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Microsft extends availability of XP into 2011

Of course, why should I care what other people use for an OS - to each his own, and all that.

Having said that:

an XP user in 2011 would be using a 10 year old operating system, effectively (and in this sense only) the equivalent of using Windows 95 in 2005.


When I was a kid I remember dreaming that we'd have flying cars in the then so-impossible-to-imagine distant future of 2010.

I did not dream that we'd still be seeing Windows XP users.
 
Yeah, but with the economic downturn, companies are being a bit slower to replace hardware and software.

From the viewpoint of a small enterprise network administrator, the move makes sense.
 
They do it for longer. They're selling it with Windows 7 which is both a great and terrible thing to do. Support will carry on for a while after that I imagine.
 
Geez... Microsoft's corporate customers must really be beating them over the head on this.
 
Weird, I was told Windows 7 would actually run very well on netbooks.

I think MS is just trying to prevent a scenario like happened with Vista, where they planned to EOL XP and everyone freaked out.
 
Twilight said:
Of course, why should I care what other people use for an OS - to each his own, and all that.

Having said that:

an XP user in 2011 would be using a 10 year old operating system, effectively (and in this sense only) the equivalent of using Windows 95 in 2005.


When I was a kid I remember dreaming that we'd have flying cars in the then so-impossible-to-imagine distant future of 2010.

I did not dream that we'd still be seeing Windows XP users.
Click to expand...

I will never understand why rational people believe that using an old OS that WORKS is such a bad thing. By that rational, UNIX should be dead and gone (the proto version was first developed at Bell labs back in 1969; with the first formal UNIX version online in 1971); and its still considered one of the most robust and stable OSes around. LINUX is essentially a redressed version of UNIX as well.

Do the world a favor and quit swallowing the MS hype that their constant 'newer' versions of the OVER-BLOATED Windows OS are such great things - they're not (and yes, I do make a living supporting MS OSes for the most part, and am thankful that Steve Balmer keeps realeasing crap OSes as it's job security; but again, realize that MS releases ONLY to fill their coffers; they could care less about actual innovation, or usability, and more on what technology they can license and control.)
 
Let me be clear: I'm in no way saying that people using an old OS that works is at all bad. I couldn't care less what OS other people use. In fact I'm sitting here at work with a positively ANCIENT Solaris system sitting next to me, and typing this post on a linux (and therefore unix) system (albeit a powerful Ubuntu 9.04 machine).

I was just remarking how it's a *tiny* bit funny to think of somebody in 2005 still using Windows 95. While the comparison isn't totally fair as Windows XP is vastly more sophisticated than 95, it's effectively the same as somebody using Windows XP in 2011.

And I'm certainly no MS evangelist. Vista is nothing more than a heavily skinned XP with some very minor under-the-hood improvements. And Windows 7 is just a very good Vista service pack.

If I actually cared about the OS other people used I'd suggest a modern Linux distro. Free and better. Can't beat that!

I will say, however, that by 2011 64 bit machines will be far more widespread. And if you're on a 64 bit machine, Windows XP x64 is an absolutely terrible choice.
 
Noname Given said:
Twilight said:
Of course, why should I care what other people use for an OS - to each his own, and all that.

Having said that:

an XP user in 2011 would be using a 10 year old operating system, effectively (and in this sense only) the equivalent of using Windows 95 in 2005.


When I was a kid I remember dreaming that we'd have flying cars in the then so-impossible-to-imagine distant future of 2010.

I did not dream that we'd still be seeing Windows XP users.
Click to expand...

I will never understand why rational people believe that using an old OS that WORKS is such a bad thing. By that rational, UNIX should be dead and gone (the proto version was first developed at Bell labs back in 1969; with the first formal UNIX version online in 1971); and its still considered one of the most robust and stable OSes around. LINUX is essentially a redressed version of UNIX as well.

Do the world a favor and quit swallowing the MS hype that their constant 'newer' versions of the OVER-BLOATED Windows OS are such great things - they're not (and yes, I do make a living supporting MS OSes for the most part, and am thankful that Steve Balmer keeps realeasing crap OSes as it's job security; but again, realize that MS releases ONLY to fill their coffers; they could care less about actual innovation, or usability, and more on what technology they can license and control.)
Click to expand...

That's not the problem at all. If Microsoft intended to support XP forever, or at least released the source code, there's no reason for anyone to ever upgrade. But because Microsoft ends support, and both hardware and software vendors also stop supporting those older versions, it eventually becomes quite impractical to keep an old, unsupported Microsoft OS. Microsoft drops support and there is no one who can pick up the slack, fixing bugs, writing drivers, and so forth. The OS is just dead.

As you said, Microsoft has a revenue stream to maintain, and that's why they force upgrades (or at least try to.) If Windows 7 fails to take off I'll be interested to see what they do next. Two failed versions in a row is not going to be good for them.
 
Mr. B said:
Geez... Microsoft's corporate customers must really be beating them over the head on this.
Click to expand...

My company is one of them. The "company" standardized on XP and is not going to change anytime soon. With over 55,000 employees in 80 countries, they're basically able to tell Microspft what they want and they get it.

Q2UnME
 
Have you seen what corporate people do with XP? They install it on machines and then leave them to die.

It's not just big corporations. It's also smallish businesses that don't want to go through the trouble of upgrading or installing a new OS. I keep hearing about all these specialty apps for which MS is introducing virtual XP mode (instead of more robust virtualization), but I think a lot of places don't even have specialty apps; they are just lazy and XP works.

For those places that have specialty apps and intranets that run on XP, I don't see why MS didn't include the option for a real virtual machine running XP inside 7. That might give people some real peace of mind about compatibility.

You don't ever have to train anyone, even nominally. Everyone knows how the world's most boring OS works.

Does anyone know whether you have to install an additional security suite to protect XP mode? Is XP mode sandboxed?
 
urbandk said:
Have you seen what corporate people do with XP? They install it on machines and then leave them to die.
Click to expand...

Most of those computers do only one or two functions, day after day. Most are on internal servers. Why "up grade"?
 
urbandk said:
Have you seen what corporate people do with XP? They install it on machines and then leave them to die.

It's not just big corporations. It's also smallish businesses that don't want to go through the trouble of upgrading or installing a new OS. I keep hearing about all these specialty apps for which MS is introducing virtual XP mode (instead of more robust virtualization), but I think a lot of places don't even have specialty apps; they are just lazy and XP works.

For those places that have specialty apps and intranets that run on XP, I don't see why MS didn't include the option for a real virtual machine running XP inside 7. That might give people some real peace of mind about compatibility.

You don't ever have to train anyone, even nominally. Everyone knows how the world's most boring OS works.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure you have any kind of point here - for what reason do you think corporations SHOULD upgrade? Microsoft would have you believe you should because the new OS is well, new, and you yourself seem to share this view.

There are benefits to upgrading from XP to Vista or Windows 7, especially when coupled with Server 2008, but why do you feel these are convincing?

Corporations do not put XP on PCs and leave them to die, they put it on them and leave them for people do do productive work which results in a financial return. This is entirely what any OS is developed for, so an upgrade to something new and unfamiliar which might in the short term lead to a reduction in productivity needs serious justification.
 
Speaking as an individual user that has neither the money nor the inclination to buy a new computer just to support the bloated Vista/Win7 software, I hope they support XP indefinitely.
 
I didn't think I would say this, but... Even though I'm all for advancement and upgrading, a stripped version of Windows XP (about 150mb) suits me just fine.

Don't need no stinkin' services (well, most of them anyway). Don't need no stinkin' skins. Don't need no stinkin' multi-user environment and don't need no stinkin' new security system. The weakest link has always been the user and it will always be the user. Don't get me started on all the added bloat that's been added to windows. XP was bad, but Vista's humongous. And Windows 7 promises to be even worse. No, thank you. I just want to do whatever I do, and I want to do it well. All those so-called enhancements only impede the speed in which I can do my tasks.

That being said; there are more good things about Windows then bad ones; the basic underlying OS is just fine. But all those enhancements? I just don't see the need. Back in the day, each Windows version from NT4 to XP was a huge improvement on the previous one (if you discount the whole 95/98/ME debacle). There was an actual need to upgrade. Compare it to the browsers today -- each new version adds worthwhile abilities to the table. But Windows Vista, or Windows 7? Not much new there, in my eyes.

Now if they'd gone the other route with some of their decisions, like implementing a contextual filesystem (WinFS), using a microkernel with plugins instead of the current architecture, coming up with another way to end the DLL hell instead of the SideBySide environment, that kind of stuff... Things like that would be an actual improvement.

All that new Windows versions bring to the table, lately, is stuff that hardly anyone uses. No wonder companies are hesitant to upgrade; upgrading costs a lot of money you know, not only in licenses but the testing of internal applications, the courses for your people to be able to work with it, all those kind of things. You have to deliver these companies something worthwhile if you intend them to upgrade. So far, Windows has failed to deliver.

That means that you could see it coming -- Microsoft can't really cut off support for XP, not while there still are so many companies dependent on it. If they would, it would create a lot of bad will.
 
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