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Win XP past Apr 2014... (was: Will XP be supported until 2019?)


steveothehighlander

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pfff

after you see that win 98 still use TO-DAY

who ever thinks after 2014 XP will "die" is complete id1ot or simply works for M$ to spread paranoia

the only problem with XP that I see are drivers, as manufacturers will stop making them

and unfortunately Hardware will be be harder to find of that era

(I can't even find any Geforce or Ati GPU's in any stores, only via re-sellers on inet)

Edited by vinifera
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I own 16 computers and all but one run XP. One, 12 years old, runs Win-8, and runs it dang well too.

I'm a moderator on a Windows 8 forum, but I'll never run it as my everyday OS.

Maybe Andromeda43 wanted to type "Windows-98" and the "9" was missed?

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Windows XP is the first MS OS which needs to be activated. If MS just switches off the activation server, no new XP installations are possible, unless you somehow pull the check, which is against the law.

If you have an XP license, which shows no expiration date, and if MS switches off the activation server, does that mean you have the right to do whatever needed to keep it running?

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Windows XP is the first MS OS which needs to be activated. If MS just switches off the activation server, no new XP installations are possible, unless you somehow pull the check, which is against the law.

If you have an XP license, which shows no expiration date, and if MS switches off the activation server, does that mean you have the right to do whatever needed to keep it running?

This is debatable.

The essence of the EULA (provided that the EULA actually represents a legally binding contract between you and MS, which in itself is highly debatable) grants you a lifetime right to use that OS, subject to a number of limitations.

In the EULA the part related to activation should be:

* Mandatory Activation. The license rights granted under this

EULA are limited to the first thirty (30) days after

you first install the Product unless you supply

information required to activate your licensed copy in

the manner described during the setup sequence of the

Product. You can activate the Product through the use

of the Internet or telephone; toll charges may apply.

You may also need to reactivate the Product if you modify

your computer hardware or alter the Product. There are

technological measures in this Product that are designed

to prevent unlicensed or illegal use of the Product.

You agree that we may use those measures.

So, you install the (regularly bought) software,go to install it and - according to the EULA - you actually "supply" to the good MS guys the "information required" AND you do that "in the manner described during the setup sequence of the Product", but they don' t activate the license anymore.

Guess who is not fulfilling the obligations in the contract? :unsure:

jaclaz

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I'm an IT professional and I don't feel Windows XP is the past. Sure, it might be old, but doesn't it still work? Honestly, what does Windows 7 do that Windows XP can't do for a regular user? That's how I really look at a system. Does it do what is needed? If so, why bother changing it? If you love the eyecandy that Windows 7 provides, then by all means, go upgrade ASAP. But if you're looking for productivity, what's wrong with WinXP?

One thing that win7 definitely does better is file operations. I can't count how many times I had to restart a copy/move operation because a single file had an access problem.

Another thing is that winXP's scheduler isn't optimized for more than 2 CPU (cores), from what I remember. Similarly to how win7's scheduler isn't optimized for AMD's dual package design. While win8 got a proper fix, win7 got only a half-hearted one, and winXP got none at all - so even if winXP is "faster" because of low requirements, win7/8 will be able to balance it out due to better hardware optimization.

I myself have used winXP for a long time and liked it, and for older hardware, it's still a good option (that, or linux). On any system with more than two cores however, you're better off with a more modern OS. Win7 is just as stable as winXP and the driver situation is as good, even for older hardware.

The discontinuation of security patches support for winXP probably won't kill it, lack of hardware support though, will. It had a good long life and starting to phase it out is not a bad thing.

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XP is and will remain for me the best computing eXPerience I had. Those Microsoft clowns still haven't got rid of forced auto sorting in Explorer in Windows releases post XP. :realmad: They basically gang-raped the Shell in NT6. Plus XP does not gradually fill up your C drive like Windows 7/Vista do thanks to Component Based Servicing. :thumbdown And don't even get me started on features removed...I will strangle those MS developers if I lay my hands on them. :angrym: Windows 8 is an outright scam that deserves a class action lawsuit for exchanging system features.

Edited by xpclient
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One thing that win7 definitely does better is file operations. I can't count how many times I had to restart a copy/move operation because a single file had an access problem.

This part is unclear to me, you had countless copy/move restarts on WinXP or Win7? Please describee what happened in both OS's so I can understand it.

I also don't get what you mean by "access problem"? File is locked? File is corrupt? How would Win7 allow you to copy either of those? Thing is, you're not supposed to be able to copy locked or defective files through the GUI, it is supposed to break. I haven't noticed Win7 doing away with this error checking. These files are best copied with special tools anyway, sector-wise if need be.

Personally I think the incredibly increased use of aliasing with symbolic links makes for a much tougher job at the file level in Vista-7. Not to mention the dumbed down user interface making use of libraries and other abstractions.

For example, if you hand me a Win7 NTFS system disk to clean up or remove a virus from, and I can either stick that drive in an XP or Win7 machine, I will choose XP because of less added fluff and to be able to get the job done very quickly. This is because the GUI isn't programmed to work against me. Neither GUI is perfect obviously, but Explorer really took a dive in Windows 6 with the dumbing down of hiding much more stuff, and that stupid full-row select.

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It's quite easy, say you got files A B C D
Some program is locking access to fileB
You attempt to copy those from folderA to folderB

On winXP, it will copy fileA, try to copy fileB, stop with an error message and cancel the transfer
On win7, it will copy fileA, try to copy fileB, skip it, copy files C and D, then notify you that fileB could not be copied. It even pauses the progress and gives you a chance to get access to the file without having to cancel the transfer.

This way, you only have to get access to fileB and copy it over vs having to mark all the other files and copy them as well. While it's not much of a difference with low file count, imagine copying a large amount of files with a non-trivial selection criteria. Every time winXP cancels the transfer you'd have to pick the files once again.

I don't think the explorer took a dive with NT6.x but it does have some annoying bugs in those versions. Speaking of UI working against you, I'd say that's what they did with win8. Forcing modernUI on a desktop was the one big mistake they made, otherwise win8 would be a good upgrade from win7. They did make some good improvements under the hood to make the OS perform better, too bad the UI gets in the way.

Edited by Soukyuu
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Just a couple more articles dealing with XP ... from the other side. Remember I like XP and intend to stay with it well after 2014.

Kill your Windows XP systems, before they kill you!

http://hal2020.com/2013/08/06/kill-your-windows-xp-systems-before-they-kill-you/

August 6, 2013

Paul Thurrott just published The Coming Windows XP Apocalypse reminding us that support, including security patches, for Windows XP is coming to an end. For a more in-depth examination on why you need to run from Windows XP as fast as you can see my blog entry from two years ago.

Last month I experienced just how difficult it was going to be to fully put the nail in the coffin of Windows XP. I went to the open house for a new hospital and when touring around noticed that their PCs were running Windows XP. That’s right, a new deployment of XP in a mission critical environment just months before all support for XP ends. Oh, and a new deployment in an environment with extreme privacy requirements. In an environment in which malware could quite literally cause loss of life. I tweeted about this and someone from Microsoft already went off to work on making sure the hospital had a migration plan in place.

No doubt a new deployment of Windows XP is not done because the IT department desired it. All controversy about Windows 8 aside, Windows 7 is something IT can and does have a love fest with. The problem is likely ISV software, and support for specialized hardware, that hasn’t yet made the migration to Windows 7. Or perhaps in this case, the hospital’s parent organization has a migration plan but this hospital was opening before the rest of the organization was ready to migrate. Let’s just hope they complete the migration in time.

There are a few points about Windows XP usage and what happens when support ends in April 2014 that I wanted to make.

First, the Netapplication numbers Paul used are worldwide numbers. Netapplication wants $300 to let you filter by country, which I think is fair except that I can’t justify paying them just so I can write a blog article. Using StatCounter data we see that July 2013 worldwide XP usage is 20.45% while US usage is 11.67%. Note how StatCounter and Netapplication (37% worldwide XP share) differ dramatically because of methodology. And the truth is that actual market share may be quite different than either of them report, because lots of systems in business are not used for web browsing (which is how both gather their data). All that matters is that Windows XP usage is still quite substantial no matter what the actual number or its source.

The worldwide numbers may greatly overstate the situation in individual countries or regions. For example according the StatCounter Windows XP remains the most used operating system in China at 54.69%. By contrast Australia is at about 9%. This also explains why the drop in Windows XP usage appears to be slowing. In some countries the move away from Windows XP is almost over while in others it has barely begun. And for the latter, often dominated by pirated copies, it isn’t clear that the loss of support holds much meaning. Thus they just aren’t moving!

... more to the article at the link.

also

The Coming Windows XP Apocalypse

What will it take to get businesses off Window XP?

http://windowsitpro.com/windows-xp/coming-windows-xp-apocalypse

Paul Thurrott

Aug. 6, 2013

The clock is ticking. In April 2014, just 8 months from now, Microsoft will finally stop supporting Windows XP, an OS that was released 12 years and three major Windows releases ago. But here’s a sobering statistic that should give anyone pause: Despite this impending deadline, XP usage has barely changed in all of 2013. What gives?

If you’re a fan of numbers, head over to Netmarketshare.com, NetApplication’s site for usage share statistics. They measure web browser usage share, search engine usage share, and operating system usage share, and it is of course that latter measurement that I’m focused on this week. According to the firm, Windows XP still accounted for over 37 percent of all desktop OS usage share in July 2013, behind Windows 7 (44.5 percent) but well ahead of Windows 8 (5.4 percent), Vista (4.24 percent), or the most recent Mac OS X version (3.3 percent).

What the…?

No matter how you measure things, this is a disaster in the making. Over the first 7 months of 2013, usage in Windows XP has declined only 2.3 percentage points (from 39.51 percent in January to 37.2 percent in July), just behind Windows 8’s tepid rise of 3.1 percentage points (from 2.3 percent in January to 5.4 percent in July). And Windows 7 has remained at virtually the same usage this entire year.

Put another way, if Microsoft’s estimate of 1.5 billion active Windows users is correct, there are over 510 million PCs still running Windows XP on this planet. 510 million. Over half a billion.

While I don’t have any accurate figures on what percentage of these half billion PCs are in enterprises and other businesses, I think it’s fair to say that most of them are still in businesses. Anecdotally, XP machines are to PCs as BlackBerries are to smartphones, not systems that individuals choose for themselves but rather machines that are pushed on them by employers.

With Windows 8, Microsoft is pushing a new world of the consumerization of IT and of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), two concepts that were basically science fiction in the superglued USB port days of 2001, when XP first shipped. XP has lived through three two-term US presidencies and was most notable in its day for being the OS that finally moved customers off the aging DOS-based Windows 9x codebase that dated back to 1985. This thing isn’t just venerable, it’s ancient history.

But it is perhaps somewhat ironic that XP’s continued popularity—if we might call it that—is at least partially the fault of Windows 8, which does aim very high with its modern ideals: a touch-centric UI that is optimized for tablets and seems aimed at killing off the desktop environment that is so familiar and dear to Windows users. Here we are in the last year of XP’s lifecycle, and Microsoft has released a version of Windows that virtually no XP user seems particularly interested in.

... more of the article at the link

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Paul Thurrot defining (administrative) hospital PC's "mission critical"? :w00t:

What would he do if he knew that the military/LE have used XP (and are still using it) widely?

http://reis.ca/why-some-businesses-are-holding-tight-with-windows-xp/

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/virus-hits-drone-fleet/

(please note the reference to drones ;))

And what about the NASA?

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/lokeuei/archive/2007/06/09/windows-xp-mission-critical-software.aspx

jaclaz

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Paul Thurrot defining (administrative) hospital PC's "mission critical"? :w00t:

What would he do if he knew that the military/LE have used XP (and are still using it) widely?

http://reis.ca/why-some-businesses-are-holding-tight-with-windows-xp/

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/virus-hits-drone-fleet/

(please note the reference to drones ;))

And what about the NASA?

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/lokeuei/archive/2007/06/09/windows-xp-mission-critical-software.aspx

jaclaz

Oh I'm not worried about the military they probably have some special deal with M$ to still get the updates.

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Oh I'm not worried about the military they probably have some special deal with M$ to still get the updates.

It seems to me like you missed the point.

XP with all the updates in the world +1 (and even one more) as well as ANY MS OS, excluding (possibly) DOS, is NOT suitable to be used in "critical missions".

You see, a "critical mission" - is by definition - critical. ;)

You cannot afford to have it bluescreen in a "critical mission".

http://walyou.com/worldwide-places-hit-by-the-blue-screen-of-death/

Additionally, you may want to use a RTOS (Real Time Operating System) for an actual "critical mission".

jaclaz

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