6 ms·

Windows XP end-of-life migration guide

35 points by hepha1979 13y ago

wil421 13y ago
Thank god. There are still people in my office using XP and IE 6/7 that I wonder why they cant do or see certain things.
- pc86 13y ago
  I can understand being on Windows XP (even though it’s still ridiculous) but what possible reason is there not to upgrade to IE8?
  - VLM 13y ago
    There should be a FAQ; business critical process is only supported when accessed with IE6, regulatory/licensing limits you to a certified configuration which specifically demands IE6, etc.
  - wil421 13y ago
    Either the user refuses to upgrade or the higher ups determine its more cost effective to use IE6 instead of upgrading the Application itself.
- oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
  XP supports up to IE8; why on earth haven't they (been) upgraded?
  - protomyth 13y ago
    I would imagine someone went a bit wild on the ActiveX components in IE and needs them for their custom apps to work.
  - wil421 13y ago
    We have lots of people in the field doing service related work all over the world and they do not take the time to upgrade (or do their job but thats another story). Its takes 2-3 months just to get the old computer back after we send then a brand new computer.
- mdisraeli 13y ago
  Web apps that only officially support older versions of IE. In some cases, blocking entirely other browsers even if they would work. And even when they don't, the vendor only officially supports certain browsers and rejects any incidents logged using other ones. The exact same thing is a key reason why XP has remained in use for so long.
  - TillE 13y ago
    This is what VMs are for. If you really really absolutely must run one piece of ancient software, it doesn't need to hold back everything else you do.
    - bruceboughton 13y ago
      XP in your VM is still EOL. Doesn't really help you. Also, you double your licensing costs.
      - eleitl 13y ago
        > XP in your VM is still EOL Doesn't matter that much if it's on a private network. > Also, you double your licensing costs. Not if the OS and virtualization solution require no license.
    - dspillett 13y ago
      For you or I that is an easy solution. For a large organisation IT/TS cost is a problem with that solution. As well as managing everything else about their user's machines they'd have an extra app/service to maintain (whichever VM solution they go for) and an extra OS (XP in the VM) to somehow keep up-to-date for each user. Not insurmountable by any means, but far from zero hassle/cost. Once an ancient version of IE is out of support, assuming that is the app you are running in a VM in this case, you also have an extra complication: making sure the VMs can only talk to your intranet sites that require it, as you don't want your users browsing more public hosts with a potentially insecure UA. Again not rocket science, just some routing/firewall tweaks, but something that has to be added to the support cost of your environments. Depending on the licensing deal the company has with MS (or relevant distributor) there might also be extra cost involved in providing a second OS instance to all your users.
salient 13y ago
With XP finally at the end of life, this is a great opportunity for many companies or institutions to switch to Linux.
- jzwinck 13y ago
  I'm all for Linux, but this won't happen. The people who leave XP due to running out of paid support options will find no comfort in Linux. Commercial support is too fragmented and not as discoverable as on Windows. People who do not care will stay on XP still. Companies will upgrade to Windows 8, or perhaps 7. I don't see a big demographic switching to Linux right now.
  - VLM 13y ago
    "The people who leave XP due to running out of paid support options will find no comfort in Linux." I can't be bothered to post links to every distro and every consultant on the planet, but just for laughs: http://www.debian.org/consultants/ http://www.debian.org/consultants/ And this is just independents (mostly) and just Debian. I'm sure IBM and other major corps would be glad to help as long as its legal, which is not an issue with FOSS unlike windows. Now if MS opensourced windows XP as part of the abandonment, that might be interesting.
    - dagw 13y ago
      I just checked your link for consultants in my country. One is a dude with a hotmail address and no website. One is a dude with a simple static website with his picture,name and a message that says basically "We do Everything! Please call me!". One is apparently going out of business. One gave me a warning about dodgy certificates. And finally one that sounded like a legitimate company. Not really something I'd want to bet my company on.
      - VLM 13y ago
        "Not really something I'd want to bet my company on." The irony of that line in a discussion primarily about microsoft products is fairly humorous.
y0ghur7_xxx 13y ago
> According to Microsoft, a full operating system migration can take up to six months Well, we have to migrate about 6000 pcs, and it's a 1 and ½ years project. Much more than six moths.
- mkesper 13y ago
  So why did you start so late / why does it take so long?
  - ___1___ 13y ago
    Because XP probably does everything they need and the upgrade will be reluctant.
  - rubberband 13y ago
    A lot of businesses I talk to have a lot of legacy applications which work well under XP, but break for whatever esoteric reason (for example, an old Access database, or VB6 app) under Windows 7/8. An equally large pain the ass is a ton of intranet sites break when switching to IE9 and above (heck, a lot of companies still force IE6/7 and below with Group Policy). It's difficult to make a case to management when everything is working well (it's hard to explain the nuances of "end of support life cycle" to someone who needs help "getting to the Google"). Also, there are a fair number of desktop software products which don't even support Windows 8 yet. Hard as it may seem for the crowd here, most of the software world is not on the HTML5/Ruby/OMGMVCJAVASCRIPTBRO bandwagon yet.
    - EvanAnderson 13y ago
      I can't speak to the websites having problems with IE9 and above, however the desktop application compatibility situation has ended up being overblown in my experience. Sitting down with "Process Monitor" and weakening permissions or spending a few minutes figuring out how to apply the existing Application Compatibility shims the OS provides has sorted out almost every problematic desktop application. For the few applications that failed to yield the "Windows XP Mode" VM (which comes with Windows 7 Professional licenses) has worked fine (albeit the multiple users per PC "story" for "Windows XP Mode" is terrible and having a bunch of XP VMs to support adds complexity).
Aardwolf 13y ago
"Windows 7 or 8?" By the time they've made that decision, Windows 9 may be out :)
teddyh 13y ago
The big thing about the end of XP is the non-support of SNI (server name indication) in TLS (SSL) in any version of IE on XP.
- protonfish 13y ago
  Wow. The best reason to upgrade is to remove the version lock on the default browser. Not sure what all that says about Microsoft and the current state of technology, but it is weird and sad.
  - zanny 13y ago
    I don't get this, though. The default browser before IE10 was awful, so you shouldn't use it anyway. It isn't my fault you have incompetent higher ups that seem to trust MS with their lives but won't even consider Google or Mozilla.
    - dspillett 13y ago
      You've obviously never developed for a major corporate customer. If I tell some of our large clients "I'm not supporting IE8 and below because it is crap and you shouldn't be using it (or you could install something better alongside if you really need old IE for legacy code)" they will respond with "fine, we find someone who will support our current standard environment then, have a nice day". We as devs and server/service admins don't get the luxury of dictating what browsers our customers use, and insulting our own higher-ups will do nothing to change that as it is out of their control too. As much as everyone at my employer would love to drop support for IE8 and lower, it would save a pile of QA time and front-end developer frustration, we don't want to lose lucrative contracts with large investment banks in order to have that luxury and that would happen at this point in time if we dug our heals in on the matter. Welcome to the real world. I'm sorry to say, but it isn't always nice.
    - eDavis698 13y ago
      I do corperate IT work. Firefox & Chrome cannot be managed while IE is integrated with Active Directory. Honestly it is a pain when the end user gets tricked into installing Chrome and now none of their work websites function due to needing a real Microsoft Active X runtime. Your computer won't boot/Windows corrupted? Sorry you just lost all your history & bookmarks if you used IE I could have transfered them to your new computer for you (IE stores them in a folder, Firefox you can but it is a pain, Chrome you are hosed.)
eleitl 13y ago
If you're migrating off XP you should equally consider migrating to Linux.
- mhurron 13y ago
  Yes, because it's not like any of the applications you use on XP will work on Windows 7 or 8. And Exchange support is so wonderful on Linux apps. And Active Directory, that's just a walk in the park.
herf 13y ago
Microsoft made it way too hard to upgrade out of XP (unless you updated through Vista.) It is no wonder everyone is still on XP. It would light the PC industry on fire if they made it one click to move your stuff to another machine. You can buy a new Mac every year and only wait a few hours to move everything, but on Windows it takes months.
- raesene3 13y ago
  That could be a bit of an apples to oranges comparison. From what I've seen the migration time for large corporate XP deployments has little to do with the OS upgrade itself and everything to do with the application support issues. I was at a meeting recently where people were still saying that they had applications which would only run on XP, which was why they hadn't upgraded. The problem for corporates now is likely that they won't/can't complete an upgrade before the deadline and the risks of having unsupported XP are unknown. One theory is that a lot of potential attacker will be holding any XP exploits they have at the moment with the intent to use them after the end of support, when there will likely be no patch.
- girvo 13y ago
  No. Going to new Apple releases has the same problem: app compatibility, and OS X doesn't support stuff going back to the 90's, either. And that's just for small personal apps on my iMac, let alone bespoke applications on windows that the Enterprise rely on.
vdm 13y ago
1. Switch to an app with a backend that can talk to a tablet and a browser.
CapitalistCartr 13y ago
Not everyone is using software in a standard office environment. I have a CNC machine running Windows NT 4. Its a production machine; I need it running, period. I have another running Windows 2000; its a tooling machine, also essential. I have PCs running various CAD and CAM programs which cost 5 figures, and are not negotiable; I simply need them at all times. I need my server of all our past work available at all times; I need the network to be equally available. I can't afford the disruption of trying to get all this running on a new OS because Microsoft thinks I have nothing better to do. I have product to get out the door.

35 points by hepha1979 13y ago

Thank god. There are still people in my office using XP and IE 6/7 that I wonder why they cant do or see certain things.

pc86 13y ago
I can understand being on Windows XP (even though it’s still ridiculous) but what possible reason is there not to upgrade to IE8?
- VLM 13y ago
  There should be a FAQ; business critical process is only supported when accessed with IE6, regulatory/licensing limits you to a certified configuration which specifically demands IE6, etc.
- wil421 13y ago
  Either the user refuses to upgrade or the higher ups determine its more cost effective to use IE6 instead of upgrading the Application itself.
oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
XP supports up to IE8; why on earth haven't they (been) upgraded?
- protomyth 13y ago
  I would imagine someone went a bit wild on the ActiveX components in IE and needs them for their custom apps to work.
- wil421 13y ago
  We have lots of people in the field doing service related work all over the world and they do not take the time to upgrade (or do their job but thats another story). Its takes 2-3 months just to get the old computer back after we send then a brand new computer.
mdisraeli 13y ago
Web apps that only officially support older versions of IE. In some cases, blocking entirely other browsers even if they would work. And even when they don't, the vendor only officially supports certain browsers and rejects any incidents logged using other ones. The exact same thing is a key reason why XP has remained in use for so long.
- TillE 13y ago
  This is what VMs are for. If you really really absolutely must run one piece of ancient software, it doesn't need to hold back everything else you do.
  - bruceboughton 13y ago
    XP in your VM is still EOL. Doesn't really help you. Also, you double your licensing costs.
    - eleitl 13y ago
      > XP in your VM is still EOL Doesn't matter that much if it's on a private network. > Also, you double your licensing costs. Not if the OS and virtualization solution require no license.
  - dspillett 13y ago
    For you or I that is an easy solution. For a large organisation IT/TS cost is a problem with that solution. As well as managing everything else about their user's machines they'd have an extra app/service to maintain (whichever VM solution they go for) and an extra OS (XP in the VM) to somehow keep up-to-date for each user. Not insurmountable by any means, but far from zero hassle/cost. Once an ancient version of IE is out of support, assuming that is the app you are running in a VM in this case, you also have an extra complication: making sure the VMs can only talk to your intranet sites that require it, as you don't want your users browsing more public hosts with a potentially insecure UA. Again not rocket science, just some routing/firewall tweaks, but something that has to be added to the support cost of your environments. Depending on the licensing deal the company has with MS (or relevant distributor) there might also be extra cost involved in providing a second OS instance to all your users.

salient 13y ago

With XP finally at the end of life, this is a great opportunity for many companies or institutions to switch to Linux.

jzwinck 13y ago
I'm all for Linux, but this won't happen. The people who leave XP due to running out of paid support options will find no comfort in Linux. Commercial support is too fragmented and not as discoverable as on Windows. People who do not care will stay on XP still. Companies will upgrade to Windows 8, or perhaps 7. I don't see a big demographic switching to Linux right now.
- VLM 13y ago
  "The people who leave XP due to running out of paid support options will find no comfort in Linux." I can't be bothered to post links to every distro and every consultant on the planet, but just for laughs: http://www.debian.org/consultants/ http://www.debian.org/consultants/ And this is just independents (mostly) and just Debian. I'm sure IBM and other major corps would be glad to help as long as its legal, which is not an issue with FOSS unlike windows. Now if MS opensourced windows XP as part of the abandonment, that might be interesting.
  - dagw 13y ago
    I just checked your link for consultants in my country. One is a dude with a hotmail address and no website. One is a dude with a simple static website with his picture,name and a message that says basically "We do Everything! Please call me!". One is apparently going out of business. One gave me a warning about dodgy certificates. And finally one that sounded like a legitimate company. Not really something I'd want to bet my company on.
    - VLM 13y ago
      "Not really something I'd want to bet my company on." The irony of that line in a discussion primarily about microsoft products is fairly humorous.

y0ghur7_xxx 13y ago

> According to Microsoft, a full operating system migration can take up to six months Well, we have to migrate about 6000 pcs, and it's a 1 and ½ years project. Much more than six moths.

mkesper 13y ago
So why did you start so late / why does it take so long?
- ___1___ 13y ago
  Because XP probably does everything they need and the upgrade will be reluctant.
- rubberband 13y ago
  A lot of businesses I talk to have a lot of legacy applications which work well under XP, but break for whatever esoteric reason (for example, an old Access database, or VB6 app) under Windows 7/8. An equally large pain the ass is a ton of intranet sites break when switching to IE9 and above (heck, a lot of companies still force IE6/7 and below with Group Policy). It's difficult to make a case to management when everything is working well (it's hard to explain the nuances of "end of support life cycle" to someone who needs help "getting to the Google"). Also, there are a fair number of desktop software products which don't even support Windows 8 yet. Hard as it may seem for the crowd here, most of the software world is not on the HTML5/Ruby/OMGMVCJAVASCRIPTBRO bandwagon yet.
  - EvanAnderson 13y ago
    I can't speak to the websites having problems with IE9 and above, however the desktop application compatibility situation has ended up being overblown in my experience. Sitting down with "Process Monitor" and weakening permissions or spending a few minutes figuring out how to apply the existing Application Compatibility shims the OS provides has sorted out almost every problematic desktop application. For the few applications that failed to yield the "Windows XP Mode" VM (which comes with Windows 7 Professional licenses) has worked fine (albeit the multiple users per PC "story" for "Windows XP Mode" is terrible and having a bunch of XP VMs to support adds complexity).

Aardwolf 13y ago

"Windows 7 or 8?" By the time they've made that decision, Windows 9 may be out :)

teddyh 13y ago

The big thing about the end of XP is the non-support of SNI (server name indication) in TLS (SSL) in any version of IE on XP.

protonfish 13y ago
Wow. The best reason to upgrade is to remove the version lock on the default browser. Not sure what all that says about Microsoft and the current state of technology, but it is weird and sad.
- zanny 13y ago
  I don't get this, though. The default browser before IE10 was awful, so you shouldn't use it anyway. It isn't my fault you have incompetent higher ups that seem to trust MS with their lives but won't even consider Google or Mozilla.
  - dspillett 13y ago
    You've obviously never developed for a major corporate customer. If I tell some of our large clients "I'm not supporting IE8 and below because it is crap and you shouldn't be using it (or you could install something better alongside if you really need old IE for legacy code)" they will respond with "fine, we find someone who will support our current standard environment then, have a nice day". We as devs and server/service admins don't get the luxury of dictating what browsers our customers use, and insulting our own higher-ups will do nothing to change that as it is out of their control too. As much as everyone at my employer would love to drop support for IE8 and lower, it would save a pile of QA time and front-end developer frustration, we don't want to lose lucrative contracts with large investment banks in order to have that luxury and that would happen at this point in time if we dug our heals in on the matter. Welcome to the real world. I'm sorry to say, but it isn't always nice.
  - eDavis698 13y ago
    I do corperate IT work. Firefox & Chrome cannot be managed while IE is integrated with Active Directory. Honestly it is a pain when the end user gets tricked into installing Chrome and now none of their work websites function due to needing a real Microsoft Active X runtime. Your computer won't boot/Windows corrupted? Sorry you just lost all your history & bookmarks if you used IE I could have transfered them to your new computer for you (IE stores them in a folder, Firefox you can but it is a pain, Chrome you are hosed.)

eleitl 13y ago

If you're migrating off XP you should equally consider migrating to Linux.

mhurron 13y ago
Yes, because it's not like any of the applications you use on XP will work on Windows 7 or 8. And Exchange support is so wonderful on Linux apps. And Active Directory, that's just a walk in the park.

herf 13y ago

Microsoft made it way too hard to upgrade out of XP (unless you updated through Vista.) It is no wonder everyone is still on XP. It would light the PC industry on fire if they made it one click to move your stuff to another machine. You can buy a new Mac every year and only wait a few hours to move everything, but on Windows it takes months.

raesene3 13y ago
That could be a bit of an apples to oranges comparison. From what I've seen the migration time for large corporate XP deployments has little to do with the OS upgrade itself and everything to do with the application support issues. I was at a meeting recently where people were still saying that they had applications which would only run on XP, which was why they hadn't upgraded. The problem for corporates now is likely that they won't/can't complete an upgrade before the deadline and the risks of having unsupported XP are unknown. One theory is that a lot of potential attacker will be holding any XP exploits they have at the moment with the intent to use them after the end of support, when there will likely be no patch.
girvo 13y ago
No. Going to new Apple releases has the same problem: app compatibility, and OS X doesn't support stuff going back to the 90's, either. And that's just for small personal apps on my iMac, let alone bespoke applications on windows that the Enterprise rely on.

vdm 13y ago

1. Switch to an app with a backend that can talk to a tablet and a browser.

CapitalistCartr 13y ago

Not everyone is using software in a standard office environment. I have a CNC machine running Windows NT 4. Its a production machine; I need it running, period. I have another running Windows 2000; its a tooling machine, also essential. I have PCs running various CAD and CAM programs which cost 5 figures, and are not negotiable; I simply need them at all times. I need my server of all our past work available at all times; I need the network to be equally available. I can't afford the disruption of trying to get all this running on a new OS because Microsoft thinks I have nothing better to do. I have product to get out the door.