Microsoft Corp. is finally pulling the plug on a piece of technology that has refused to go away.According to the user statistics for this blow, more visitors use XP than do Windows 8, 8.1 or Vista combined. Barely more people use Mac's OsX. The #1 Os is Win 7.
On Tuesday, the software giant will stop supporting Windows XP, the still ubiquitous computer operating system that's been around for almost 13 years, an eternity in tech terms.
(And there are a couple of folks still using Windows 98.)
It'd be nice if everyone still using XP kept their machines running and shifted to Linux or something like that, just to give a giant finger to Microsoft.
Frankly, as a software engineer, I'm dancing with joy that Windows XP is going away. Supporting the antiquated API's of Windows XP with new programs is a huge and major hassle because those API's slowly shifted over time and what works on one customer's machine won't work on another customer's machine. Plus it's insecure and basically every Windows XP box on the planet has been hacked at one time or another. When Windows 7 came out I breathed a sigh of relief and happily upgraded to a better more secure OS.
ReplyDeleteWindows 8 was designed to run on tablets and actually could run on most Windows XP systems. The internals are excellent, it is fast and efficient. Too bad Microsoft fubar'ed the user interface, but that can be fixed with various third party products.
Good luck getting bug fix support for your 13 year old version of Red Hat Linux (snerk!). Ain't happenin'. In fact, every version of Linux older than a few years old is busily spewing penis porn and Nigerian prince scam spam because every six months or so a new version of Linux comes out and the writers of Linux happily discontinue support for the old version. If you're willing to pay Red Hat for extended support, you can extend that to 7 years for security fixes, but 13 years? No way, no how. Ain't happenin.
Do note that I make my living with Linux. I'm a Linux penguin, after all. But I do not labor under any delusions that writing software for Linux is anything but pain, one upgrade path after another as the underlying OS changes at the whims of a bunch of geeks who've never held a real job doing real world things in their entire life, they were teenage geeks living in Mom's basement writing kernel code before Red Hat or Canonical or etc. hired them to write code, and they still have that mentality of "users are losers and we don't have to consider them." Microsoft is downright user-friendly by comparison.
- Badtux the Linux Penguin
And most ATM's still run an embedded version of XP (along with a whole slew of cash register systems), so there will have to be a large outlay of funds to 'modernize' these systems. Those costs will of course be passed on to the customer...
ReplyDeleteNope, Embedded XP is still going to be supported by Microsoft, if you put out the cash for a support contract, so your ATM's and cash registers are safe. Microsoft knows that if those things are ever upgraded it will be with Linux, not with a Microsoft OS, so they'll keep taking banks' money and keep providing support to them.
ReplyDeleteMeh. Can't say I blame microsoft for pulling the plug. The last time they got any $ from me, it was this copy of XP I'm running on a 6-year old desktop. TANSTAFL. Perpetual free support can't be free.
ReplyDeleteI don't use it for anything important, so I'll probably not bother "upgrading" to windows7. There is nothing that would work better, and until there is I'm not wasting my time or money. Note to self: on that box, no email, banking, and run a virus scan once in a while to avoid becoming a spambot.
Important stuff will be os-x or linux.
I'm deeply 'n sincerely pissed off Win7 still costs $80~$110. Guess I'll just armor up my XP boxen for a year or two until Win7 gets to $20 where it should oughta be :-)
ReplyDeleteI've supported XP at work since it was new but I'm not a fan of Microsoft either technically or ethically. However, I won't blame them for ending support for XP--how long are they supposed to continue to spend time and money keeping a product they no longer sell running?
ReplyDeleteOh, I'd say a good fifteen or twenty years after they stop selling it would be fair. (Given MS's monopolistic tendencies, that is.)
ReplyDeleteThe law ought to be that as soon as a software company stops supporting one of their products, they are immediately required to open-source it. If they won't support it, let the free market call forth someone who will.
ReplyDeleteGood point, J.L., but Microsoft will point out that they do indeed still sell Windows, just a later version than Windows XP. Given that Windows XP competes with Microsoft's current Windows, forcing them to Open Source it would be an unconstitutional taking under the Constitution.
ReplyDelete-Badtux the Constitutional Penguin