4 ms·

> "On the other side, you have the software manufacturer's instructions to stay on Windows XP at all costs." It is one thing for an individual to purchase soft

> "On the other side, you have the software manufacturer's instructions to stay on Windows XP at all costs." It is one thing for an individual to purchase software for their own needs, but any firm or government should not purchase software that will not be upgraded to the current versions of the Operating System. That is simply irresponsible and should have been rectified in the purchase contract. As it is, are there specific examples of software used by firms and government that are not updated to current versions of Windows?

jvgiuiigvuuc 9y ago
> That is simply irresponsible and should have been rectified in the purchase contract. Have you heard the expression "captive market"? It's not like they can buy equivalent software from a company that guarantees upgrades.
- davidf18 9y ago
  > "As it is, are there specific examples of software used by firms and government that are not updated to current versions of Windows?" Sounds like a hypothetical. What applications software is being purchased for which there is no equivalent and only a captive market?
acqq 9y ago
Even common hardware devices as plain notebooks don't run properly with the "newer" OS. I have one notebook for which the drivers break with anything above Windows 7. I have another which can't be upgraded over Windows 8.1. For both Microsoft's "Get Windows 10" claimed they "will work" with Windows 10 (there were ads running on both which do the "check" before). I've tried the upgrade for both. The Windows 7 one has problems with the WiFi card -- reason: Intel never made newer drivers, the old aren't actually compatible with the newer systems. The Windows 8.1 one has problems with the touchpad: reason: the newer drivers are broken for that model. It also has some display issues on the Windows 10. The WiFi card, the touchpad and the display effectively aren't replaceable. But the computers, apart from not running the newer OS, work without a flaw. If I as a consumer with only a few computers have such problems, I can't see how you don't understand that the whole companies can have immense number of computers that work perfectly with their current OS and would simply break with the newer one. They would not upgrade, but they would install the security updates. But guess what, Microsoft doesn't want to give the security updates to everybody who has Windows XP. Only after this failure they "exceptionally" did it. So Microsoft is absolutely responsible. They can say "we'd prefer to motivate people to buy new" but they are still morally responsible for not releasing updates when there are so many actively used systems.
- davidf18 9y ago
  I think many firms have a two or three year cycle for upgrading their desktop/notebook computers. Honestly, they are far less expensive these days than they used to be. The biggest cost might be retraining people to use the new systems in many cases. Windows XP is an OS from 2001. It is way out of date and does not include with it all of the security of a newer OS such as Windows 10. In the case of most firms they upgrade every few years anyway. It might be different for some non-profits or government. But at any rate, I feel it is totally unrealistic to expect MS to support software from 2001.
nulbyte 9y ago
> That is simply irresponsible and should have been rectified in the purchase contract. Simple does not exist in even smaller private organizations, let alone large government organizations. > As it is, are there specific examples of software used by firms and government that are not updated to current versions of Windows? There is code written 60 or more years ago running on today's mainframes. The cost of rewriting even a fraction of this code can be staggering. This is precisely why COBOL programmers get paid big bucks and why Microsoft gets paid by large clients to provide support past end-of-life. If it works, it works. You can't blame one person for something going wrong in an increasingly connected world.
- davidf18 9y ago
  Not advocating that software be converted from IBM mainframes (which IBM still maintains and still releases new hardware) to be converted to Windows. How much software that is generally available only works on XP and that can't run in XP running on a VM?

jvgiuiigvuuc 9y ago

> That is simply irresponsible and should have been rectified in the purchase contract. Have you heard the expression "captive market"? It's not like they can buy equivalent software from a company that guarantees upgrades.

davidf18 9y ago
> "As it is, are there specific examples of software used by firms and government that are not updated to current versions of Windows?" Sounds like a hypothetical. What applications software is being purchased for which there is no equivalent and only a captive market?

acqq 9y ago

Even common hardware devices as plain notebooks don't run properly with the "newer" OS. I have one notebook for which the drivers break with anything above Windows 7. I have another which can't be upgraded over Windows 8.1. For both Microsoft's "Get Windows 10" claimed they "will work" with Windows 10 (there were ads running on both which do the "check" before). I've tried the upgrade for both. The Windows 7 one has problems with the WiFi card -- reason: Intel never made newer drivers, the old aren't actually compatible with the newer systems. The Windows 8.1 one has problems with the touchpad: reason: the newer drivers are broken for that model. It also has some display issues on the Windows 10. The WiFi card, the touchpad and the display effectively aren't replaceable. But the computers, apart from not running the newer OS, work without a flaw. If I as a consumer with only a few computers have such problems, I can't see how you don't understand that the whole companies can have immense number of computers that work perfectly with their current OS and would simply break with the newer one. They would not upgrade, but they would install the security updates. But guess what, Microsoft doesn't want to give the security updates to everybody who has Windows XP. Only after this failure they "exceptionally" did it. So Microsoft is absolutely responsible. They can say "we'd prefer to motivate people to buy new" but they are still morally responsible for not releasing updates when there are so many actively used systems.

davidf18 9y ago
I think many firms have a two or three year cycle for upgrading their desktop/notebook computers. Honestly, they are far less expensive these days than they used to be. The biggest cost might be retraining people to use the new systems in many cases. Windows XP is an OS from 2001. It is way out of date and does not include with it all of the security of a newer OS such as Windows 10. In the case of most firms they upgrade every few years anyway. It might be different for some non-profits or government. But at any rate, I feel it is totally unrealistic to expect MS to support software from 2001.

nulbyte 9y ago

> That is simply irresponsible and should have been rectified in the purchase contract. Simple does not exist in even smaller private organizations, let alone large government organizations. > As it is, are there specific examples of software used by firms and government that are not updated to current versions of Windows? There is code written 60 or more years ago running on today's mainframes. The cost of rewriting even a fraction of this code can be staggering. This is precisely why COBOL programmers get paid big bucks and why Microsoft gets paid by large clients to provide support past end-of-life. If it works, it works. You can't blame one person for something going wrong in an increasingly connected world.

davidf18 9y ago
Not advocating that software be converted from IBM mainframes (which IBM still maintains and still releases new hardware) to be converted to Windows. How much software that is generally available only works on XP and that can't run in XP running on a VM?