Windows XP to be retired in 2008

[LiberalFighter]

Source: BBC News

Microsoft is keeping to a plan to stop selling the operating system even though surveys show a lukewarm response to Windows Vista among consumers.

A poll by US market research firm Harris Interactive found that only 10% of those questioned were planning to upgrade to Vista in the near future.

All versions of XP, including those made for media centre or tablet PCs, are affected by the decision.

/snip/
However, a poll released in early April suggests that Vista has yet to win over significant numbers of potential customers.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6551429.stm

[robbyrob79]

1. This is like

Every other major upgrade Windows has made. People greeted Windows 2000 with a lukewarm response, even though it was far superior to Windows 98 and Windows 95 which were on the shelf at the time. Windows XP was probably the first OS from Microsoft that people really latched onto, and it does work really well. Vista, on the other hand isn't really anything significantly different, although in my experience it is pretty easy to use. I think the main problem a lot of people are going to have is that you're going to need a lot of computing horsepower to run it, so lots of people are going to upgrade and then think that it sucks because their computers are too slow and old to run it properly.

[MADem]

2. Why do they make OS's that use up all the 'horsepower' anyway?

It's like you need a whole huge hard drive just for the lousy OS.

[regnaD kciN]

33. Your history is a bit off...

Windows 2000 was never intended for the consumer market -- it was an upgrade to Windows NT 4 for businesses. The consumer version at the time was Windows Millenium Edition (or, as I described it, Windows "Everything Belongs To ME"), which went over so poorly that a number of people chose instead to go with Windows 2000 on their home systems instead.

And XP wasn't the first version of Windows to spur wide public demand -- or do you forget the craze during the first year of Windows 95?

[zonkers]

40. I really liked windows 98.

[paparush]

3. Microsoft - Upgrade to Vista or we will Kill this Dog

Lets build an OS that all but guarantees that millions of people and businesses will HAVE to go out and upgrade their underlying hardware. Everybody wins.





Except the consumer.

[apnu]

27. yeah, in my IT circle we call that 'forklifting'

all the workstations in my company are XP boxes. IN light of this, I'm going to order a bunch more and horde them for a while.

[ThomCat]

4. If we don't voluntarily shell out the money for an upgrade

they'll find a way to force us to upgrade. Microsoft will always find a way to milk more money out of their customers. x(

It'll be time to change to an alternative.

[tabasco]

5. I never had any problems with XP.

Now I have Vista and it's like Windows 95 nightmares all over again.

I will get away from Microshaft as soon as I can learn to use Linux or something.

Enough of their corporate greed!

[oscarmitre]

7. Lots of Linux distros around now

that are a doddle to use and they're coming out on almost a weekly basis. Check out DistroWatch. Dual boot is the way to go for a while at least.

[candice]

17. Vista is based on Tiger, Apple's current OS...wait for Leopard and jump ship

[candice]

22. Leopard is the next Apple OS after Tiger (current one)

...it will be out in the fall. There are "secret" features that Gates wasn't able to incorporate into Vista. The joke about Vista was the feature-set wouldn't be set until Tiger was out. Seems to be true, but then Microsoft is behind the curve. Don't you really want a Zune, it's so cooool. I want the brown one.

[hang a left]

6. I have used windows all of my computing life.

If I have to upgrade, I am really considering a mac. I am afraid though. Is it really hard to learn? Is it really superior product. I have heard people here say that it is. Anyone have words or advice for me? I would appreciate it.

[candice]

19. Mac is really easy to learn...and the OS is superior...

I run Windows XP on an Intel iMac for the few programs that I have that are Windows only and use the iMac for everything I really want to do. Windows is way more complex than the Apple OS. I hate it when I have to help friends who are not computer savvy get their Windows machines up and running. Just keeping up with all of the spyware, malware, viruses, etc. burns time. Now I don't allow my Windows side of the iMac to go online so I dropped paying the virus protection $$$.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

31. but the hardware SUCKS!

I lost track of how many times Apple tried and failed to repair my iBook, I think the only original part left is the screen and the screw that holds in the battery and it still doesn't work, it never did.

It was funny, one time I was at the apple retail store at south coast plaza and there had to be half a dozen of us in line at the service desk all with dead iBooks, we actually scared someone out of the store.

[B3Nut]

32. You can get free AV for Windows

http://free.grisoft.com AVG Free. Solid, fast, and stable...doesn't bog down like Norton or McCrappy. You should keep the Windows side up-to-date on its patches. Use Firefox for general Windows downloads and any surfing, and you'll be fine. I never could warm up to OS X, just something about it rubs me the wrong way. For whatever reason I always get the sensation that I'm having to strangle the mouse, even on a Core 2 Duo Mac or a dual G5 (we have those, a G4 tower, and flyswatter iMac in the advertising department where I work IT.) I keep trying to bring myself to like it, but it just doesn't happen. I loved OS8 and OS9...I could grab blocks of text out of just about anything and toss them on the desktop as clippings for later perusal or use...I miss that.

Todd in Cheesecurdistan

[Adelante]

38. Go into the DU Mac Users Group and read through the threads

So you get familiar with stuff. I'm only on a Mac for about a year now. No, it wasn't at all difficult and I do like OS X much better than Windows. It's hard to explain why exactly. It all just feels steadier somehow. I have had some hardware issues with Apple, which have since been worked out free of charge, but the OS itself is certainly superior to Windows. I'm not terribly tech minded and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend you switch if that's what you want.

[bemildred]

8. I use W98SE. My wife has an XP laptop.

I will never buy Vista, it will be Linux or a Mac if they try to force me.

[CatholicEdHead]

9. They better wait at least one more year

For computer turnover so more new machines come with Vista on it. They better keep XP support for quite a few more years.

[HockeyMom]

10. No support among Techies I know

My Windows XP crashed recently. I went to CompUSA to see if I could get the full version of XP. My upgrade version of XP would not work to fix it. I had to completely reinstall everything. The guy at the store told me they had just sold their last copy of XP two weeks ago, weren't getting anymore, and all they had now was Vista. He suggested calling around. He said he personally would not recommend Vista. I could not find any copies of XP.

My husband, who is a Programmer, also said not to get Vista. I called around and nobody had any more copies of XP. My husband had a copy of 98. I installed 98 and then used my upgrade version of XP. Worked fine. I also saved a lot of money this way too.

It looks like XP is in great demand already.

[CabalPowered]

15. NewEgg still has em

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2060350368+50001149&name=Microsoft

[candice]

20. Try online...Atomic Park did have some

[apnu]

30. new XP systems can be found at CDW too, look at CDW Part: 1034639

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1034639

[slampoet]

37. CompUSA really sucks. There are locations going out of business around me and yet....

....even with their "Going out of Business" sales Their prices and service are worse than the Best Buy across the street.

CompUSA sucks out loud so bad that since 1992 I had been keeping track of the questions i have asked of personnel and the answers i have received.

For the last 15 years i have not received a single 100% accurate answer from anyone who works at CompUSA. Some of these questions are technical but others are as simple as "Where is your bathroom?", "How much is this Computer Case?", "Is this in stock?", and "Can i return this if it isn't compatible on my system?"

I haven't received one accurate answer to any question i have asked.


You didn't get an accurate reason as to why they won't be having WinXP in stock.

The real answer should have been, "CompUSA is closing a lot of its locations and will be having all types of inventory pains as they consolidate stock, but even before these layoffs we never had never had the depth of training in tech nor have we retained any capable employees in this low pay job long enough to develop the institutional memory to be able to stock parts for anything but the latest tech. We've never been able to help people without selling them something new. Therefore we never stock anything for computers that might be even 3 years old."

I realize that people go to CompUSA because they might not have any other brick and mortar computer store in their area but the fact is you receive an equal or greater amount of support from a website store. From CompUSA that support even before sale is really ZERO.

[Psephos]

11. That headline is flat-out wrong

XP is not being "retired." It will continue to be available as a retail purchase. What's happening is that Microsoft will stop selling OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) licenses to companies that manufacture computers, such as HP, Dell, etc. In other words, new computers will come with Vista installed, instead of XP.

Robert Epstein, Microsoft's European spokesman on Windows licensing, said...withdrawing XP licenses (from OEMs) had no implications for long-term technical support for the product.

"This is purely about availability of brand new licenses for brand new machines," he said. "We'll continue to support XP for some considerable time."

[onehandle]

13. XP won't be on the shelves.

It'll be a special order at best.

The headline is not literally correct, but in a practical sense, it is.

They're forcing XP users into Vista.

[LiberalFighter]

16. Which is why reading the full text is imperative

[lpbk2713]

12. I may be way off base but the reasons I don't want to upgrade from XP Pro ....

is that there are several different versions (Home Basic and up, Office Basic etc., Multi-Media) and I don't want to have to pay for more than what I need but yet I want to have the OS that will do what I expect it to.

Plus, from what I hear there is a limit on how many times you can install it. Say if my mobo gets hit by lightning and I buy another one, Gates won't let me use the version of Vista I paid full price for to install it again.

And, XP Pro will work with a lot more older hardware and software than Vista will.

I think I'll just stick with XP Pro for as long as possible and then go open source. Piss on Gates and his gnomes.

[Warren Stupidity]

14. The install limit is 'soft'.

You might have call to get your re-activation completed. Your license is for one system and you can upgrade that system as often as you want.

That said, there is currently no compelling reason to upgrade to vista. Over time, as usual, with all new systems having vista installed, new applications will start to make use of vista only features. Eventually you won't be able to get new apps to run on your old system. By that time you will probably be in the market for a new system anyway.

[reprobate]

35. That was certainly NOT my experience.

Couple of years ago I had a hard drive fail so I bought a replacement and proceeded to install my copy of XP Pro on it. It told me to call the authorization center which I did. The operator there refused to give me a code for it. And this was the only install on this license since the original two years before. I couldn't understand their reasoning since I paid full retail for their POS OS and I certainly was NOT trying to pirate it.

Then the proverbial light bulb went off in my head. I added up the cost of the firewall software, security software, etc., all of which required that I pay them again each year. Then there was the hassle of scanning the machine for malware, spyware, etc. I could come to only one conclusion: the Gates crime family will get not another penny from me. Not only did I have enough of Windblows, my dog also was sick of hiding under the bed when I screamed at the machine because the system crashed again.

The next day I went to the local Apple store and bought a 20" iMac G5. Since the first startup this machine has been a delight. If you are reluctant to try a new system, afraid you'll have to learn the system like the pain it was to learn Microshaft's POS, don't worry. It's Operating System Ten, not windows. The system is so intuitive you'll be up, up and away in no time. Just believe what the guy at the Genius Bar said to me: "Forget everything you learned about windows. It doesn't apply to OS X."

Since that day I've replace my old Toshiba notebook with a G4 iBook. Another pleasure to work with. I've also bought my wife a Mac Mini for the kitchen. I mounted the Mini with velcro to the back of a 15" monitor, so all you see is the monitor, keyboard and mouse. Makes a beautiful installation on the kitchen desk. Gives me a chuckle when visitors first see it and try to peek under the desk. Their first question is "Where's the computer?" I turn the monitor around so they can see the Mini on the back. "You mean THAT'S the whole computer?". "Yep." says I. "Apple is tommorrow."

When my linksys wireless router failed recently I bought the new Airport extreme N Apple router to replace it. In my completely unbiased opinion, this is the best wireless router on the market today. Three ethernet ports plus wireless print server and wireless LAN hard drive server, both USB driven. The only negative I can see is the fact that it's not gigabit enabled. Oh, well.

I will admit there is one drawback to running Macs. Under Windows part of the hobby of cumputing was the constant need to upgrade something, spending money on some new gadget or graphic board, or something like that. With OS X all my peripherals worked off the bat with my iMac, so there went one outflow channel. Tho I did buy a seven port USB hub for it.

I'll probably buy a new iMac (or whatever has replaced it by that time) when Leopard comes out next winter. The only MS software I use now is Office, but since the PPC version won't work with Intel machines, I will NOT replace it with the new MS product. Particularly when NeoOffice does everything MS Office does, and it's FREE.

OS X. Try it. You'll like it. And it won't get stuck between your teeth.

[Warren Stupidity]

36. Gosh I've never had that problem.

Although I have only a limited sample of perhaps a half dozen rebuilds and or installs that required a phone contact, every time that happened the most difficult part was writing down the key correctly.

[rcdean]

18. Vista! Good God, no! VISTA BITES!

I just received my new Vista Thinkpad T60 last week. Can't tell you how HORRIBLE Vista is!

First of all it looks NOTHING LIKE any of the old Windows systems. The menus and toolbars across the top are GONE! In most cases you can't find them and you can't put them on the top bar even if you could. In many cases there's not even a freaking menu!

Internet Explorer quits constantly with a cryptic "Windows Explorer needs to Restart". All my tabs are gone when it restarts. Natch.

In Outlook (v. 2002), I must re-enter Passwords every time I restart it! For all my email accounts! Lovely.

My Retrospect won't work with it. Needed to update to v7.5 because nothing earlier is compatible with Vista. $50.

My Acrobat Reader won't work at all. The reader that came with the machine won't install. Even if I right-click the installer and say Open as Administrator, and even though I AM the administrator. Adobe's web site says a Vista compatible upgrade is soooooon to be forthcoming. This means I can't read any of the Retrospect install and user's guides for the new product I just downloaded!!!

I have been a techie/software developer for 30 years now. Not since the first versions of DOS have I gone through such tortures of the damned.

It's so bad that I've begun keeping a diary which I hope to publish somewhere. Problem is I literally have to post to it nearly every time I do anything involving the Op Sys.

I'm afraid that the Balmer reign of M$ has lead it into gross negligence. It's always been a bully of sorts. But at least its products have been reasonably functional, if arcane.

Vista is NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME. Imo, If you buy a new machine, make sure it has trusty, rusty Windows XP on it.

[B3Nut]

28. Adobe wouldn't install? I've got it on 3 Vista machines

version 8 installed on all without incident. I have yet to have IE crash. I restored the menubars to Explorer windows, it wasn't difficult. Quite a few things are in different spots, and there are new things to get used to, but I think it's an improvement over XP. We're testing Vista in our shop and my boss and I adopted it as our home OS to gain familiarity with it. Now he's got 2 machines running it (one being a home-theater PC he built) and I've got a desktop I built and an HP laptop running it. We're quite happy with it...

Todd in Cheesecurdistan

[ananda]

21. I'll stick with my Mac, thank you.

nt

[sugapablo]

23. Indeed...

I have a MacBook and a Mandrake server. I've been Windows free for years and have been able to do my work with Linux and Mac just fine (Web Applications Developer).

Linux is cheap and works great, but it isn't "easy". Macs are easy, but expensive, but worth every penny if you can afford it.

[The Sushi Bandit]

24. I cant use my Quickbooks with Vista

[madrchsod]

25. big run on windows xp...

the counterfeiters will be running 24/7 to keep up with the demand

[regnaD kciN]

34. You mean they aren't already...?

Favorite Quote of the Week:

Microsoft's activation/validation is doing for piracy what the US occupation of Iraq is doing for terrorism. -- "Charlie" on AVSim.net

:evilgrin:

[Ignacio Upton]

26. So how long before they stop offering tech support for it?

They stopped supporting Windows 98 only five years after it came out. If they keep up with that shit, they should at least release their older source codes.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

29. My gf was shopping for a new laptop on the weekend,

Finding one with XP and not Vista was priority number one, it is funny she got about $300 off on the HP machine she wanted because it didn't come with Vista!

The salesman aknowledged that the store had sold less than 10 retail copies of Vista.

[CRF450]

39. My sister bought a laptop with Vista home premium

She says the only problems she's having is some of her older programs arent working, but everything else about it works great, no stability problems, and its way way faster than her old computer (which had an old P2 400mhz cpu, 90 something mb of ram, a 13 gig hardrive, and XP) From what I read about it, it seems to be a better launch than when XP first hit the shelves. Theirs some fixes here and their that should be dealt with, and it will soon be a great OS like xp is currently. My brother on the other hand, has a 6 year old dell with ME, I dont know why he still has it but it gives him problems on a daily bases! I dont see how he can stand having it! Me, I would gladly use it as a shooting target for my paintball gun!

Dont know about yaw, but I'm sticking to windows since I'm more familiar with the OS's. And I am considering an upgrade to Vista when I build another gaming system later this year. Crysis has my name on it when it hits the shelves, and so will Flight Simulator X when they release the DX10 patch.

[Occulus]

41. She didn't need Vista. She needed a hardware upgrade.

"had an old P2 400mhz cpu, 90 something mb of ram, a 13 gig hardrive, and XP"

Wow.

[CRF450]

43. Not possible

It was becuase of the case design. Cant fit a new mother board in it. She's satisfied with her purchace and thats what counts.

[Not a robought]

42. think I'm done with Windows for now

I'm familiar with a variety of OS's and have both Mac and XP at home, they play nice together when they need to. However should the XP laptop fry one day, it's unlikely I will be replacing it with a machine running Vista and think I'll bow out for now and won't reconsider unless I see a fundamental shift in whatever Microsoft's next approach on an OS will be. As owner of 6 PC based computers over time since Windows 3.11, OS X now is suiting me just fine on the intel Mac and I'm running XP programs on it that I still need to.

Viruses aside, XP has proven stable in industrial applications running highly specialized gear. Doubt anyone's that motivated to go through another round of R&D who don't happen to be a Dell, HP or other PC mass marketer.

Also why are dual processors needed on home computers? What's all the crap running in the background? What did they do with digital rights management that prevents me as a consumer from doing? How much relic code/sloppy new code is in there that made Vista such bloatware?

Then they looked at OS X and someone at Microsoft said, what's missing on our pig? Ah, lipstick.