Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Microsoft Software

The End is Nigh for XP 893

SlinkySausage writes "Computer makers have been told they'll no longer be able to get Windows XP OEM by the end of this year, despite strong ongoing demand for the OS. Analysts and computer makers are wondering if the move is premature given Vista's ongoing performance and compatibility issues. Dell recently said it would reintroduce XP on a range of machines due to customer demand but Microsoft will only allow this until the end of the year."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

The End is Nigh for XP

Comments Filter:
  • by Reverse Gear ( 891207 ) * on Thursday April 12, 2007 @02:00AM (#18698799) Homepage
    Is it just me or does this move from Microsoft seem rather desperate?
    Was Microsofts older versions of Windows phased out this fast too?
    I guess the people at Microsoft have a really hard time accepting that many people (and companies!) have gotten comfortable with XP and does not want to get something different. Maybe Microsoft have been taking to long to come with a "new OS" this time?

    I think this will definitely be a good thing for those who wish more people would use Linux on the desktop and possible also laptop market. People like Mark Shuttleworth and his fanboys can start cheering already.
    I myself am no longer so certain that getting everyone to use Linux is what is best for Linux as a whole right now.
    My main reason for thinking this is seeing how little Ubuntu contributes to the rest of the "open-source community".
    Maybe I am wrong, in that case I would love to hear why.

    I gladly leave the picking up of unsatisfied Windows users to other flavors of Linux, I myself prefer to stick with Gentoo and wish that all the developers at Gentoo would realize that Gentoo just isn't and is not supposed to become an "click and go" OS.

    Others who will cheer at this news will probably be those trying to earn some money by selling cracked software, only this time people are not going to come to them to get the newest software but will want the "good old XP". I don't think they care much though, as long as they can make money.
    Maybe there will even become a real market for buying and selling those XP-licenses that people have lying around?
    • by thePsychologist ( 1062886 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @02:14AM (#18698897) Journal

      My main reason for thinking this is seeing how little Ubuntu contributes to the rest of the "open-source community".


      I don't know how much Ubuntu developers/official people contribute to the community directly (whatever that means), but because there are thousands of people moving to Linux because Ubuntu exists (Ubuntu is what got me to switch), there is a large increase of patches (most software on Ubuntu isn't Ubuntu exclusive), guides + FAQs + community help (which makes Linux and more user-friendly), bug reports, and a greater exposure to Linux in general. How is that a little contribution to the community?
      • by kestasjk ( 933987 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @03:32AM (#18699293) Homepage
        If you want to see the ubuntu community's (best?) contribution just head over to irc.freenode.net #ubuntu; people are always willing to help with the most common, mundane questions you can think of. I don't know why people are so keen to spoon-feed people FAQ responses, but spoon-feed they do, and I think it's vital for beginners (though for more experienced people it does mean the non-trivial questions are drowned out).
      • by adrianbaugh ( 696007 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @04:00AM (#18699423) Homepage Journal
        Not forgetting the things that were developed specifically for / by ubuntu and are now available to the wider linux community (eg upstart).
        That's the great thing about linux though, there's room for user friendly distributions like [k|x]ubuntu as well as distributions aimed at people who are allergic to sunlight, like gentoo. (I've used both distributions, liked both very much, and have stuck with one. No, I'm not saying which...)
      • by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @07:13AM (#18700381) Homepage
        Bill Gates is software's Dr. Death. It doesn't matter what the customer wants; Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, wants more money, and will drag everyone through his neurosis.

        Microsoft's business model is to do what hardware manufacturers want. Hardware manufacturers want operating systems that can't run on old computers, so customers will be forced to buy new computers. Sometimes it has seemed to me that Microsoft is not really primarily a software company, but primarily an abuse company that accomplishes abuse through software.

        Windows XP was not really stable until Service Pack 2 was released. Before that, Windows XP was full of grief for administrators. Service Pack 2 contained something like 330 documented fixes, if I remember correctly, and I verified that there were fixes that were not documented. Now Microsoft wants people to go through that again??? With a Service Pack 0 release?

        Someone said that Microsoft's motto is "The whole world is our beta test site." The entire reason people wanted to migrate away from Windows 98 is that it has an unstable file system, and artificial limits to system resources. Otherwise, many companies would have wanted to stay with their old systems, because employees often run a very limited set of software packages.

        Managers in a company that has a virtual monopoly, like Microsoft, may think that the way to make more money is never to release a good product, so that customers will always want more.

        Eventually, I think, more and more companies and universities and governments will decide they don't like expensive, stupid, forced upgrade cycles, and will migrate to a managed distribution of Linux like Ubuntu.

        The problem with Linux and BSD has always been that developers don't like to document what they have developed. Sometimes user-friendly GUIs and documentation can be 80% of the work, and that work isn't done very well by people who "just want to program".

        Linux distributions need a manager like Mark Shuttleworth [markshuttleworth.com] of Ubuntu. Developers don't like to manage their own work, as Mark said he has discovered. The Linux kernel has a manager, Linus Torvalds, and the rest of Linux needs a manager, also.

        I have several times offered to help document open source software, but my offer has always been refused. Apparently there is a strong attachment to doing things the old way. Apparently there is a feeling that someone who writes the documentation will get too much credit, even though I did not expect to have my name on what I wrote.

        Changing to any new operating system tends to be expensive because of the re-training required. Good top management could help design methods of easing that transition by coordinating the details that tend to be forgotten when no one is really in charge.
    • by rolfwind ( 528248 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @02:36AM (#18698981)

      Was Microsofts older versions of Windows phased out this fast too?


      In the past, when a new version of Windows came out, there was no real need to phase out the old Windows - people wanted the newest version when they bought a new PC.

      I guess this is a rather new situation for Microsoft (at least in the OS business.)

      Now, it wouldn't seem that it should matter much to MS as long as someone pays the license, but I guess in the long run it could cost them money, not just from prolonged support, but people who already have a version of XP at home could start looking for an OS-less PC when they upgrade and just install what they have since drivers would undoubtedly be available for that hardware and not just Vista/nextGreatestOS.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by kestasjk ( 933987 )
        Agreed; XP is going to be the main OS that software is written for for at least two years (I'm guessing three, but perhaps four), and will be very well supported for at least five years (I'm guessing 7-10). It was only in around 2004-2005 that you started to see consumer software being written exclusively for NT 5 (2k, XP, 2k3) and not 98.

        Comparison with Win98 isn't even that valid, because with Win98 there were more reasons to upgrade than there are now. Win98's instability and lack of security made an
        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Spacejock ( 727523 )
          What happens if MS starts refusing WPA requests on XP? "Sorry, that software is no longer supported. Please install Vista and call back." Or if they send through a compulsory update which starts popping up more and more aggressive reminders to 'upgrade' to Vista, telling us XP has 10, 9, 8 ... days left until EOL?

          I'm perfectly happy on XP, but I'm much more nervous about the future than I was when I kept using Win 98 for the first two or three years after XP came out. I'm not anti-Vista, I just see no nee
      • by jrumney ( 197329 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @04:37AM (#18699595)

        I guess this is a rather new situation for Microsoft (at least in the OS business.)

        The same happened with ME, I think - they'd reached the end of what they could do with the Windows 95 codebase, and they recognized that and moved to XP "Home" for the next consumer release. As an upgrade from Windows 2000, XP wasn't any better than Vista from XP, so it was probably only XP Home that saved them from this last time around.

        If they'd delivered the Vista they were busy telling everyone about 5 years ago, they would have had some significant changes to upgrade to, but almost everything of note was dropped and they've gone and released a confusing array of different versions of Vista, all crippled in different ways. Is it any wonder that noone wants it?

      • by mobby_6kl ( 668092 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @05:27AM (#18699829)
        >In the past, when a new version of Windows came out, there was no real need to phase out the old Windows - people wanted the newest version when they bought a new PC.

        That's just revisionist bullshit, IMO. When XP came out, everybody was bitching about how it was a lamed-down 2000, with ugly interface, stupid features, etc., and claimed that they wouldn't use it until at least 2 service packs came out. Now everybody likes (as much as it's possible) XP and complain about Vista in exactly the same manner.
        • by sumdumass ( 711423 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @08:04AM (#18700611) Journal
          That is only true if you were going from 2000 to XP. The vast majority of users were going from 98/ME to XP and after the disaster of ME, they welcomed it.

          But there was something else going during these switches that wasn't present with Vista, The hardware market had made so many advances that some popular software needed the increase power to run on so people were happy to buy new computers to get the extra performance. Right now, they are just replacing them or getting new ones. This incentive isn't there and from the way it looks, it would be a sideways if not downwards move if someone upgraded to new hardware with Vista pre-installed.
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          "That's just revisionist bullshit, IMO."

          I agree. But I disagree with your reasons.

          "When XP came out, everybody was bitching about how it was a lamed-down 2000, with ugly interface, stupid features, etc., and claimed that they wouldn't use it until at least 2 service packs came out."

          Umm...XP IS a lamed down 2000, it does still have an ugly interface (people had to get *used* to the colors, they didn't ooh and ahh over them or find them decent to begin with), and I think you confuse stupid features with stup
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by init100 ( 915886 )

        That attitude is precisely why Linux is having so much trouble gaining against Windows. For every weenie who likes to build the kernel five times a day, there are thousands of customers who just want the damn thing to work without having to mess with it.

        Then they can choose another distro. There are good "click-n-go" Linux distros that the newcomers can use, every distro shouldn't be forced to cater to the point-and-click people if the don't want to.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by ocbwilg ( 259828 )
      Is it just me or does this move from Microsoft seem rather desperate? Was Microsofts older versions of Windows phased out this fast too? I guess the people at Microsoft have a really hard time accepting that many people (and companies!) have gotten comfortable with XP and does not want to get something different. Maybe Microsoft have been taking to long to come with a "new OS" this time?

      Vista went gold and was available in November of 2006. By the end of 2007 it will have been out over a year. I can't
  • It's a shame (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 12, 2007 @02:00AM (#18698807)
    Despite the many hours of frustration it's caused me, it remains the best OS they've made so far.
    • Re:It's a shame (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Grinin ( 1050028 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @03:09AM (#18699191) Homepage
      I would say the best OS MS has ever put together has been Windows 2000, especially with Service Pack 4. But out of the box, I feel that 2000 was the fastest (Not really. Windows 98 SE was the fastest, given new hardware) and most secure out of the box. I can't stand Windows Vista, and neither can common users. More and more of my clients are calling me saying "you were right..." and "I should have listened to you" but of course... curiosity killed the cat. Its unfortunate that Microsoft is allowed to get away with such things like this. They are basically forcing Vista down the throats of the entire market with no remorse. I think this latest effort is Microsoft trying to make sure that Linux will not harm their market share. I am personally losing faith in the Linux community in their attempts to take on Vista. Its a true tragedy.

      Somebody help us
  • Foot? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chmcginn ( 201645 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @02:01AM (#18698819) Journal
    Check.

    Gun?

    Check.

    I think you can figure out the rest.

    Seriously... This is a good move on Microsoft's part only if they enjoy annoying their customers.

    Wait, why did I bother putting that 'only if' in there?

    • Re:Foot? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nmb3000 ( 741169 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @02:15AM (#18698901) Journal
      This is a good move on Microsoft's part only if they enjoy annoying their customers.

      I think this is a great description of the situation. [ctrlaltdel-online.com].

      The thing is, I imagine that only the Windows "power users" really care and/or know the reasons behind wanting to stick with XP (at least until a service pack or two is released for Vista). Most average users just see Vista as the new Windows. Pretty much everything they do--Office, web browsing, email, Solitaire--still works and it's shiny and bouncy and see-through...wow! Most probably won't even notice a slowdown because they get Vista with new hardware and it offsets the new performance requirements.

      Microsoft is probably just trying to give people they see as just not liking change a push to move to the new OS. I'm not too concerned because I've got a couple XP Pro licenses hanging around, a few OEMs and one from MSDNAA, so I'll "upgrade" when I'm good and ready.
  • Prediction (Score:5, Interesting)

    by edwardpickman ( 965122 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @02:02AM (#18698827)
    The last copies are going to be a hot commodity next year. I definately plan to set a couple aside before then. Hello Ebay!
    • Re:Prediction (Score:5, Insightful)

      by zaydana ( 729943 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @02:17AM (#18698909)

      Don't forget that these are only the OEM copies which are going to be phased out by the end of the year. You can't just go out and buy 4 or 5 OEM copies of windows, and its (as far as I know) illegal to sell them on eBay, as you aren't selling them with hardware.

      I think people that want to do the right thing would probably but a retail version anyhow, and everyone else will just pirate it. The biggest demand is going to come from people building their own computers, and by that time I think even that group will have moved onto Vista. They are mostly gamers, and gamers sort of are tied to Vista whether they like it or not...

      • Re:Prediction (Score:5, Interesting)

        by nametaken ( 610866 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @02:53AM (#18699079)
        I talked to an MS rep a year or so ago who said the trick with that is you can sell OEM copies if you sell them with a critical hardware component. Since windows technically requires a mouse (per their hw req lists), people just bundle it with a $1 mouse and sell the OEM copy of Windows for much less than the retail copies. It was a just a loophole, and they may have worked it out since then, but it was legal at the time.

        What I'm wondering is if the downgrade rights you get with Vista will still apply, and if you'll be able to buy media kits for XP after all this.
  • by shaitand ( 626655 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @02:03AM (#18698831) Journal
    Force once Microsoft is trying to do the right thing.
  • Downfall (Score:4, Informative)

    by cyberbob2351 ( 1075435 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @02:04AM (#18698839) Homepage
    It's funny, that even the compusa and bestbuy salespersons are telling me that I should latch onto any secondhand xp copies I can get my hands on simply because Vista is causing them and their customers nothing but headaches.

    Is it just me, or is Microsoft shooting themselves in the foot by pushing this new, and somewhat unpopular product into the marketplace?
    • Re:Downfall (Score:4, Funny)

      by gbobeck ( 926553 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @03:47AM (#18699379) Homepage Journal

      Is it just me, or is Microsoft shooting themselves in the foot by pushing this new, and somewhat unpopular product into the marketplace?

      Do you remember Windows ME? It seems like history is repeating itself again.

      Let me use an analogy... You can take a Honda Civic and with very liberal applications of accessories bolt on enough stuff to make it riced out enough so that it (almost) appears to be a Porche. Of course, it still isn't a Porche, just a Honda with a bunch of bolted on toys... Microsoft seems to have a problem understanding this, and this is one reason why I think they keep on making the same OS mistakes.
  • by krakass ( 935403 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @02:07AM (#18698857)
    They're going to take XP off the market, then a couple months later after they get tired of everyone bitching about Vista, they'll reintroduce it as Windows Classic. Either that or as XP SE.
  • by wattsup ( 807308 ) * on Thursday April 12, 2007 @02:20AM (#18698917)
    My company builds custom video display systems for TV news, weather, and digital signage. I've always been running a Microsoft shop because we could deploy new designs the fastest. We don't need eye candy, just a stable and compatible OS that we can build on.

    Our favorite used to be Windows 2000 Pro, because it didn't spend a lot of time getting in our way of booting up and running automated applications.

    Then, Microsoft pulled Windows 2000 last year. So we moved to XP Pro..after some pain in getting rid of most of the "were Microsoft, and we are going to think for you" eye candy and automated autoconfig BS, we again had a stable OS to build on, or so we thought.

    But having been burned, we started one of our new digital signage projects last year based on Slackware Linux...and we are quite happy with it. Yes it took longer, but we don't have to worry about MS pulling the rug out from under us. We don't have to worry about losing our development investment with Linux.

    Apple's Steve jobs pulled a similar stupid stunt when he pulled the plug on the Power PC and all the development around it. We had built products around that too, but after having our products rendered useless by Apple's decision, (not once but twice, remember Nubus?) we'll never ever develop for Apple ever again.

    What MS doesn't get about companies like mine is that there is no way we'd ever build a dedicated box or appliance application on Vista. The premise is a joke. If MS had any sense left, they'd keep XP around so that the OEM market had something to work with that wasn't just a collection of glorified myopic and incompatible eye candy.

  • by prandal ( 87280 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @02:28AM (#18698959)
    This makes little sense considering when product support for XP ends:

    Mainstream product support for XP ends on April 14th, 2009, with extended support (security patches only) until April 8th, 2014.

    That's actually better than Windows 2000's support: 13 years of security updates as against 10 years for Win 2000 (whose extended support ends on July 13th, 2010).

    http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/ [microsoft.com]
  • by Somnus ( 46089 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @02:28AM (#18698961)
    Dell, having had a long relationship with Microsoft, knew that Microsoft would try to shove Vista down their throats -- ready or not. Combined with Apple's recent success, I wonder if this prompted their foray into consumer Linux.
  • Damn (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 12, 2007 @02:57AM (#18699107)
    Well this is something I was regretting.
    I have been a long time user of Windows (since the 3.1 days) and have tried every OS they released (except for ME) since then.
    I must say I liked Win 98SE a lot. And then I discovered Win2k. But to me Xp was the amalgamation of both.
    It runs smoothly and doing what I do on the PC (web browsing, Winamp listening, Battlefield 2 (and other games) and VLC movie watching) it works perfectly. Nearly 100% of the time without an issue.
    I have tried Ubuntu (and I did actually like it a lot) and also FreeBSD back in the day (was impossible for a high school teenager with other things on my mind to try to comprehend it).
    I am currently a help desk technician. I help people (regular Joes) with their problems. Problems with printing or email archiving etc.
    I must say XP is very easy to navigate and do things from simple commands to powerful policy lock downs.

    Now I did experiment with Vista (No I didn't buy it and I wasn't one of the beta testers) and the first thing I encountered was my dislike for it.
    Microsoft has changed the way that their OS looks (well minor/major improvements are good but....) to the point of making the functionality of it severely hindered.
    So I installed Vista Ultimate on my machine. The very first thing I noticed was that navigating my folders was quite a lot more difficult than in XP (or any other MS OS. Why I ask?? I mean its not like navigating folders is something that people don't regularly want to do!!). Now with the default interface I found it almost impossible (it literally took me an hours worth of forum reading etc.) to work out how to turn on hidden files and how to get the familiar File, Edit, View menu up the top of explorer (WTF? Removing that as a Window's default isn't an improvement!!).

    Eventually the company I work for (a government health provider) will go over to Vista. This will make help desk support and general troubleshooting a problem. Instead of being able to say (over the phone) "Click Start and then My Computer. Click on File and then Open and then browse to D drive and select the template folder there" I will now have to say something like "Now click the colourful icon in the bottom left corner. Go to Computer then click the icon of a little man running. Now click the brown box that looks like a little house. Now type in "D" and then hit enter. Now select the little flashing house icon again and then type in "Templates". Now eventually you should see a listing of flashing grey and black text on a transparent background. Click the third option which should read "Show in Explorer""!!
    Why did they change the appearance of a perfectly viable and working, efficient interface (XP I am refering to here) and replace it with colourful meaningless icons and pictures.

    My opinion if Vista is that I will never use it again. I will not be buying it. If I am forced to use it (which is what the article seems to allude to. That MS will eventually (and quickly I might add) drop their support for XP and push everyone to Vista) I will give up using MS products and move to Linux to get the things done I want to get done (I have used Firefox for a long time and i know of the XMMS(??) player for music. I like what WINE and Cedega are doing with games).

    XP is the last MS operating system I think I will use. By dropping support for it so quickly (granted this is just Dell not supporting it anymore but I do hope that Microsoft keeps up their support for many years to come as they did with 98 and 2000) they are forcing me, a loyal paying customer of all of their OS range (not inclusing ME. God... WhY?!@) and a supporter of their environment through my work for many years as a help desk technician, to be forced to use an alternative OS. I'm not a big fan of Macs just as I am not a big fan of Linux yet. For one reason, theres not really many native, fun gaming environments (like the BF franchise or SWAT/Rainbow Six tactical shooters) available. Also the things I do like and am grateful for within a Windows OS (m
    • How can you be a healthcare provider AND be using Windows XP? The EULA says that you allow Microsoft and it's partners access to the data on your computer but you must also protect the privacy of the patients. These are mutually exclusive because there is no requirement in the EULA which states Microsoft must tell you what, when, or how it is accessing your data. IMO.

      LoB
  • by jkrise ( 535370 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @03:31AM (#18699289) Journal
    In 12 months time, the only XP you can get will be pirated copies.
    That means if you want to stick to Windows on your new PC, you will ned to invest in Vista.... at a steep increase in hardware, software cost and maintenance cost (driver issues, bug fixes etc)

    The Home segment will need connectivity to lots of 2-yr old peripherals... and they will be pissed that neither Vista supports their peripherals, NOR the hardware vendor is keen to write certified drivers for Vista.... this will push hardware makers to go the way of open source drivers, and supporting Linux. Microsoft will be too much of a moving target since old drivers and hacks will no longer work with Vista. Result: Hardware and peripheral makers switch to Linux, and take home users with them.

    The 'build-your-own' segment of PC makers will suffer heavily, since Vista seems specifically designed to discourage this market, and promote large OEMs like Dell and HP. The stability of Vista on custom-built PCs seems much degraded than big-brand PCs of inferior specs.

    Result: Build-your-own PC makers move to Linux, and start adding value to their offerings instead of just loading OEM Vista.

    When it comes to corporate PCs, there are basically two categories:
    1. Those who have Corporate licenses for a fixed no. of desktops will stick to XP or 2000 or even NT 4.0.... (my nephew in Bangalore is migrating server farms of Shell from NT4 to Win2K... he's having fun managing those mailboxes and migration to Active Directory!). Result: Vista on the corporate desktop will have to wait a loooong time for big corporates with site licenses.

    2. Corporates without site licenses will be faced with a choice: Either buy new PCs with Vista, forking out large sums for jumbo hardware and bloated software...
    OR
    Migrate the desktop to Linux.

    Corporate sysadmins have been notoriously lazy for a decade and more... (I know, I was one until recently). Sysadmin usually meant applying patches and Service Packs, blindly installing the latest OSes from MS, firewalls and IDS etc. Until now, sysadmin seldom got involved in IT planning, Standardising on formats, protocols, identity management, entitlement, provisioning etc.

    With Vista, the price for this laziness is being increased steeply - the Vista desktop PC is going to be twice as epensive as the XP equivlent, and mgmnt is going to frown at incompetent sysadmins who never planned for migrating away from Windows and Office lock-ins. Even if the desktop gets Vista by default from the OEM, the servers and apps are still going to be on old versions of Windows or Linux servers for a long time to come. Maintaining support requests from new Vista users is going to be a huge new headache for lethargic sysadmins. Result: New hardware gets Vista; old hardware remains on existing Windows versions.

    The few sysadmins who can see what's coming are alredy planning to do away with Desktop apps and standardise on Web apps that work with non-IE browsers on non-Windows OSes AS WELL AS existing Windows boxes with IE. This is what we're doing at our firm - except for some CAD software and call-centre software, all other desktops are shifting to web-based apps in this year. What if the CAD appln does not run on Vista? What if IBM doesn't release a Vista-compatible client by this year? We don't have control over those... but the next year should be interesting. Vista appears to be an attempt to arm-twist the entire spectrum of the IT ecosystem into the Microsoft-way. And that is why it is doomed to fail spectacularly.

    Unlike previous versions, Vista will mean changing EVERY aspect of current IT functioning. Which is why it is a definite victory for Linux and Free Software, because at last, it will be more easier on the Desktop than adaoting to Vista.
  • Push to Vista (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @04:25AM (#18699531) Homepage Journal
    Of course MS is pulling XP. Anyone surprised? They need Vista to be a success, even a moderate one. They can't allow Vista to fail like ME did.
    While they still dominate the market, it's not an unchallenged dominance anymore. A failure the size of Vista would mean considerable market share gains for Linux, OSX and maybe even other/new competitors over the next 3-5 years while they struggle to get a new windos out. By the time they're ready to release it, the market could've moved elsewhere.

    So they're going to force Vista on us, figuring that like all windos versions prior, once we have no other choice, we'll accept it and consider all its shortcomings and problems as a "that's just how computers are" thing.
  • by DynaSoar ( 714234 ) * on Thursday April 12, 2007 @05:38AM (#18699899) Journal
    When MS stops supporting it, I'll stop getting all these insistent messages to download the latest security fixes which aren't, and can finally have a stable platform I can start to understand. This is a good thing.

    XP will not go away. It will continue to exist on the machines of everyone who keeps it and CD ROMS that people don't throw away. Hell, 95 and 98 haven't gone away. I still have them on a couple old machines because some things I use insist on them. By now I can fix anything that might go wrong with them. Same will go for XP.
  • by DoctorDyna ( 828525 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @06:50AM (#18700287)
    What everybody seems to have forgotten is Microsoft's licensing policy. Sure, they won't be stamping any new XP discs after a while, but all those fancy new Vista licenses slapped onto new PC's can also be used as a license for any other older OS. At the company I work at, all the new machines we order have XP license stickers on them, however most machines get Windows 2000 installed. So, all you have to do is dupe a bunch of the XP cd's, since having copies of the cd doesn't really constitute piracy, so long as you have a legitimate sticker on the PC, you're good.
  • by Manuka ( 4415 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @09:06AM (#18701071) Homepage
    I work for a non-profit, and we discovered last week that Microsoft's Charity OpenLicense program is no longer available for Windows XP or Office 2003. If we want those, we have to pay full price instead of the discounted Charity OL price (which is about 1/4 of the full price). In this particular case, we were attempting to buy a license to use with Parallels on one of our MacBooks, so that our web nerds could test their work on Windows.

    What really pisses me off about them dropping the COL program on XP is that the non-profits are generally the ones that can least afford the hardware upgrades to make their existing clients play nice on Vista. On the other hand, it's still cheaper to buy XP even at full price.

  • by mtjo ( 1080513 ) on Thursday April 12, 2007 @09:08AM (#18701101)
    I work in the hearing healthcare business, specifically audiometrics and otoneurology. Our manufacturers lifecycle on software versions is rather extended. A couple were still DOS based in 2001. Currently, everything is spec'd for XP Pro SP2 and I don't expect this to change for at least another year or so. Most computerized medical diagnostic systems are approved by the FDA/UL/CE on a particular make and model and the manufacturer supplies the system with OEM XP. On others, the clients usually supply their own system. This is where we are having problems. Unless the clients special order systems with XP, it will not run the software. Go to Dell or the HP sites and customize a system. XP Pro is not a choice now. Our only resort may be to purchase systems with Vista, reformat, and install XP. This is going to add needless additional costs for the client.

It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.

Working...