Windows XP and it's retirement.

L.Jenkins

With XP due to be retired next year, I read an article showing it's current market share.

http://slashdot.org/story/13/08/08/027211/china-has-a-massive-windows-xp-problem

I'm wondering, would it not be wise for Microsoft to sell the Operating System to a Company who can continue to support the OS as many still rely on XP. I previously worked on EPOS machines and all of them run XP.

With that, if companies are concerned for the security of their machines beyond this date, we 'could' see a lot of OS upgrades at a cost, despite XP being a quite suitable OS for embedded Epos machines.

Capt'n Midnight

Itzy wrote: »

I'm wondering, would it not be wise for Microsoft to sell the Operating System to a Company who can continue to support the OS as many still rely on XP. I previously worked on EPOS machines and all of them run XP.

You don't understand how copyright works do you ?

If you want to use XP you have to pay full retail price for a windows 8 license with downgrade rights. That's a cash cow. Why would they hand that over to someone else ??

For what most people do Windows 2000 with up to date security would be fine.

The main difference between the nearly free pre-installed OEM versions and corporate versions is the licensing.



The whole history of Windows CE shows why they shouldn't do this, when netbooks first came out there were a plethora of CE devices that were next to useless but sold as having "windows"

The minimum hardware requirements for Windows XP Professional include:

Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended)
At least 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM (128 MB is recommended)
At least 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available space on the hard disk
CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
Keyboard and a Microsoft Mouse or some other compatible pointing device
Video adapter and monitor with Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher resolution
Sound card
Speakers or headphones

You wouldn't sell a mobile phone with that spec these days,

and windows 7/8 will run on any new PC

Torqay

Itzy wrote: »

With XP due to be retired next year, I read an article showing it's current market share.

http://slashdot.org/story/13/08/08/027211/china-has-a-massive-windows-xp-problem

I'm wondering, would it not be wise for Microsoft to sell the Operating System to a Company who can continue to support the OS as many still rely on XP.

Windows XP is not "due to retire" next year. The end of a support life cycle only means that Microsoft will no longer provide free support/updates/patches. Paid support remains available as long as, well, as long as customers are willing to pay for it. So, if a someone wants to use XP, Microsoft will provide continued support, at a price... and quite a steep price it is.

Itzy wrote: »

XP being a quite suitable OS for embedded Epos machines.

That being one of the reasons why Windows XP Embedded enjoys extended support until 2019.

Overheal

Embedded systems being one example, XP has some applications. But for consumer use it should best be avoided. Recall, last year a guy asked on here how to get a web browser to work on a windows 95 machine... the 95 machine was still being used to operate a power plant, and he was simply bored at work:



Most of those customers at the consumer level are still perhaps the result of the "regression" that came from Vista/Office 2007, which was panned by critics and as a direct result terrified Luddites into hanging on to their machines for dear life. Windows 8 is having a similar effect, but even during Windows 7 you'd get a good chunk of the consuming public angry about having to switch.

Among users of steam the market share is radically different: Win7 accounts for 57.69% of the user base, where XP only accounts for 7.8%. Win 8 is 14.74%. Vista is 8.1%. Linux is also classed under this demographic even though its the Windows-only section of the survey. Its relatively steady growth for Windows 8 but its really difficult to make any real conclusions about it. Windows 8 doesn't bring anything new to gaming except for better startup times and such. XP meanwhile looks like its that ship crossing in the night into obsolescence, now being overtaken by vista.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/?platform=pc

dublinman1990

You may need to look at this as according to a Microsoft Official via e-mail that they won't be providing any more support either if it is free or paid.

http://redmondmag.com/articles/2013/04/22/windows-xp-death-march.aspx

It means that you would have to pay for xp support from third party suppliers which is again not cheap.

Torqay

dublinman1990 wrote: »

It means that you would have to pay for xp support from third party suppliers which is again not cheap.

You seem to forget, that Microsoft does not supply any support for the vast majority of Windows computers. OEM systems are not supported by Microsoft, you'll only receive support with retail versions of Windows, hence the difference in price. Medium and large businesses usually have their own IT departments and hardly depend on MS technical support anyway.

And here are the latest figures (August 2013):



Which means, XP is still running on almost 40% of all Windows systems.

yoyo

Torqay wrote: »

Which means, XP is still running on almost 40% of all Windows systems.

I can see the malware/virus writers having a field day next May :pac::pac: . Apparently our own government think Microsoft will still support this old OS as their so "important". Most people have machines capable of running at least Windows 7 these days and if they have something really too old for that some sort of Linux variant would be a better option.

Nick

PropJoe10

yoyo wrote: »

I can see the malware/virus writers having a field day next May :pac::pac: . Apparently our own government think Microsoft will still support this old OS as their so "important". Most people have machines capable of running at least Windows 7 these days and if they have something really too old for that some sort of Linux variant would be a better option.

Nick

I'm just back from China about a month ago, and every single PC I used over there, in hostels, hotels and bars, all ran Windows XP. Its going to be a nightmare come next May, as there'll be malware writers all around the globe writing exploits for the XP kernel knowing that the holes will never be plugged. I'm starting to wonder if Microsoft will cave and extend support for XP. The user numbers for XP are falling slightly in the last few months, but there's still close to 40% of all Windows machines running XP. The penny doesnt seem to have dropped at all with users, regarding the end of support.

yoyo

PropJoe10 wrote: »

I'm just back from China about a month ago, and every single PC I used over there, in hostels, hotels and bars, all ran Windows XP. Its going to be a nightmare come next May, as there'll be malware writers all around the globe writing exploits for the XP kernel knowing that the holes will never be plugged. I'm starting to wonder if Microsoft will cave and extend support for XP. The user numbers for XP are falling slightly in the last few months, but there's still close to 40% of all Windows machines running XP. The penny doesnt seem to have dropped at all with users, regarding the end of support.

When do they stop supporting it then? The only reason people are still running a 13 year old OS is because it's still being supported. The amount of resources XP support is taking up at Microsoft I'm sure are enormous, these are resources that could be put to better use elsewhere.
It doesn't surprise me XP is still so widely used, and people arrogantly believe it should be supported forever. I remember reading on here of a person who found a XP SP1 installation on one of those hotel internet/DVD playback machines this year! And they had full access to the whole hotels network/files within 2 minutes alone. The mind boggles...
I for one can't see Microsoft extending the deadline again, want to use XP for another year? Pay more than it would cost to purchase new hardware and Windows 7 licenses and feel free*!! (I am fairly sure most people/companies have suitable hardware for Windows 7 or 8)
* May be a slightly inaccurate but still, why pay thousands just to delay the inevitable :P

Nick

PropJoe10

yoyo wrote: »

When do they stop supporting it then? The only reason people are still running a 13 year old OS is because it's still being supported. The amount of resources XP support is taking up at Microsoft I'm sure are enormous, these are resources that could be put to better use elsewhere.
It doesn't surprise me XP is still so widely used, and people arrogantly believe it should be supported forever. I remember reading on here of a person who found a XP SP1 installation on one of those hotel internet/DVD playback machines this year! And they had full access to the whole hotels network/files within 2 minutes alone. The mind boggles...
I for one can't see Microsoft extending the deadline again, want to use XP for another year? Pay more than it would cost to purchase new hardware and Windows 7 licenses and feel free*!! (I am fairly sure most people/companies have suitable hardware for Windows 7 or 8)
* May be a slightly inaccurate but still, why pay thousands just to delay the inevitable :P

Nick

I'm not saying that I want it to be supported forever, I'm just saying that there's going to be some major worldwide security issues next year unless there's more of a push to get people off XP. I think the problem is that the majority of people dont really understand the implications of running XP after the end of life deadline. I did a small maintenance job for a local company a few months back and they were running XP SP2 on both their machines in the office. I updated everything and explained to them that running XP after next year would be a serious security error, but as far as I know, they've no plans to upgrade their computers.

Windows 7 is superior in every way really, but from my experience anyway, it seems that people are not really taking this XP end-of-life issue seriously. Least we'll be able to have the "I told you so" speech with them this time next year, should be fun

Torqay

yoyo wrote: »

I can see the malware/virus writers having a field day next May :pac::pac: . Apparently our own government think Microsoft will still support this old OS as their so "important". Most people have machines capable of running at least Windows 7 these days and if they have something really too old for that some sort of Linux variant would be a better option.

Nick

You seem to grossly overestimate the impact of Windows Update on the reduction of malware/virus infections.

I deal with XP and Windows 7 on a fifty-fifty basis and a lot more of the badly infected computers are Windows 7 systems. But I don't blame it on the operating system but rather on the respective user base. The more conservative folks with older systems are less likely to do "stupid stuff" than the kids who can't use computers.

And you know very well, XP just won't go away come next May. It lost around 3% of it's share over the past 12 months. XP will fade out eventually but it will take much longer than a year.

P.S. Only last week I had to install XP Professional on three new Core i5 desktop PCs for a small business. The main reason being a couple of old A4 scanners (very expensive back then) which are not supported in Vista or higher.

yoyo

PropJoe10 wrote: »

I'm not saying that I want it to be supported forever, I'm just saying that there's going to be some major worldwide security issues next year unless there's more of a push to get people off XP. I think the problem is that the majority of people dont really understand the implications of running XP after the end of life deadline. I did a small maintenance job for a local company a few months back and they were running XP SP2 on both their machines in the office. I updated everything and explained to them that running XP after next year would be a serious security error, but as far as I know, they've no plans to upgrade their computers.

Windows 7 is superior in every way really, but from my experience anyway, it seems that people are not really taking this XP end-of-life issue seriously. Least we'll be able to have the "I told you so" speech with them this time next year, should be fun

That last post wasn't aimed at your btw. It's at the attitude some IT depts have when it comes to software maintenance and upgrades (they must be thankful Microsoft support their software so long compared to Apple and many of the Linux vendors!).
I think what will happen is XP support is ended, hardware manufacturers stop supporting it so new printers et al. won't have XP drivers. The general consumer will likely upgrade once they start noticing problems. I would assume repair shops/techs will recommend the upgrade route when XP machines inevitably arrive in badly infected .
I do agree Microsoft and the media should be promoting this deadline better.
I must admit I am fairly eager to see just the level of impact a few months past EOL has on XP, I can't see it will be all plain sailing (same as I wouldn't trust a '98 or 2000 machine online ).

Torqay wrote: »

You seem to grossly overestimate the impact of Windows Update on the reduction of malware/virus infections.

I deal with XP and Windows 7 on a fifty-fifty basis and a lot more of the badly infected computers are Windows 7 systems. But I don't blame it on the operating system but rather on the respective user base. The more conservative folks with older systems are less likely to do "stupid stuff" than the kids who can't use computers.

And you know very well, XP just won't go away come next May. It lost around 3% of it's share over the past 12 months. XP will fade out eventually but it will take much longer than a year.

P.S. Only last week I had to install XP Professional on three new Core i5 desktop PCs for a small business. The main reason being a couple of old A4 scanners (very expensive back then) which are not supported in Vista or higher.

XP is the least secure OS by design in all fairness. Admin privileges out of the box being the major issue. I know people who have had server '03 boxes severely infected due to RDP security holes.
Also, I hope those new Core i5 machines are for offline use only, if not that's going to be a nice maintenance deal for you, that it will need a lot of . I can't imagine AV vendors fully supporting XP down the line either..
Also, I do think when the plug is finally pulled on XP and I believe it will be next April, marketshare will decrease. The same happened with the "excellent 2000" when the rubbish "fisher price" XP was released back in '01.

Nick

PropJoe10

yoyo wrote: »

That last post wasn't aimed at your btw. It's at the attitude some IT depts have when it comes to software maintenance and upgrades (they must be thankful Microsoft support their software so long compared to Apple and many of the Linux vendors!).
I think what will happen is XP support is ended, hardware manufacturers stop supporting it so new printers et al. won't have XP drivers. The general consumer will likely upgrade once they start noticing problems. I would assume repair shops/techs will recommend the upgrade route when XP machines inevitably arrive in badly infected .
I do agree Microsoft and the media should be promoting this deadline better.
I must admit I am fairly eager to see just the level of impact a few months past EOL has on XP, I can't see it will be all plain sailing (same as I wouldn't trust a '98 or 2000 machine online ).

Its going to be very interesting. I would hope that AV vendors stop supporting XP which might focus the general user - most general users are familiar with the importance of antivirus software, even if they arent as clued-in when it comes to Windows updates. Roll on next April, I say

Torqay

yoyo wrote: »

The same happened with the "excellent 2000" when the rubbish "fisher price" XP was released back in '01.

Your comparison doesn't wash. Windows 2000, although available to the public was never a consumer OS (no surprise, given the steep price of well over 300 dollar back then) while Windows XP is running on billions of computers. Windows XP was the mainstream OS putting the nightmare that was Windows 9x to rest.

Those who already had Windows 2000 had little reason to upgrade to XP as they were closely related anyway (NT 5.0 and 5.1). Truth is, Windows 2000 was selling better with busniess clients than XP Professional until the release of Service Pack 1.

yoyo

Torqay wrote: »

Your comparison doesn't wash. Windows 2000, although available to the public was never a consumer OS (no surprise, given the steep price of well over 300 dollar back then) while Windows XP is running on billions of computers. Windows XP was the mainstream OS putting the nightmare that was Windows 9x to rest.

Those who already had Windows 2000 had little reason to upgrade to XP as they were closely related anyway (NT 5.0 and 5.1). Truth is, Windows 2000 was selling better with busniess clients than XP Professional until the release of Service Pack 1.

That's true but there are plenty of businesses still on XP. People didn't mind jumping ship to XP when they had the opportunity, so I can't see why it's such a big deal to upgrade from XP.
Windows 7 already has a service pack, it's been out since 2009 now, it's more than "mature" enough to upgrade to. The way both 2k and XP are so closely related is exactly why I'm making the comparison. 2k support ends, people had to upgrade to XP for continued support. Even though they were both very similar, people upgraded for security and support of the OS, not the little new functionality XP offered.
Windows 7 is just a modern OS based on NT, and being honest is very little different to XP.
Driver support for 7 is also pretty good, but you will find some device vendors who offer f**k all support, the same way some Windows 95/98 boxes are still in use to run legacy hardware, off the internet :P

Nick

Torqay

It should also be noted, that security exploits in a lot of every-day software (web browsers, Adobe Reader, Java... to name but the most notorious) are much more problematic than those in a particular operaiting system.

Yes, XP does create a user account with full admin rights out of the box but this is easily remedied. Other than that it is just as safe (or unsafe) as its sucessors. At least for now.

Come next year and see what Windows 9 has got to offer.

yoyo

Torqay wrote: »

It should also be noted, that security exploits in a lot of every-day software (web browsers, Adobe Reader, Java... to name but the most notorious) are much more problematic than those in a particular operaiting system.

Yes, XP does create a user account with full admin rights out of the box but this is easily remedied. Other than that it is just as safe (or unsafe) as its sucessors. At least for now.

Come next year and see what Windows 9 has got to offer.

Now which of your average "joe soap" users are going to create an admin account (with password ) and then create a standard user account to use day to day? Never something I've come across in all my years of using computers. Also XP doesn't have UAC so knowing if a program needs elevated permissions can be a pita, right clicking and run as administrator. It's much more seamless Vista onwards.
True about the browser plugins et al., but I've just seen to many XP machines even on SP3 f**ked up majorly with viruses and malware, and Vista onwards just does not seem to get hit as badly. Partly I reckon due to UAC/lessened permissions out of the box. App data is the only directory writeable without admin permissions whereas if malware executes on XP you can have the infection scattered everywhere including attached to system files. I've seen some 7 machines with rootkits (due to the individual consenting to install something dodgy) but they don't seem to come out has a screwed as XP does.
Also Windows 8 doesn't allow installation of untrusted drivers unless you boot into a special mode, excellent idea

Nick

Torqay

yoyo wrote: »

Partly I reckon due to UAC/lessened permissions out of the box.

Maybe so, but then there are plenty people who think "UAC is not for me" and have done away with it.

yoyo

Torqay wrote: »

Maybe so, but then there are plenty people who think "UAC is not for me" and have done away with it.

Theres also plenty who just accept it without knowing what it is too . They are typically the ones who'd most need it.

Nick

boarsboard

most companys stopped making drivers and software for xp years ago
so its not worth keeping xp alive

Torqay

boarsboard wrote: »

most companys stopped making drivers and software for xp years ago

This is just not true.

Just because some OEMs don't offer device drivers for other operating systems than the one originally shipped with the computer, it doesn't mean there are no drivers available from the part manufacturer. You still get pretty much every piece of mainstream hardware to work with XP. Even Nvidia and AMD still support Windows XP with their latest generation GPUs. The biggie now is the new Haswell chipsets no longer supporting XP.

And software makers would be more than stupid by locking themselves out of 40% of the Windows market.

Mr. G

PropJoe10 wrote: »

Its going to be very interesting. I would hope that AV vendors stop supporting XP which might focus the general user - most general users are familiar with the importance of antivirus software, even if they arent as clued-in when it comes to Windows updates. Roll on next April, I say

You'd be surprised how many people never bother installing updates, especially service packs. Several times this year I had to update service packs on XP machines, along with a load of other updates too.

I prefer Win 7 to XP, yet sometimes I wish I was back on XP.

Many schools and businesses still use XP, heck there's ATMs on Windows 2000. I don't think there'll be a mad rush to ditch XP just because its no longer supported by Microsoft.

Selling it as mentioned above won't happen. There are too many businesses using it, Microsoft won't let it go

PropJoe10

boarsboard wrote: »

most companys stopped making drivers and software for xp years ago
so its not worth keeping xp alive

No idea where you're getting this from, I've never had any trouble getting hardware to work with XP, even recently released hardware. XP still takes up about 40% of the Windows market, so what you've said doesnt really make sense at all.

200motels

Mr. G wrote: »

You'd be surprised how many people never bother installing updates, especially service packs. Several times this year I had to update service packs on XP machines, along with a load of other updates too.

I prefer Win 7 to XP, yet sometimes I wish I was back on XP.

Many schools and businesses still use XP, heck there's ATMs on Windows 2000. I don't think there'll be a mad rush to ditch XP just because its no longer supported by Microsoft.

Selling it as mentioned above won't happen. There are too many businesses using it, Microsoft won't let it go

I fixed a PC yesterday with XP on it, it hadn't one service pack installed, and they were wondering why it wasn't working properly.

yoyo

PropJoe10 wrote: »

No idea where you're getting this from, I've never had any trouble getting hardware to work with XP, even recently released hardware. XP still takes up about 40% of the Windows market, so what you've said doesnt really make sense at all.

When EOL approaches though hardware vendors will likely avoid XP for newer products, some may still decide to support it even after. Many video games nowadays don't support XP (mainly Direct X reasons) and sooner or later the physical hardware like printers, scanners, webcams et al. will likely follow suit.
I would agree with you though XP is still "actively" supported for hardware products I've had to install recently, but come next year I expect this will be reduced

Nick

PropJoe10

yoyo wrote: »

When EOL approaches though hardware vendors will likely avoid XP for newer products, some may still decide to support it even after. Many video games nowadays don't support XP (mainly Direct X reasons) and sooner or later the physical hardware like printers, scanners, webcams et al. will likely follow suit.
I would agree with you though XP is still "actively" supported for hardware products I've had to install recently, but come next year I expect this will be reduced

Nick

Yep it definitely will, I'd imagine that not too many hardware manufacturers will want to be associated with XP after next April. But it really depends on how far the XP user numbers drop, I guess.

The main user group that'll be affected will be older people that have had their computers for years and just use them for email. it'd hardly be worth their while to buy a new machine. I've a few family members in this situation, I think I will move them onto Lubuntu or something like that. I'm expecting to see Linux use jump quite a bit next year (hopefully anyway!)