Windows XP Home is another story. As a consumer product, it suffers from two policy deficiencies. First, consumer products do not qualify for Extended Support, but instead move directly into the online support phase after Mainstream Support ends. Second, whereas business products are guaranteed Mainstream Support for two years beyond the release of the next subsequent version of a product (in this case, Windows Vista), consumer products do not get this built-in transitional period. The end result is that Windows XP Home will leave Mainstream Support and enter online support on January 1, 2007—in less than a year.
Microsoft Representative admits this is true:
For Windows XP Home Edition, there will be no security updates after 12/31/06.
God, the shit will really hit the fan then. Millions of PCs completely unprotected from new security threats. I personally think the situation will be so serious as to be a matter of national security. Is Microsoft’s business model of constant upgrades really more important than the security of our nation’s computers?! The US government is too wishy-washy to take on Microsoft, but how will Asia and Europe respond to this threat from Microsoft. Yes this is a threat. Microsoft is telling the world: Buy our upgrade or face the consequences.
And no, I don’t think Microsoft should provide free updates forever. But according to the article XP Professional will get security updates for an additional two years past Vista’s introduction. Thus, Microsoft WILL be creating those security fixes anyway. They will simply hold them from millions of paying XP Home customers for no reason other than to force upgrades to Vista.
Now I’m even happier that I purchased a Mac for home use. I had planned on still using my XP machine occasionally, but now I’m just going to let it rot. Congratulations, Microsoft. You’ve driven away another customer!
Microsoft is just trying to blackmail people to upgrade to Windows Vista (which I call Katrina, see my blog at: http://forevervoyaging.blogspot.com/). The total BS part of this is that Windows XP Pro people will be an additional 2 years of updates while XP Home users go without. Why have 2 versions of Windows now anyway?
Well linux is too difficult for the average person to install and maintain. Windows is starting to scare people. What was that sound? I believe it was my Apple stock rising.
Paul — after 22 years of using M$oft stuff, I bought the 1st Mac Mini in New Mexico just about a year ago. Never looked back.
I moved my XP machine to the edge of my desk > turn it on once a month or so for insecurity updates > and have really only needed it one time to work on some CT-scan images that I couldn’t translate to anything I owned for OS X.
I expect to be ordering my next Mac this year > expanding capabilities for multi-media, IPTV, etc.. I haven’t found any need for the kind of support required to survive XP, either.
Just moved that XP machine to a table the other side of my study.
Can you linux!
It’s extremely doubtful Micro$oft is going to deny XP Home users critical security updates until a few more years has passed. It’d be both hazardous to net users worldwide and irresponsible. Heck, they only recently gave up support patching Win98! Talk about stale bread!
To: Paul, Re: Mac Unix: Call me when it runs on _any_ Intel/AMD PC, not just one built by Apple, and will also run Windows apps (which greatly outnumber Mac apps–a compatibility window is OK). Only then will I consider switching back to Unix.
Floyd — another bonus I discovered after making the change I mentioned above — is that life apparently is easier for folks writing apps for OS X. 99% of anything I’ve added to my repertoire since switching works smooth as a baby’s bottom.
I’m not so far away from my M$oft days that I’ve forgotten how cranky it often was to keep a software package running inside the XP shell. I’m not a code-writer by any stretch; but, the question of “standards” appears to be easier to meet for OS X programmers.
There may be many more packages available for XP. That doesn’t translate to ease of accomplishing tasks or support costs.
Blast Zuke, I didn’t know they stopped patching win98, I still use it.
Steve, I’m not sure about Europe, but I think Asia will move to illegally copying XP Pro, instead of illegally copying XP Home.
If I were M$, I would be making the same announcement now too. Then, once a large chunk of people have upgraded, announce that “we’ve decided to continue supporting XP Home with security patches.” That way, they get the best of both worlds: 1. Everybody who is going to upgrade does so. and 2. They don’t get blamed for leaving XP Home unguarded.
See, they don’t actually HAVE to abandon XPHome, they just SAY they are, “force” the upgrade, then reneg.
Brilliant!
Think that is bad, just wait until they turn off product activation for XP home, so if you ever have to reload it, you’ll be SOL. I predict this will happen shortly after the updates end (less then 1 year)
gquaglia, I agree with you on that. That’s why I’ve never bought nor never will use XP. I don’t like the idea that I buy a product but someone else can tell me how, when, and where I can use it. Why spend MORE money on something that gives you less? It makes no sense.
I’ll stick with W2K until I switch to Linux. No more windows for me, that’s for sure.
I don’t think MS should provide updates for free, I just think they should provide FIXES for a buggy product for free.
If LINUX isn’t there yet – its close.
That makes no sense… I think that the information is totally bogus.
If they were not selling XP Home anymore, and had stopped a couple of years ago, then a “It’s time to upgrade” notice would be expected. But XP Home is shipped by default on most PC’s and laptops, there is no replacement being sold for the next 6 months at least, and Microsoft traditionally keeps supporting their software for several years after it goes out of distribution. The informatiuon posted makes absolutely no sense.
“For Windows XP Home Edition, there will be no security updates after 12/31/06.”
There is a story on this at Ed Bott’s . Where he states that MS is comming out with SP3 late next year and will support the OS (i.e. XP home) for an additional year.
Curse them bastardos, I’m running an XP Home machine. This is so bad, they’re forcing us to go illegal and get a pirated copy of proffessional or for that matter, Vista.
You know what, I’m gonna go and buy me one of those Intel powered macs. Microsoft, is chasing away its customer base with a stick.
No security updates? Gee, how sad..
Well, probably a good time to move to Mac anyway…
Unfortunately, I can’t shift to Linux. Too many clients who won’t, and I need to write for them.
However, this is nonsense.
My belief is that everybody who buys an XP-Home-equipped new machine between now and Vista’s release should either sue them for “fitness” or demand a free upgrade.
(Hardware, too, if necessary. I’m going to have to replace my desktop to run Vista. Unknown if my notebook will support it – it should. Only because clients will start showing up with it and need support from me. That’s how I ended up with XP. Funny thing, I _like_ XP. Vista sounds like there’s nothing there for me except more horsepower to do the same stuff. The average user is running Office and similar packages and AOL. That could be done on a 486 with Win3.x….)
Oh well I’ll have a top of the line intel mac by then.
Screw you Microsoft
Is the picture from Airplane? If so bravo!
Chris Jennings, yep.
Did Microsoft say anything about XP Pro? I guess it really doesn’t matter that much to me ’cause I’m going to get Vista Ultimate Edition anyways… I’ve considered Macs before, but the main thing that I didn’t like was the proprietary software and ok-components. I guess that issue should be cleared now that we have x86 OS X. I’m a gamer, so I need games and Macs don’t have much of that either. Unless Apple adopts DirectX (or there own counterpart), I’m not adopting Apple either.
I consider the Mac interface one of the most non-intuitive, user-hostile interfaces ever made. Finding anything is a chore compared to XP. It is not amendable to a power user that likes things at their finger tips and don’t get me started on the whole menu-stays-at-top thing. I’ve yet to meet, in person, a power Mac user that was not artisy-fartsy or in sales/marketing. No offense to Mac people, but if Mickeysoft falls on its face, it’ll be Linux or some variant thereof that takes over not Mac.
The sky is falling. This post is inaccurate. They will not stop providing security patches in 2007.
They stop support for mainsteam enhancements, not security patches. That’s why they are still supporting security updates. These go for 5 years of the mainstream phase and 5 years of the extended phase). You can still get updates for Windows 2000 for that same reason.
You can find out more on the Microsoft site, here’s just one starting point: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy
Quote: “Security updates will be available through the end of the extended support phase (five years mainstream phase plus five years extended support phase) at no additional cost for most products. Security updates will be posted on the Windows Update Web site during the mainstream support phase, and during the first two years of extended support. In the final three years of the extended support period, Microsoft will continue to post important and critical security updates on the Microsoft Download Center Web site.”
MS proves again there are no differences between Microsoft and a Drug Dealer.
“Well linux is too difficult for the average person to install and maintain. Windows is starting to scare people. What was that sound? I believe it was my Apple stock rising.
Comment by paddler”
Don’t single out Linux just for the hell of it. Every OS is too difficult for the “average person” to install and maintain. You have to reinstall every OS once. People are simply too lazy to learn how to use the OS. The only reason Windows and OSX seem easier is the fact the come pre-installed out of the box.
You don’t have to learn up front.
bah, people running xp home deserve all the pain they can get for being stupid enough to actually use it. this os is worse than ms ME.
from the thread responses looks like theres some linux folks here… dsl distros all the way (damn small linux), all other distros are teh lame.
IMO, Microsoft’s ultimate downfall will be when another OS competitor can market the fact that they are also an amazing gaming machine. If they can make OpenGL a darling of the game programming community, Linux will find it’s “monopoly killer”. If every hot game on the market could be run on Linux without sacrifices or configuration problems, there would be little need/desire for M$’s OS’s and abuses for the average user. Lead the gamers and the apps will follow. This should be the goal of desktop Linux.