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Windows Microsoft Operating Systems Software

Windows XP Dies Final Death As Embedded POSReady 2009 Reaches End of Life (techrepublic.com) 144

Posted by BeauHD from the you-had-a-good-run dept.
New submitter intensivevocoder shares a report from TechRepublic: Extended support for Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 -- the last supported version of Windows based on Windows XP -- ended on April 9, 2019, marking the final end of the Windows NT 5.1 product line after 17 years, 7 months, and 16 days. Counting this edition, Windows XP is the longest-lived version of Windows ever -- a record which is unlikely to be beaten.

Despite the nominal end of support for Windows XP five years ago, the existence of POSReady 2009 allowed users to receive security updates on Windows XP Home and Professional SP3 through the use of a registry hack. Microsoft dissuaded users from doing this, stating that they "do not fully protect Windows XP customers," though no attempt was apparently made to prevent users from using this hack. With POSReady reaching the end of support, the flow of these security updates will likewise come to an end.
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Windows XP Dies Final Death As Embedded POSReady 2009 Reaches End of Life More

Windows XP Dies Final Death As Embedded POSReady 2009 Reaches End of Life

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  • Amusing summary (Score:5, Funny)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @08:54PM (#58413100)

    I'm pretty sure that most people on Slashdot know POS really stands for "Point of Sale". But I found it amusing to read through the whole summary with "Windows" and "POS" lumped together multiple time leading the read to their own inner dialogue as to meaning...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Askmum ( 1038780 )
      No idea that was what it meant. I'll just say it out loud, POS combined with Windows always translates as piece of shit to me.
      Having said that, I'd never think I would say this, but in the light of Windows 10, XP actually was not that big of a POS.

    • I remember once reading that Windows had the POS market locked up. I THINK the writer meant Point Of Sale, but I wasn't completely sure.

  • Death? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Cmdln Daco ( 1183119 ) on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @09:03PM (#58413134)

    Why would this amount to 'death'? If I had, for an example, a LabView system on my bench that ran on Windows XP, it wouldn't need to 'die' because it isn't networked to any other systems. There are lots of pieces of test equipment that embed various versions of Windows in them. At a previous job we had Unholtz-Dicke shaker tables. One had a Windows XP host, the other had a Windows 2000 host. They worked fine. They will continue to work fine.

    • Re:Death? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @05:06AM (#58414170)

      Technology never dies, as long as someone is using it.
      However a Dead technology means there is no more support or new products from its licensed company.

      We still have MS Dos 3.0 systems fully functioning and used for business.
      There are still people making games for legacy systems such as the Commodore 64

      But they are dead technology too, because there is no official point of support.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Luckily, the Commodore 64 doesn't need any support.

    • Why would this amount to 'death'? If I had, for an example, a LabView system on my bench that ran on Windows XP, it wouldn't need to 'die' because it isn't networked to any other systems. There are lots of pieces of test equipment that embed various versions of Windows in them. At a previous job we had Unholtz-Dicke shaker tables. One had a Windows XP host, the other had a Windows 2000 host. They worked fine. They will continue to work fine.

      Young people today (*) probably can't imagine a device that doesn't have 24/7 access to the internet.

      (*) who need to get off my lawn

    • Air gap is not a complete security solution. There are must be a way manufacturer setup to update the system and it's only a matter of time until someone plugs an infected media into it.
  • MS gives a big FU to anyone who foolishly built a system on their OS. Let that be a lesson.

    • Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by viperidaenz ( 2515578 ) on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @09:23PM (#58413190)

      Meanwhile, the oldest Linux kernel still supported is 3.16, first released in 2014. It won't even get to 6 years before being abandoned.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by msauve ( 701917 )
        "the oldest Linux kernel still supported is 3.16, first released in 2014.

        Come back when MS releases source code for the OS, so users can maintain it when they don't.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          You must be really strong, constantly moving the goalposts and all.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by DarkOx ( 621550 )

          And what is the oldest XP actually supported; Service Pack 3 - release 2008 - so 9 years. Not all the different really. Next question is SP3 really even supported or would support just tell you to apply various KBs to a theoretically supported system until it was at the patch level they actually support?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
            No, the oldest XP that (until yesterday) that was supported was Windows Embedded POSReady 2009. The one in TFS, and the whole point of the article!
        • Almost assuredly the vast majority of users of Linux OS cannot and do not ever maintain the kernel and are not capable of doing so. What good are sticks and dry grass if one doesn't know how to employ them to make fire? Just because you CAN make fire doesn't mean the person who needs it knows how and in many cases they may not fucking care how to make it. They just want to be warm. That is what a lot of open source advocates can't seem to grasp.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Kjella ( 173770 )

            Almost assuredly the vast majority of users of Linux OS cannot and do not ever maintain the kernel and are not capable of doing so. What good are sticks and dry grass if one doesn't know how to employ them to make fire? Just because you CAN make fire doesn't mean the person who needs it knows how and in many cases they may not fucking care how to make it. They just want to be warm. That is what a lot of open source advocates can't seem to grasp.

            Most people only do a few things themselves, the question is whether you have a choice of venue. They don't repair their own car, but they care if they can take it to a third party mechanic or if you need first party service and first party parts and it runs on first party gas. There's a helluva lot of people in the server space that has figured this out. The problem is more that of cost distribution, if you download it for free 99%+ will only generate bug reports, feature requests, requests for documentat

      • Ubuntu 18.04 will be supported for 10 years or until 2028.

        • Ubuntu won't even exist as a desktop OS in 2018. Shuttleworth has been pulling the plug piece by piece for a while now.

          • I'd love to hear the thought process behind this one, considering that Ubuntu seems to be the only commercial Linux manufacturer actually invested in supporting the desktop releases. Red Hat and SuSE seem to be happy with slapping a copy of Gnome and LibreOffice on the server version.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Trogre ( 513942 )

        Yes, and so what?

        It's much easier to migrate to a new Linux kernel than it is to migrate from Windows XP.

        • Yes, and so what?

          It's much easier to migrate to a new Linux kernel than it is to migrate from Windows XP.

          I challenge you to upgrade from 2.4.x series kernel (Released at the same time as Windows XP) to a modern kernel. You'll be begging for a windows 10 upgrade screen by the time you have a bash prompt and realised nothing else is working.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cyberax ( 705495 )
        I can run my code from University days in the newest Linux. Heck, Linux still supports a.out binaries from 92!

        • I can still run my FORTRAN programs (written before Linus Torvoldsbought his 80386 computer) from college on MVS, so what?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by sad_ ( 7868 )

        if you really need support for a linux kernel older than that (why?).
        you could hire a developer to maintain it for you, costing less then it costs to buy extended support from MS.

      • You can upgrade Linux 0.01 (Score:4, Interesting)

        by DrYak ( 748999 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @06:30AM (#58414310) Homepage

        Meanwhile, the oldest Linux kernel still supported is 3.16, first released in 2014.

        If your server is still running Linux kernel 0.01 you are completely allowed (thanks to the copyleft GPL it is licensed under) to upgrade all the way to the current 5.1-rc4.

        If your marchine is running Windows XP (and don't get me about Windows 2.0 or MS-DOS 2.0), you're hosed. You can't get updates for that version, and you need to buy a new "upgrade license" to get something newer. (though from time to time some of these upgrade are free).

        From the point of view of how Windows is handled, Linux is a single product which only differs by build numbers.

        • You ignored the most important part while focusing on the numbers. The process of upgrading will make the cost of buying a license look like a laughable rounding error.

          You'll likely have more luck getting Windows 10 running on whatever is currently running windows XP, than you have getting Linux 5.1 running on what was on 0.01. The specialism required to upgrade a Windows XP system to a Windows 10 system is nothing compared to finding someone who has the expertise to know how that 0.01 system even runs. Tho

        • Its perhaps worth noting that while XP's update lifecycle was very nice, Windows 10 seems to only bother to support feature updates for 18 months now at which point its time to upgrade again to receive further updates.

    • Re:So... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @06:37AM (#58414330)

      MS gives a big FU to anyone who foolishly built a system on their OS. Let that be a lesson.

      Lesson learnt. 19 years of support for their software, clearly the absolute best in the OS industry. I can't find a Linux, BSD, Apple, or any other OS that still has that original version supported.

    • Yeah, they only supported WinXP for 17 years - compare that to something like Ubuntu LTS with its 5 years of support...oh, wait?

  • Windows 10 forever (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @10:33PM (#58413428)
    I thought Microsoft was just going to continue to enhance Windows 10 forever. That will certainly blow by the record set by XP.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Nah, read the Windows 10 licenses, ToS, etc.

      Support is tied to the hardware. If you buy a PC from a vendor, MS only supports Windows on that device for as long as the manufacturer has bought into support.
      If Dell only pays 3 years of support, MS can and will shut you out of updates. See what they did to certain Intel and AMD CPUs - blocking them from Windows updates for no fucking reason. And MS's terms leave it open for them to say it's not just Dell, but Intel/AMD that has to pony up for support.

      Oh, sur

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The retail version of Windows 10 (FPP) is perpetually licensed and has an extended support lifecycle until 2025. That means anyone who paid for a boxed copy is covered until 2025 for security updates at a minimum. Windows 10 LTSB 2016 can't become subscription ware as it is licensed with a 10 year fixed lifecycle and Windows 10 LTSC 2019 also cannot be since that's covered until 2029.

        You're more likely to find Microsoft replacing Windows 10 with their latest Windows Core OS open-source project and charging

    • I suspect MS will eventually drop that under some pretext. Because supporting Win10 forever without selling licenses won't bring revenue.

      Maybe some bullshit about new hardware being not compatible, they are already doing that with Windows 7.

      • That already exists. For instance if you don't have enough free space to install a feature update and you're running Windows 10 1709 Home / Pro then as of yesterday you've been EOL'd and aren't getting security updates even if Windows Update is running.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        I suspect MS will eventually drop that under some pretext. Because supporting Win10 forever without selling licenses won't bring revenue.

        Maybe some bullshit about new hardware being not compatible, they are already doing that with Windows 7.

        Well, every new PC running Windows needs a new license, so I don't see how Microsoft will not get new license sales. I mean, PCs get cycled in and out all the time, and generally speaking, the new PC comes with a new Windows license already paid for. So even if MIcrosof

    • I thought Microsoft was just going to continue to enhance Windows 10 forever. That will certainly blow by the record set by XP.

      You misunderstand. Windows 10 Home and Pro editions effectively are only serviced for 18 months before being EOL'd. At that point it is not possible to get any security updates for it.

      Windows 10 1709 Home and Pro officially was EOL'd yesterday. No more security releases will be given to that version and you will be forced to install the feature if you want to receive patches for any future discovered security issues.

  • WinXP is *MUCH BETTER* than Win10 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Believe it or not, XP is much better than Windows 10.

    At the very least, XP does not spy on the users.

  • ...but still works fine. I give training courses in some arcane industrial language under Windows XP. In 2019. Why ? Because I set up the entire environment in a virtual machine and then ship the VM to my customers before the course. This way everything just works when we start the course.

    Why don't I use Win10 ? Well, I tried but the smallest VM I could produce is 60Gb, instead of 17Gb with XP. Try and send that via ftp... And other reasons is that I hate Win10 and also that many of the hardware drivers n

    • Shitty IT guys and programmers always come up with wild reasons to try and excuse bad practices. It's usually because they don't have the intelligence to find a way to do things correctly. Your example of why you "need to" use bad practices is no different. This is furthered by the fact that you say "it's not like they've improved anything useful between XP and 10". The whole security model on 10 is improved, memory management has been improved so that it can handle larger amounts on memory during processin

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by flippy ( 62353 )

        It's not always "shoddy practices" of the end user. Sometimes, you're stuck with legacy hardware (manufacturing environments are particularly susceptible to this) and/or software. In those cases, the user is at the mercy of the vendor - and before anyone says "well, you shouldn't have picked that vendor", sometimes there really is no reasonable alternative.

        While there have been plenty of "under the hood" improvements between XP and Win10, as a general-purpose OS, I despise Win10. The user interface is an

    • And honestly, it's not like they've improved anything useful between XP and 10... I can't find a SINGLE thing that I would say: "That's nice, I wouldn't want to go without".

      64 bit support, unless you count XP 64bit. Which was technically there but somehow did not get not significant market share.

      Recently, however, MS destroys more in terms of usability than they improve in the underlying kernel and services. I keep reading about how Windows 8 is somewhat better technologically, and I don't even doubt that. But the abysmal GUI turns it all to shit :-(

    • many of the hardware drivers necessary in an industrial environment just won't install easily

      That's the vendor's problem, not Microsoft's. It is not hard at all to sign up for MSDN and get pre-release access to the OS.

      It's especially common in industrial and medical equipment, but that doesn't change the facts: the vendor has cheap, lazy, shitty development practices.

      I know we've been complaining forever about the shitty security of Windows, but when they actually tighten shit up, it gets right in the way.

      It's impossible to improve security without disrupting some use cases. The best approach is to be as transparent as possible: announce design goals early, provide early access to developers, communicate changes frequently, and test int

  • Are there options for paid support like there were for general release of XP? If so, it isn't dead yet.

  • Microsoft is still offering XP on its servers... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Desert Tripper ( 1166529 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @10:35AM (#58415402)
    They say it's dead, but you can still download a free, fully functional 32-bit version of XP encased in a virtual machine (Windows Virtual PC) from Microsoft's web site! It's called "Windows XP Mode."

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