4 ms·

Lets not forget that Windows XP is a commercial product, for which people paid money and that was the only reasonable choice for about 8 years, the gap between

Lets not forget that Windows XP is a commercial product, for which people paid money and that was the only reasonable choice for about 8 years, the gap between the release of XP and that of Windows 7 (Vista was a flop due to poor drivers). In these 8 years a lot of companies and individuals bought computers and then stayed on XP because (1) Windows upgrades cost money, (2) compatibility issues and (3) fear of upgrades (Microsoft never educated its users to upgrade, quite the contrary, they've made Windows users fear upgrades because of their fuck-ups with Windows ME or Vista). Windows XP reached end of life on April 8, 2014, with people being stuck on it without a migration path. Nowadays 5 year old desktops and laptops are often good enough and don't need to be replaced. If you had a company with dozens or hundreds of computers, what would you do? Would you pay $120 before taxes for the Home edition or $199 before taxes for Pro, per computer? Would you try to negotiate better terms maybe? Or would you stay on XP because it works? The offer for a 1-year free upgrade for Windows 10 is not valid for XP and Vista. And yes, Microsoft supported XP for 12 years. That's 4 years after those 8 years in which XP was the only choice. That's hardly an accomplishment. They still have users on XP. For those users they have an ethical responsibility to provide security fixes, or a cheap migration path (why is the upgrade to Windows 10 not valid for XP?), or the source code such that they can fix problems by themselves.

tracker1 11y ago
Cheap is relative... for a computer purchased 4 years ago, for under $1k a $200 software upgrade is a pretty cheap migration path.
- bad_user 11y ago
  If you distribute that cost over several years, then it may not look so expensive, but the problem is many people may not be capable of such an upfront cost and the perceived benefits of the upgrade (e.g. security patches, newer IExplorer) are seemingly minimal.
mangecoeur 11y ago
The fact that you paid for windows bundled with your laptop at discount 14 years ago does not entitle you to a lifetime of free support. Big companies get XP support at great cost, because support is very expensive. As you said yourself, Windows is a commercial product - you get what you pay for. Microsoft don't really owe anybody anything beyond what they get paid to do - the only reason they kept XP support for so long is that to do otherwise would be a PR nightmare, all their big customers would be angry and all the regular folks would have machines (even more) full of malware.
laumars 11y ago
I think it's a bit selective to exclude Vista's timeline from XP's concurrency just to make a point. But even that aside, 4 years of concurrency is still pretty good compared to most other Linux distributions. Ubuntu Desktop's long term support (LTS) is only 3 years and that's one of the better supported Linux desktops. Granted Ubuntu Server LTS is 5 years, but then we'd have to compare Linux with Server 2003 to be completely fair. The only real complaint I have against Windows' support is that it's update utility, "Windows Update", makes the whole process unnecessarily painful compared to the most Linux package managers. Just as an aside, Windows Home (which you mentioned the cost of compared to Pro) wouldn't be an option for many businesses because you can't join Home editions of Windows to a Windows domain.
- scholia 11y ago
  "In previous releases, a Long Term Support (LTS) version had 3 years support on Ubuntu (Desktop) and 5 years on Ubuntu Server. Starting with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, both versions will receive 5 years support." https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS
fuj 11y ago
Did you just ignore Vista to pretend the article and your post make sense??? wow....
delecti 11y ago
Vista was a flop because of OEM marketing inadequate hardware as supporting it. I had a reasonably competent machine, and Vista worked great on it from the day I switched (summer '07, only a few months after it released). Making the comments others have said about your choice to exclude Vista as a viable option even stronger.
- taurath 11y ago
  On most metrics of performance Vista was a big downgrade from XP, regardless of your hardware.

tracker1 11y ago

Cheap is relative... for a computer purchased 4 years ago, for under $1k a $200 software upgrade is a pretty cheap migration path.

bad_user 11y ago
If you distribute that cost over several years, then it may not look so expensive, but the problem is many people may not be capable of such an upfront cost and the perceived benefits of the upgrade (e.g. security patches, newer IExplorer) are seemingly minimal.

mangecoeur 11y ago

The fact that you paid for windows bundled with your laptop at discount 14 years ago does not entitle you to a lifetime of free support. Big companies get XP support at great cost, because support is very expensive. As you said yourself, Windows is a commercial product - you get what you pay for. Microsoft don't really owe anybody anything beyond what they get paid to do - the only reason they kept XP support for so long is that to do otherwise would be a PR nightmare, all their big customers would be angry and all the regular folks would have machines (even more) full of malware.

laumars 11y ago

I think it's a bit selective to exclude Vista's timeline from XP's concurrency just to make a point. But even that aside, 4 years of concurrency is still pretty good compared to most other Linux distributions. Ubuntu Desktop's long term support (LTS) is only 3 years and that's one of the better supported Linux desktops. Granted Ubuntu Server LTS is 5 years, but then we'd have to compare Linux with Server 2003 to be completely fair. The only real complaint I have against Windows' support is that it's update utility, "Windows Update", makes the whole process unnecessarily painful compared to the most Linux package managers. Just as an aside, Windows Home (which you mentioned the cost of compared to Pro) wouldn't be an option for many businesses because you can't join Home editions of Windows to a Windows domain.

scholia 11y ago
"In previous releases, a Long Term Support (LTS) version had 3 years support on Ubuntu (Desktop) and 5 years on Ubuntu Server. Starting with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, both versions will receive 5 years support." https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS

fuj 11y ago

Did you just ignore Vista to pretend the article and your post make sense??? wow....

delecti 11y ago

Vista was a flop because of OEM marketing inadequate hardware as supporting it. I had a reasonably competent machine, and Vista worked great on it from the day I switched (summer '07, only a few months after it released). Making the comments others have said about your choice to exclude Vista as a viable option even stronger.

taurath 11y ago
On most metrics of performance Vista was a big downgrade from XP, regardless of your hardware.