4 ms·

This isn't an "if". And this shouldn't be shocking to anyone as Microsoft has EOL'ed all of it's previous OSes with a deadline. You can buy extended support fo

by p_ing 1y ago

This isn't an "if". And this shouldn't be shocking to anyone as Microsoft has EOL'ed all of it's previous OSes with a deadline. You can buy extended support for orgs like yours that require it - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/whats-new/extended-security-updates https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/whats-new/extended...

anonymars 1y ago
Has Microsoft ever EOLed an OS that was 1. in higher use than its successors 2. only had one possible successor 3. the successor did not support hardware in use at the time ? I'm sure it won't stop them, as you say, but really Microsoft, as someone who used to be a (relatively rare at the time) defender of yours, get fucked. The Raymond Chen camp is truly dead (https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost-the-api-war/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost...)
- wat10000 1y ago
  That article is an interesting time capsule. Microsoft (well, the Windows part) is looking more and more like the Apple and Sun in that article. It’s the #2 or #3 user-facing OS these days. The fancy new programming environment happened and most stuff moved there, but it’s JavaScript and the browser rather than C# and .NET. Running old software is becoming a niche and getting more so by the day.
  - anonymars 1y ago
    Yeah. Satya Nadella spelled out the strategy: cloud first, mobile first. Which, good for him and investors. But it feels like I can actually accomplish less and less with technology with each passing year, which is insane. It takes so much more effort to get anything done because everything is set up for tiny touch screens. And as someone who develops on the MS stack I spend so much more time dealing with version and dependency hell. I've given up on my hobby projects because it was to the point where each time I got a few hours to look at them I'd spend it all doing updates or adjusting to deprecations. One thing that struck me rereading Joel's article: those shiny new APIs he rattled off, indeed almost none of them gained any traction. And he was spot on about the UI framework fragmentation too. Recently Windows Phone popped up and a lot of the same themes popped up, for example changing the SDKs repeatedly, charging for the privilege of using the app store (so much for giving the tools away), etc. I think part of the issue is that Apple somehow gets away with doing this sort of thing but Microsoft doesn't have anything close to the marketing chops to brainwash people into getting screwed over and liking it. Maybe because they go out of their way to make it a positive experience to buy new Apple products, rather than a trip to a dealership for a new car https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44272078 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44272078
    - wat10000 1y ago
      I wonder why they did so well with the Xbox but not Windows Phone. Clearly they're capable of launching a new platform and getting traction with it. Those are very different market segments but surely the general approaches needed aren't that far apart.
      - anonymars 1y ago
        Well, I feel like they haven't been doing as well recently (pause for a shoutout to classic MS naming acumen: Xbox 360 -> Xbox One -> Xbox One X / Xbox One S -> Xbox Series X / Xbox Series S. Good luck, mom! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKZ6rqsXhjo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKZ6rqsXhjo) But perhaps one difference is that with consoles there's a free Sisyphean "reset" with each generation, which never happened with the phone. That gives a spot to enter the race. Plus the whole thing with the phone carriers...in the US at least I'd wager that if the carriers don't offer your phone, and the salespeople don't talk it up (which phones are going to give the salesperson the most lucrative commission, by the way? Don't forget accessories...), then that's the ball game
- p_ing 1y ago
  1. When has Microsoft cared (or have PCs been so abundant)? 2. ... I mean, that's every version of Windows. XP? Vista. Vista? 7, etc. The last time you had two choices of Windows was in the '90s. 3. It does support hardware in use 'at the time'. I upgraded from 10 to 11 on existing hardware. If you mean older hardware, 98 and NT4 were the last to support the 486, yet 486s were still in use by the time of release of Me/2000 (I sadly had to interact with said 486s in a school lab). XP -> Vista made the jump from a Pentium 233Mhz minimum to 800Mhz minimum, /and/ caused many issues due to the introduction of WDDM causing a lot of graphics hardware to become incompatible. This is nothing new. Those pulling the shocked pikachu face perhaps just haven't been around the Windows block enough to realize... this is nothing new.
  - anonymars 1y ago
    I don't know what timeline you are looking at. Windows 98 went EOL in 2006. By then there were Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP. Windows 95 went EOL in 2002 so basically the same. Windows XP EOL: 2014. By then there were Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8. Windows 7 EOL: 2020. Obviously Windows 8 and 10 existed. And so on, up until 10 and 11. > It does support hardware in use 'at the time'. I upgraded from 10 to 11 on existing hardware. Of course it supports some hardware in use right now. But core requirements were generally just speed, now even if you have a fast processor, you're SOL if your system doesn't support TPM and specific models. Vista had more compatibility issues than usual with peripherals, but that's quite different from having to toss the whole machine. And even then: Vista was released in 2007. You had 7 more years to stay on XP. Not only are we handwaving the obvious reality that hardware used to have a shorter effective life because it was advancing so rapidly, but the Pentium 233 came out in 1997. XP went EOL in 2014. That's almost 20 years of hardware support. My family has various machines from 2015, 2017, etc. that otherwise work perfectly fine but don't support W11. I have an older laptop with a 4 core (8 HT) 2.6 GHz CPU (3.6 Turbo) with a 1 TB SSD and 16 GB of RAM, amply powerful, but nope, no Windows 11.
    - p_ing 1y ago
      > But core requirements were generally just speed Not just speed but instructions. > you're SOL if your system doesn't support TPM and specific models TPM support at this point in time is very old, roughly 7 years or so, along with processor model. Newer processors lack the appropriate features to support the security features of Windows 11, i.e. VBS. New OSes have new features which require new hardware; new being highly relative here as it's quite old hardware at this point.
- anonymars 1y ago
  An additional fuck you to Microsoft for intending to brick Windows Mixed Reality headsets, also fairly unprecedented to do that in the middle of an OS lifecycle, such as they are now. More hardware to go into the trash while Microsoft pretends to care about the environment. Fortunately there might be hope on that. Pathetic that it had to be someone presumably doing it on their own time, after all we know how resource-constrained a small business like Microsoft is https://www.reddit.com/r/WindowsMR/comments/1l65ji8/things_are_about_to_change_oasis_driver_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WindowsMR/comments/1l65ji8/things_a...
nwellinghoff 1y ago
You could always switch to the ltsc line. Been using ltsc iot and its pretty nice
- anticensor 1y ago
  IoT LTSC technically doesn't support Win32, and Win32 components included in aren't guaranteed to work until the end of IoT support period.
etbebl 1y ago
Thanks for the link, I had forgotten this existed. Well, the university's technology roadmap officially states there is no support for Windows 10 after 2025. Yet as far as I know there is no program in place to help individual labs cover the cost of upgrading equipment. Maybe we will still be able to purchase an ESU package for our computers on an individual basis, but I'm not sure it will be made available by our software licensing office.
- anticensor 1y ago
  I'm sure they will not offer it to office computers, but only to research laboratories.

by p_ing 1y ago

anonymars 1y ago

Has Microsoft ever EOLed an OS that was 1. in higher use than its successors 2. only had one possible successor 3. the successor did not support hardware in use at the time ? I'm sure it won't stop them, as you say, but really Microsoft, as someone who used to be a (relatively rare at the time) defender of yours, get fucked. The Raymond Chen camp is truly dead (https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost-the-api-war/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost...)

wat10000 1y ago
That article is an interesting time capsule. Microsoft (well, the Windows part) is looking more and more like the Apple and Sun in that article. It’s the #2 or #3 user-facing OS these days. The fancy new programming environment happened and most stuff moved there, but it’s JavaScript and the browser rather than C# and .NET. Running old software is becoming a niche and getting more so by the day.
- anonymars 1y ago
  Yeah. Satya Nadella spelled out the strategy: cloud first, mobile first. Which, good for him and investors. But it feels like I can actually accomplish less and less with technology with each passing year, which is insane. It takes so much more effort to get anything done because everything is set up for tiny touch screens. And as someone who develops on the MS stack I spend so much more time dealing with version and dependency hell. I've given up on my hobby projects because it was to the point where each time I got a few hours to look at them I'd spend it all doing updates or adjusting to deprecations. One thing that struck me rereading Joel's article: those shiny new APIs he rattled off, indeed almost none of them gained any traction. And he was spot on about the UI framework fragmentation too. Recently Windows Phone popped up and a lot of the same themes popped up, for example changing the SDKs repeatedly, charging for the privilege of using the app store (so much for giving the tools away), etc. I think part of the issue is that Apple somehow gets away with doing this sort of thing but Microsoft doesn't have anything close to the marketing chops to brainwash people into getting screwed over and liking it. Maybe because they go out of their way to make it a positive experience to buy new Apple products, rather than a trip to a dealership for a new car https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44272078 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44272078
  - wat10000 1y ago
    I wonder why they did so well with the Xbox but not Windows Phone. Clearly they're capable of launching a new platform and getting traction with it. Those are very different market segments but surely the general approaches needed aren't that far apart.
    - anonymars 1y ago
      Well, I feel like they haven't been doing as well recently (pause for a shoutout to classic MS naming acumen: Xbox 360 -> Xbox One -> Xbox One X / Xbox One S -> Xbox Series X / Xbox Series S. Good luck, mom! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKZ6rqsXhjo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKZ6rqsXhjo) But perhaps one difference is that with consoles there's a free Sisyphean "reset" with each generation, which never happened with the phone. That gives a spot to enter the race. Plus the whole thing with the phone carriers...in the US at least I'd wager that if the carriers don't offer your phone, and the salespeople don't talk it up (which phones are going to give the salesperson the most lucrative commission, by the way? Don't forget accessories...), then that's the ball game
p_ing 1y ago
1. When has Microsoft cared (or have PCs been so abundant)? 2. ... I mean, that's every version of Windows. XP? Vista. Vista? 7, etc. The last time you had two choices of Windows was in the '90s. 3. It does support hardware in use 'at the time'. I upgraded from 10 to 11 on existing hardware. If you mean older hardware, 98 and NT4 were the last to support the 486, yet 486s were still in use by the time of release of Me/2000 (I sadly had to interact with said 486s in a school lab). XP -> Vista made the jump from a Pentium 233Mhz minimum to 800Mhz minimum, /and/ caused many issues due to the introduction of WDDM causing a lot of graphics hardware to become incompatible. This is nothing new. Those pulling the shocked pikachu face perhaps just haven't been around the Windows block enough to realize... this is nothing new.
- anonymars 1y ago
  I don't know what timeline you are looking at. Windows 98 went EOL in 2006. By then there were Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP. Windows 95 went EOL in 2002 so basically the same. Windows XP EOL: 2014. By then there were Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8. Windows 7 EOL: 2020. Obviously Windows 8 and 10 existed. And so on, up until 10 and 11. > It does support hardware in use 'at the time'. I upgraded from 10 to 11 on existing hardware. Of course it supports some hardware in use right now. But core requirements were generally just speed, now even if you have a fast processor, you're SOL if your system doesn't support TPM and specific models. Vista had more compatibility issues than usual with peripherals, but that's quite different from having to toss the whole machine. And even then: Vista was released in 2007. You had 7 more years to stay on XP. Not only are we handwaving the obvious reality that hardware used to have a shorter effective life because it was advancing so rapidly, but the Pentium 233 came out in 1997. XP went EOL in 2014. That's almost 20 years of hardware support. My family has various machines from 2015, 2017, etc. that otherwise work perfectly fine but don't support W11. I have an older laptop with a 4 core (8 HT) 2.6 GHz CPU (3.6 Turbo) with a 1 TB SSD and 16 GB of RAM, amply powerful, but nope, no Windows 11.
  - p_ing 1y ago
    > But core requirements were generally just speed Not just speed but instructions. > you're SOL if your system doesn't support TPM and specific models TPM support at this point in time is very old, roughly 7 years or so, along with processor model. Newer processors lack the appropriate features to support the security features of Windows 11, i.e. VBS. New OSes have new features which require new hardware; new being highly relative here as it's quite old hardware at this point.
anonymars 1y ago
An additional fuck you to Microsoft for intending to brick Windows Mixed Reality headsets, also fairly unprecedented to do that in the middle of an OS lifecycle, such as they are now. More hardware to go into the trash while Microsoft pretends to care about the environment. Fortunately there might be hope on that. Pathetic that it had to be someone presumably doing it on their own time, after all we know how resource-constrained a small business like Microsoft is https://www.reddit.com/r/WindowsMR/comments/1l65ji8/things_are_about_to_change_oasis_driver_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WindowsMR/comments/1l65ji8/things_a...

nwellinghoff 1y ago

You could always switch to the ltsc line. Been using ltsc iot and its pretty nice

anticensor 1y ago
IoT LTSC technically doesn't support Win32, and Win32 components included in aren't guaranteed to work until the end of IoT support period.

etbebl 1y ago

Thanks for the link, I had forgotten this existed. Well, the university's technology roadmap officially states there is no support for Windows 10 after 2025. Yet as far as I know there is no program in place to help individual labs cover the cost of upgrading equipment. Maybe we will still be able to purchase an ESU package for our computers on an individual basis, but I'm not sure it will be made available by our software licensing office.

anticensor 1y ago
I'm sure they will not offer it to office computers, but only to research laboratories.