case of a large company making what they want and totally ignoring consumer demand. What people really want is a better version of XP and for continued support. I for one (if I am to use Windows (and then only in a virtualized environment)) would gladly pay $99 or whatever for an upgraded version of XP that is still very much like XP. Apple is making a strong move I feel with Snow Leopard. People like Leopard. They are releasing Leopard, but "better". I'd pay for it in a heartbeat, as stability and speed is well worth money to me. If they made an XP "better", I'd go for it and pay for the upgrade. That's the goal isn't it? For people to pay for the next thing?

    But, that's not what they are doing. They figure people want excessively high system requirements, "more secure" environments (which aren't really better security models, just annoying prompts often) and pretty graphics. Hell, I was happy with the graphics in Windows 2000, and in fact when I use XP I turn it back to Win2K themes always.
    • I have over 200 machines in my domain. I tend to replace one or two a month and they can pry my corporate copy of XP from my cold dead hands. For folks like me that don't necessarily have the latest and greatest hardware Vista isn't even an option (the majority are single-core P4's with less than 1GB RAM). I use Linux on all of my servers and my personal workstation but until I can run AutoCAD, Rhino, and Photoshop without glitching and at full-speed I can't make a complete switch. The way Microsoft is alienating their lower-end customers like this is so tragic it's funny. I have to believe that there are other admins out there with the same problem.

  • Inaccurate ... (Score:5, Informative)

    by schwit1 (797399) on Monday June 16, @06:56PM (#23816489)
    Dell has already stated that they will continue to install XP [dell.com] if the customer requests it.

  • For those who don't care (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 16, @07:01PM (#23816531)
    I'm sure the Pirate Bay will continue to carry Windows XP for a long long time.
  • There are some things about Vista which are better than XP.

    The restructured Users folder, for example. Finally 'My Music' is moved out of the My Documents folder, making backups, once again, possible for basic end users.

    The improved desktop rendering, which small matter though it may be, was well overdue for an overhaul.

    There are some things which are worse in Vista, and we all know about them.

    The copying speed.

    The shutdown menu, and the fact that hibernation NEVER works.

    Ultimately however, and this is where I intend to get relevant, there is nothing significant enough to recommend a switch from XP to Vista. And that's a statement that few people would argue with, and it's a damning statement. The more you think about about, the worse it gets.

    And when you step into the world of Enterprise, and big business, things are even worse. In Enterprise, you really, really don't care about shiny baubles. All you care about is that it works, and it stays working, and it never works any worse than it used to.

    Aging though it may be, XPs relevancy is not in decline. Windows Server 2003 does not want for much, in the way of mission critical upgrades, and what it does want for, Windows Server 2008 will not be providing.

    • The copying speed.

      The shutdown menu, and the fact that hibernation NEVER works.

      The speed of copying/moving files was fixed in SP1. Of course it shouldn't have been so bad to begin with, but still, fixed.

      Hibernation works fine for me. It doesn't work in Ubuntu however (at least with the most recent kernel), and a lot of people have complained about it.

      My point? Everyone's experiences are different. Is it wrong for me to actually like Vista?

  • Mayan Calender (Score:5, Funny)

    by retech (1228598) on Monday June 16, @07:10PM (#23816617)
    This was foretold on the ancient Mayan Calender.
  • As I recall, when XP released, the tech community was quite quick to throw flak at Microsoft for releasing a "bug ridden feature bloated OS that hides it's inadequacies behind a pretty interface", with a great cluster of users vowing to never leave their precious, mature, stable, and resource-efficient Windows 2000.

    Somewhere along the line, XP mostly shed it's poor reputation, and replaced it with one of stability and speed on modern to previous-generation machines. Somehow, even though Win2k's death clock was ticking, few seemed to notice or care. At some point, if you weren't running XP, you were either a die-hard 2k fan, or you were a business.

    Fast forward to now. Vista has been out for 20 months and has seen a service pack. Much of the tech community still throws flak at Vista for having poor driver support, being a resource hog, and often such flak is accompanied by a vow to never leave XP. Vista's reputation may be slowly turning, but inside tech circles, throwing flak is still the norm.

    What's the difference?

    Quite simple really, XP had a catch-22 situation with buying a new machine. Most users with half a brain cell would turn down Windows ME, as it was as stable as a vial of Nitroglycerin. Here's where XP had the advantage: Windows 2000 was a Business OS, and wasn't put out by Microsoft for Home users, so hence system vendors didn't market it on their machines. Thus, buyers were essentially given a choice: Unstable ME, or Unproven XP.

    Vista, on the other hand, isn't coming from such a situation. The 9x line has long since been discontinued. Vista's SKU's are only competing against one predecessor: XP. New system buyers have a different choice than a few years ago: Proven XP, or Unproven Vista.

    As far as I'm concerned, Vista isn't half bad. If there's a faulty driver, it will be brought to it's knees, but then again, so will XP. I'm running 2 machines and both have Vista as the OS, and thus far I've had only minimal problems.

      • No 'probs' with licensing maybe, but beyond that, you can expect plenty of 'probs' running anything modern in terms of hardware or software on it.

        I think I missed your point here. Linux runs on more hardware, more architectures and more platforms than Windows ever has. Linux has support for hardware, protocols, filesystems and technologies LONG before Windows does. Linux had the first, working Wireless USB drivers and specification before Microsoft even thought about it. Linux has more software applications available to it (by several orders of magnitude), and even runs most Windows software if necessary.

        So what exactly were you trying to say above? Because I missed it. If you want something that supports current, bleeding edge hardware and software, Linux is the only way to go. If you want something that supports 15+ year old hardware, Linux is the only way to go.

        If you want to play games on your computer and not much else, Windows is probably a good fit.

      • Re:Make people realise the benefit of OSS (Score:5, Informative)

        by Secrity (742221) on Monday June 16, @07:31PM (#23816835)
        I run several RHEL 4 and 5 servers at work. I have called Red Hat support a couple of times and got excellent support. I would say that Red Hat telephone support was as good as or better than Sun support is. The email support is pretty good, but it is from India.

      • Re:Make people realise the benefit of OSS (Score:5, Informative)

        by Rutulian (171771) on Monday June 16, @08:12PM (#23817187)
        Well, I don't think the OP was suggesting replacing an established Windows infrastructure with linux, but, yes, you can purchase phone support for your nfs server, from a number of vendors.

        What about all the various backup products, such as tape backups and seamless server redundancy? Are there alternatives for this for Linux?

        Yes. And I would venture to suggest that linux probably has much better support for remote backups and failover clusters than Windows.

        What assurances does a large company who absolutely can not afford significant downtime have that the software is well supported by professionals on call and that bugs are constantly being fixed?

        This is Red Hat's entire business. If you need that kind of support, they would be more than happy to oblige. A number of other vendors also can provide that level of support.

        There are thousands of tools that are necessary for full production environments

        Yes, you are correct. And those thousands of tools are all available for linux as well...with the added bonus that they will play nicely with your Windows clients. Novell puts together a distribution that provides all of this out of the box. The only things that is really lacking is an Exchange replacement, but I see that coming in a couple of years from the various Mozilla projects. Thing is, Exchange is slowly dating itself. There are a few web services out there already, like Google Apps, that let you easily integrate email and shared calendars...and you don't need an expensive and massively proprietary application (along with the expensive and massive hardware to run it on). As these mature, Exchange is going to have to evolve or die out.

        if you go to a business and tell them that they will likely say, "and what happens if it goes down?"

        Hand them the business card of your local Red Hat or IBM sales representative. This is why these companies are in business, and they know how to talk to and reassure PHBs.

      • Re:I love OSS and make money on Windows (Score:5, Informative)

        by alexborges (313924) on Monday June 16, @07:39PM (#23816901)
        Bullet proof means preinstalled on certified hardware, I guess...

        Look at the trends: all non-whitebox servers in the world (worth of mention) are sold linux certified and preinstalled. Dell has certified linux laptops. HP/CQ has a pretty nice list of linux certified laptops (they sell them to ya preinstalle as well).

        Man... where do this people come from? Linux is already out there! Go buy a box with it on it and youll never, ever, look back.

    • There's an explicit exception for the mini-notebook market, for the very reason that Microsoft is afraid that Linux will sweep it.

      • Re:I hope so (Score:5, Interesting)

        by roc97007 (608802) on Monday June 16, @07:58PM (#23817077)

        > There's an explicit exception for the mini-notebook market, for the very reason that Microsoft is afraid that Linux will sweep it.

        True. I wonder if that'll help. My daughter (13) last Saturday bought an EEE (with her own money!) and specifically requested Linux because the XP versions were comparatively sluggish. Was soon frustrated with easy mode, but after we got the full Xandros desktop loaded, she's been very happy with it, and hasn't looked back. (I think Asus should just default to the full Xandros desktop -- it's pretty, and even Windows users would be comfortable with it.)

        Point is, she chose Linux over XP on the EEE for the same reason we've been choosing XP over Vista on desktops -- less complicated, fewer issues, faster on the same hardware. Put simply, the lighter weight OS provides a better user experience on the same hardware.

        Moreover, considering the use to which these sub-subnotebooks are being put, there's very little reason to run XP, any more than a PDA or phone needs to run Windows. (They can, but they don't *have* to.)

        • Re:I hope so (Score:5, Informative)

          by petermgreen (876956) <plugwash@p10l i n k.net> on Monday June 16, @07:47PM (#23816969) Homepage
          iirc XP home is crippled in a number of ways. The ones that spring to mind are.
          * it can't join a domain
          * the file permissions and file sharing permissions sytems are crippled
          * I don't think it can be a remote desktop server (but i'm pretty sure it can be a remote desktop client)

          I don't see any of theese as showstoppers for an ultraportable.

          BTW you will still be able to get XP pro though vista buisness or ultimate downgrade rights and the big brand OEMs are now allowed to supply downgrade media and even ship systems pre-downgraded.

        • Re:I hope so (Score:5, Interesting)

          by roc97007 (608802) on Monday June 16, @08:05PM (#23817137)

          > yeah I know but its still a market that Linux is very competitive in. XP cant be in that market segment for that long (they say 2011). What will Microsoft's new product for this market be?

          After XP is gone, all they'll have in that space is Windows Mobile. I can't imagine Microsoft coming up with a *new*, lighter-weight OS. It's not how they work. They're stuck with Vista, and the next version will be even more hardware-intensive.

          Idle thought -- how does Microsoft's business model work in today's "green" market, where running white-hot hardware and upgrading every two weeks is no longer the norm? Will it be global warming that finally kills Microsoft? :-)

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