Microsoft Kills Support For XP SP2

Trailrunner7 writes "Microsoft's announcement this week that it is preparing to end support for machines running Windows XP SP2 not only represents a challenge for the thousands of businesses still running SP2, but also is the end of an era for both Microsoft and its customers. It wasn't until 2004 that the final release of XP SP2 hit the streets, but when it did, it represented a huge step forward in security for Windows users. It wasn't necessarily the feature set that mattered as much as the fact that the protections were enabled by default and taken out of the users' hands."

Re:So what?

[Andorin]

Way back when I had XP SP2, installing SP3 borked my machine. Had to do a System Restore.

Just sayin'.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

It has WGA in it.

Who the hell cares?

[westlake]

I ended support for Microsoft products a few years ago.

OS Market Share [hitslink.com]

Windows XP 63%
Vista 16%
Win 7 12%
OSX 10.6 2%
OSX 10.5 2%
Linux 1%

Windows ME 0.03%
iPad 0.03%

OS Share Trends [hitslink.com]

Jun 2009 Win 7 1%. Linux 1%.
Apr 2009 Win 7 12% Linux 1%

Re:News?

[MobyDisk]

FYI: EAL ratings [wikipedia.org] I had never heard of this before.

Re:So what?

[Ralish]

That's because XP x64 isn't actually XP (NT 5.1), it's Windows Server 2003 (NT 5.2). That is, it's really only XP in name as it is built off the Windows Server 2003 codebase. It has all the server functionality of its counterparts removed as well as some minor functionality present in XP but absent from the server releases included. Consequently, they share the same service packs and updates, with the latest service pack for Windows Server 2003 being SP2. Unless of course, you meant the original "XP" Itanium release, which really is built off of XP, but support for that was discontinued a long time ago.

Re:So what?

[prograde]

That only counts as one bad experience. It sucks, to be sure, but it's anecdotal. I've done dozens of SP2 --> SP3 transitions, and zero machines got borked.

Re:So what?

[Shakrai]

I'd do that, but my XP disc is stamped "DO NOT MAKE ILLEGAL COPIES OF THIS DISC" and I haven't yet finished reading USC Title 17 to determine whether your recommendation would be illegal.

I know you are going for sarcasm, but Microsoft actually tells [microsoft.com] you how [microsoft.com] to do this. Also, it says "illegal copies", Microsoft has never much cared if you make copies for your own personal use. Hell, they don't even distribute media by default for their bulk licensed products. You have to download them or pay extra for the media.

Re:So what?

[ImprovOmega]

XP64 SP2 is the same as Windows Server 2003 SP2. When there's an SP3 for Server 2003 there'll be an SP3 for XP-64. Further, any updates for Server 2003 SP2 x64 edition will patch directly into XP-64, so in actuality you'll probably have support for that long after XP-32 is dead and buried. Microsoft's support for Server OS's far outlasts their support for consumer OS's (generally).

Re:XP did NOT replace 2000

[Kalriath]

The successor to Windows 2000 Professional was Windows XP. Not Windows Server 2003.

Millenium was also a consolidation release, designed to make the consumer line look more like the business line so they could merge them. There are three tracks:

3.x -> 95 -> 98 -> Me -> (Line ends. Continue from XP below)
NT 4 Workstation -> 2000 Professional -> XP -> Vista -> 7
NT 3.51 -> NT 4 Server -> 2000 Server -> 2003 -> 2008 -> 2008R2

Re:So what?

[drsmithy]

IIRC, they lampooned it for its cartoonish look, and the fact that it was slower than Win98 and Win 2K, depending on where you were coming from.

Yes. Just like Vista.

Win 2K was probably the "best" of the NT versions, solid and trim compared to all of its predecessors and descendants.

Compared to NT4, Windows 2000 was "bloated" and slow - the former needing a 33Mhz 486 with 16Mb RAM and the latter a 133Mhz+ Pentium (~8x more) with 64MB RAM (4x more).

Vista never will be, as Win 7 is now out (Vista SP2 really, renamed because "Vista" had such a bad rap)

Windows 7 is as much "Vista SP2" as Windows XP was "Windows 2000 SP1". Certainly the changes weren't as large as Vista (probably the single biggest update to NT since its release), but definitely more than just a service pack.

Re:Wow, Slashdot has changed a little.

[harryjohnston]

Be aware that the end-of-support for SP2 isn't actually news. The date has been known ever since SP3 was released.

Re:Typical MS forcing their customers to be slaves

[mr_da3m0n]

You do not see this sort of API stability from almost any other vendor. API that worked in Windows 95 still works, more or less.

Solaris has always done great in this regard. Sun in fact has maintained binary compatibility up to Solaris 10, the current production release. It's even a guarantee. [sun.com]

Re:So what?

[drsmithy]

Then XP came along, and didn't really add anything of substance to 2k, mostly just fluff.

This is false [wikipedia.org].