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Ugh. This operating system is almost old enough to vote. Can't they just let it die?
by beedogs 13y ago
Ugh. This operating system is almost old enough to vote. Can't they just let it die?
- omegaworks 13y agoAnd provide more fodder for the botnets? Fun!
- jonlucc 13y agoThose computers become fodder in July 2015. I think this delays the inevitable.
- chaz 13y agoBut there will be fewer of them in 2015 than today.
- jonlucc 13y agoHopefully, but I think the rate of change decreases over time. Increasingly, the computers left on XP will be computers that won't be updated. One example is the following: we have a computer in my lab we have several computers that are controlling lab equipment. They will not be upgraded, as the software won't work on any modern OS. Our option is to stop using tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment or unplug them from the wall.
- anonymfus 13y agoSometimes such problems could be solved by reverse engineering and binary patching such software.
- anigbrowl 13y agoWhich has a non-negligible cost. I'm thinking of dedicating an old laptop I have with XP to running some audio hardware, for which driver support ended with XP but which is otherwise in good working order. Of course I could find other products to replace it, but I'd rather use the money for something else.
- userbinator 13y agoI hope the rate of change decreases... but I think it's going the opposite way. We are generating enough e-waste as it is already without a mass trashing of otherwise perfectly working machines not powerful enough to run a newer OS. Each new CPU model released is already providing smaller and smaller improvements in performance. The day when hardware stops getting faster and bigger couldn't come soon enough; maybe that's when software will actually get more efficient and we'll finally realize what a wasteful approach we've been taking with software development for the past few decades...
- pippy 13y agoThey likely only extended support in the fear another company snaps up their corporate customers. There are plenty of alternative supported distros that would work on older hardware, different methodologies (IE BYOD), or virtualization strategies that could cause a domino effect in corporate environments in which they become less dependant on MS products.
- huxley 13y agoI wonder how many these XP users are customers in any sense that involves money, it appears (from the outside) to be a worry about losing theoretical marketshare.
- jlgaddis 13y agoHeh, the machines still running XP in corporations are likely doing so because of the applications. If they were going to move to Linux, they'd just upgrade to Windows {7|8}.
- Fasebook 13y agoUntil linux can compete with an OS old enough to vote, we'll still need XP.
- Crito 13y agoEven assuming that Linux cannot compete with XP (what does linux have to do with this discussion anyway?), it is still ridiculous to think that we need XP. We have OSX, Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8....
- Fasebook 13y agoDon't you find it interesting that all your supposed alternatives are paid software? (never mind the fact that Vista, 7 and 8 are almost identical OSes)
- pikachu_is_cool 13y ago> Even assuming that Linux cannot compete with XP
- jonlucc 13y agoBut XP was a paid OS. I know it was paid for moons ago, but I don't think it is unreasonable to expect a $100 upgrade after 12 years. Alternatively, I think many Linux distros work better than XP will come August 2015.
- samolang 13y agoThe price of the OS you are upgrading to does not equal the total cost of upgrading your OS necessarily.
- rbanffy 13y agoJust the time you spend not working and making backups, doing the upgrade and dealing with the various historical artifacts it leaves behind will end up costing more than the license. The last time I upgraded my Fedora box (with fedup) I spent most of the duration working uninterrupted, then had the upgrade perform itself over lunch. The last time I did it on Ubuntu, I worked throughout the process, only having to stop for the reboot required to switch between major kernel versions. Minor kernel changes happen without rebooting.
- yahelc 13y agoXP was released in Fall of 2001. At best, it's going through puberty and is about to have its bar mitzvah.
- jbigelow76 13y agoL'Chaim!
- axefrog 13y agoWindows XP is Jewish?
- JohnTHaller 13y agoOnly the antivirus/antimalware definitions are being updated. Windows XP and Office 2003 are still on track for end of life on April 14, 2014 (88 days and counting down...)
- brudgers 13y agoHow old is BSD? Perl 5? XHTML? It is not as if software spoils.
- sb057 13y ago>BSD OpenBSD's latest significant version was less than 3 months ago >Perl 5 5.18.2 was released this year >XHTML 1.1 was released a bit more than four years ago The fact of the matter is that old, unupdated software holds everyone back.
- brudgers 13y agoWindowsXP was updated patch Tuesday.
- trobertson 13y agoThe common term "bitrot" suggests otherwise
- dllthomas 13y agoBitrot typically refers to individual bits flipping (due to cosmic rays or device failure or whatever), which spoils one copy of the software if you do nothing to correct it, but isn't the same thing as a version no longer being relevant.
- ams6110 13y agoAccording to Wikipedia, "[OpenBSD] was forked from NetBSD by project leader Theo de Raadt in late 1995."
- oblio 13y agoAs long as it interfaces with anything else, it does. If your software is completely isolated and self contained, sure, there's no practical bitrot. But the Internet changed the software world - software rots out in the wild.
- ars 13y ago> Can't they just let it die? Why? If it aint broke don't fix it. What new features do the newer versions of windows provide that makes it worth spending money, and worse time to upgrade? I don't use it myself but I know a TON of people on XP and the computer works fine, they use openoffice, a browser, and a few games. Computers used to get faster all the time, that's not true anymore. They are now appliances - you use them till the break, instead of upgrading all the time.
- agildehaus 13y agoIn April, when Microsoft stops devoting resources to fixing security issues, it very much is broken.
- stinos 13y agoThe OS itself might not be broken (though I find 7 way better) but for some native app developpers like me the continued XP support is not welcome at all, since it means some of our customers will probably still not upgrade which means we still have to support them. And that means we cannot use all C++/C# features we want or have to resort to ugly workarounds. Just compiling C++ for XP means having to set a flag in Visual Studio, and if you want to do that for multiple projects automatically you've gotta do it system wide. Thats' not nice. Worse is .Net 4.5 is simply not supported at all, so no new goodies which are quite welcome.
- taylodl 13y agoThat's your fault for choosing Microsoft as your development platform. You've put them in the driver's seat of your business, which is never a good thing.
- johnduhart 13y agoYeah! Who needs to target 75% of the desktop market! http://www.netmarketshare.com/os-market-share.aspx?qprid=9 http://www.netmarketshare.com/os-market-share.aspx?qprid=9