No More Windows XP?

[markl316]

From what I understand, because not enough people are buying Vista, Microsoft will stop selling XP! I don't know what all of you think, but XP, in my opinion, is 10 times better than vista. Me and my cousin have the exact same computer, and his runs about half as fast because it has vista (I have XP). When I play orbiter on his computer, it takes ten
minutes to load, and it CTD's half the time. I think this is a horrible buisness decision on the part of Microsoft. What do you all think?

 

[MajorTom]

1. I'm not ready for Vista...although I want a new laptop, and some come with XP, the choices seem to be getting fewer and fewer as time progresses. Hard to avoid Vista on a new PC.

2. My company makes Windows-based software, and so far it seems we have very few customers who use Vista (but there are a few). Again, we suspect it's users with new computer systems who were "forced" to take Vista.

3. Lots of screaming from PC users and from the IT community, if you read various boards. Perhaps Vista maybe isn't so terrible, but it does seem to follow the usual MS formula of "Produce bloatware. Force PC upgrade to hardware that's 4 times faster."

As I'm not ready to upgrade my PC, I'm going to avoid Vista as long as I can.

 

[markl316]

The only question is, how much longer can we avoid it? Would I be smart to buy another copy of XP just to have?

 

[agentgonzo]

They are stopping selling it because it's an old product and they are wanting to move on (and quite rightly so, XP is almost 7 years old and patched up to the gills. An unpatched machine lasts 4 minutes on the net before being cracked and MS will spend more and more money supporting an outdated OS if they were forced to keep selling it).

Vista is more memory intensive than XP but the same has been true of all MS releases dating back to 3.1 (and probably before that). Ten minutes to load is definitely wrong, but it won't be Vista's fault - your friend has probably misconfigured his computer or there are other reasons (anti-virus slows down computers massively), or it's just a corrupted install (it happens).

You don't have to use Vista if you don't like it. Microsoft don't have to sell XP if they don't want to.

I went on using 2000 for about 4 years after XP was released because I saw no reason to upgrade. I'm still using XP and probably still will for quite a few years.

 

[MajorTom]

An unpatched machine lasts 4 minutes on the net before being cracked

Mine lasted more like 4 seconds. I was shocked that unpatched XP was so...vulnerable...but that was years ago.

Regarding timing, well, MS keeps going back and forth on this. Enough hue and cry, and they may extend XP's availability a bit longer. But I believe they already gave XP one extension. They can't keep doing so forever.

 

[RangerPL]

XP is much better for gaming than Vista.

Vista, is however better for general "office work" and for the casual user.

 

[DaveS]

From what I understand, because not enough people are buying Vista, Microsoft will stop selling XP! I don't know what all of you think, but XP, in my opinion, is 10 times better than vista. Me and my cousin have the exact same computer, and his runs about half as fast because it has vista (I have XP). When I play orbiter on his computer, it takes ten
minutes to load, and it CTD's half the time. I think this is a horrible buisness decision on the part of Microsoft. What do you all think?

Most likely your cousin's computer doesn't meet Vista's recommended system specs.

Myself I have Vista Home Premium and it runs great! At least as good as XP did on my previous machine. As long as the machine meets the system specs, it will run great and without issues.

Posting the system specs on your machine(s) will be helpful to tell whether you have a XP-rated machine or a Vista-rated machine.

It's like running Orbiter on an old Win95 machine, although you can do it, don't expect any good performance of the software.

 

[Urwumpe]

The only question is, how much longer can we avoid it? Would I be smart to buy another copy of XP just to have?

you can avoid it for some time, the next windows after vista will maybe be better and allow you to skip it.

 

[Scarecrow]

My only real question is what will happen when Microsoft decides to stop activating Windows XP. Will it be impossible to make new installations? Will they reveal a back door?

Does anybody know?

 

[Brad]

My only real question is what will happen when Microsoft decides to stop activating Windows XP. Will it be impossible to make new installations? Will they reveal a back door?

Does anybody know?

According to M$, you should be able to activate Windows XP until the its lifecycle ends. The usual process for that is three version so you should be good until about 2012 or later.

 

[Moonwalker]

Microsoft stopped selling XP for PC's already 14 days ago as far as I know, while for notebooks it's still availabe. The full product support will end next year while the support of security patches will end in 2014 inlcuding the activation service. But I wouldn't rely on it too much...

Microsoft now forces people to buy Vista which has bad sales figures. For me this is the final event not to continue buying and using Microsoft products. I use Linux Ubuntu most time now anyway and I'll change over to it almost completely in future. Ubuntu is a hardcore multi media and multi taksing system, which is something Microsoft never really managed. Not even for Vista which runs like a sloth even by using high-end hardware.

Gaming is something I'll basically do on the Play Station 3 in future. But also running Ubuntu on it by the way

 

[agentgonzo]

Microsoft now forces people to buy Vista which has bad sales figures. For me this is the final event not to continue buying and using Microsoft products.

Why now? How is this so different from when they did this when XP came out and they stopped selling 98 and 2000?

 

[Art]

Ah, but remember how great Win 98 seemed after 95? Every hair-pulling issue I had that was created by shifting from 3.1 and 3.11 after the switch to 95 was almost instantly solved. Now Vista is the new Windows 95. People are knowledgable and wary.
I am sure that I will never buy Vista. Frankly, I can currently download any operating system I want to for free, yet I cannot see that I will ever need Vista. When the time comes to grin and bear it and learn to play with Ubuntu or the like, and the version after Vista will certainly be the next Winbloat I would consider...but only consider.
I miss having the operating system built into ROM.... The instant boots on my Tandy have been missed for about 17 years. That was the last time I purchased an off-the-shelf computer. I still use (most of) the case and power supply (750 watts and a home-made ATX conversion circuit) from my old Zenith 80088. I love the little "turbo 16 mhz" plaque.

 

[Scarecrow]

According to M$, you should be able to activate Windows XP until the its lifecycle ends. The usual process for that is three version so you should be good until about 2012 or later.

So after that, new installations will be impossible?

Thank god for Linux!:beach:

 

[Artlav]

I miss having the operating system built into ROM.... The instant boots on my Tandy 1000 have been missed for about 17 years.

Not everything is lost - some inventive people at http://www.coreboot.org are doing fine in that regard.
For example, they managed to put a linux kernel, Xwin (kdrive), and some tools into a 2Mb BIOS chip, boots in about 8 second. Now, try that with ANY Microsoft OS...

 

[V8Li]

I've used both (now using XP). Vista is underrated and I've herd bad things about it that were not founded. Vista needs extra resources mainly for style (it's design), not much has changed from XP. I've switched back to XP because I haven't found any major difference between XP and Vista and I don't care much about having shiny menus (Vista has some great ones but I won't trade them from some extra resources since I don't have them).

 

[ar81]

When I had to move from DOS to Windows I hated that, because it was just too huge at the time. Every new version was slower and slower.

When I finally started to enjoy Windows 95 and Windows 98, WinXP came and made my classic DOS/Win95/98 games unplayable. I started to feel dislike again.

But at least I had Visual Basic 5. I do not like to use non standard controls and I try to minimize usage of OCX files and I do not like to make installers for competibility purposes.

But now it comes Visual Basic 2005 and 2008 that can't import my VB5 code.
So I was left alone with my games, and now my code.
And if I was using databases, Microsoft plans to render DAO obsolete...
So it means they do not even support their own products which was the supposed advantage of using Microsoft products before Linux.
Microsoft ACT (Compatibility tool) is too cryptic and undocumented... exactly the opposite of the supposed advantage of Microsoft products.

To me, they are pushing me so I want to move to another OS.
Linux is the future.

 

[Urwumpe]

Now, try that with ANY Microsoft OS...

I believe really, a minimum windows OS Kernel could be made to fit in a 2 MB ROM. But other than Linux, this one would require to load data from hard disk to become a full Windows like you know it.

Even Windows Mobile is already 32 MB large.

 

[SlyCoopersButt]

Vista has me nervous mostly because of compatibility issues with older programs but at least my most important ones should work. I'm not going to fight Vista and will simply bite the bullet on it and move on next time I get a computer. I heard that programs cannot be run on the Desktop, Is there a way to override that? That's my favorite place for my game apps and Orbiter for example. The excessive security scares me a lot too because I hate restrictions from areas like system folders where I need access and I DO know what I'm doing with them.

 

[spcefrk]

Vista offers plenty of new goodies. For one thing, my Quad Core CPU isn't being used to it's fullest extent in XP and I'm limited to 4GB of total memory meaning my 512MB graphics card is keeping me from installing more than about 3 GB of RAM and I'm not about to buy two 512 chips just to keep using XP. I'd like to be able to use the full 64 bits out of my processor. I've been seriously debating buying a copy to dual boot with...