What will you do when XP is discontinued?

[Net]

Once XP is discontinued what will you do?

This question is for all those like me who have hardware that isn't comfortably fast or doesn't meet the requirements for vista.

(might i add that the same hardware is comfortably fast in XP, cry)

 

[lxskllr]

I imagine I'll be retiring my Vista box for Windows 7 ;^)

 

[QuixoticOne]

If you're using legacy hardware, presumably you likely own the legacy OS (XP) already that runs it, and hence don't need to worry about being able to buy XP in the future.

I can't think of any reason why one would care if XP sales are discontinued if one already owns a copy and
it is working for one's legacy H/W. I guess if you're unfortunate enough to have an OEM PC that ran XP
but came with NO real OS installation CD and then that system breaks one can end up screwed over and
needing to buy a copy of XP so one can use it on a replacement motherboard along with one's legacy
sound card / scanner / webcam / printer / joystick / network card / whatever. If one is likely to be in the position
of needing an XP install CD that one doesn't already own then, yeah, it'd be good to get one from ebay or a vendor
or something ASAP.

If you're worried about the discontinuation of *support* and *security updates* for XP, yes, that's certainly a valid
concern for a production system especially if it is exposed to the internet at all. I suspect the major anti-virus and
anti-spyware companies will continue to actively support XP with their newer updates better and longer than
Microsoft may. Fortunately at least new web browsers like Firefox will continue to be updated for XP to help
improve the security risks there. Ditto for things like email clients, office / document software, et. al.

Personally I just bought a few copies of XP in a close-out sale for way below retail cost and I figured they'd
be enough for my needs until I just didn't care about XP anymore. These days it's more likely that I'd be interested
in running it in a VM to handle legacy software than I'd be interested in running it on a newly setup PC.

Also LINUX is doing a good job supporting a lot of the lower powered systems and legacy devices that Vista wouldn't run well with. So if it meets your needs, it can be a good way to use existing legacy hardware and lower capabilty
old PCs and put them to good use. With WINE you can even run a useful subset of XP software under LINUX.

Vista is "ok" IMHO and runs tolerably well on newer relatively more powerful hardware, but even so, I am
minimizing my use of both XP and Vista and migrating more and more of my daily use over to LINUX whether
on newer or older generations of systems. When that fails, there's always a VM of Vista/XP/NT/whatever.

 

[Cutthroat]

Originally posted by: net
Once XP is discontinued what will you do?

This question is for all those like me who have hardware that isn't comfortably fast or doesn't meet the requirements for vista.

(might i add that the same hardware is comfortably fast in XP, cry)

If you are talking about support, it's so far away before EOL for XP that you won't care. You will have certainly upgraded by then.

As far as new copies go, it doesn't make a lot of sense to buy a copy of XP at this point, you could by a low end system with Vista installed for not a lot more.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: QuixoticOne
If you're worried about the discontinuation of *support* and *security updates* for XP, yes, that's certainly a valid
concern for a production system especially if it is exposed to the internet at all. I suspect the major anti-virus and
anti-spyware companies will continue to actively support XP with their newer updates better and longer than
Microsoft may.

I agree with your entire statement - but what are you doing word wrap-wise that causes hard returns in the middle of your sentences? Makes it hard to read.

 

[bruceb]

Corky .. I get the same thing happening in Firefox now and then ... on this forum I have to watch how I type, then preview it and sometimes backspace a character or two .. Personally I think it's a bug in the forum program.

 

[Bateluer]

Even for the cheap bastards, a machine that will run Vista perfectly well can be had for under 300 dollars.

 

[ultra laser]

If Microsoft refuses to sell you their product, there's always another method of obtaining it.

 

[Ol Bob]

My concern is what will happen with XP when microsoft decides its time for everyone to upgrade and enforces this by refusing to activate any new installs .

 

[drebo]

The XP activation servers are the same for Vista. They will never go offline.

What will happen presumably 6 years from now is that Microsoft will go End of Support for XP, similar to what they did for Windows 98 a couple years ago, and will only provide security patches. By then, though, anyone still running XP is either stupid or subborn.

At this point, IT IS STILL POSSIBLE TO LICENSE NEW COPIES OF XP, even though you can no longer buy them. All you need to do is buy a Vista Business or Ultimate license and you can legally install XP Professional on your system.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: Ol Bob
My concern is what will happen with XP when microsoft decides its time for everyone to upgrade and enforces this by refusing to activate any new installs .

Extended support will last until April 8, 2014, nearly 6 years from now...most here will probably be running Windows 7 or at least Vista and many of us will be probably even be running Windows 8 by then (or at least discussion the transition from Windows 7).

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Ol Bob
My concern is what will happen with XP when microsoft decides its time for everyone to upgrade and enforces this by refusing to activate any new installs .

Microsoft has already stated that at end of life they will provide a patch to remove the need to activate, this was done to deal with exactly this concern.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: corkyg
I agree with your entire statement - but what are you doing word wrap-wise that causes hard returns in the middle of your sentences? Makes it hard to read.

Not seeing that in IE 7.x in Vista.

 

[Modelworks]

Keep using the same software I am using.
It works now, it will work when xp is retired.
OS is only a real concern for people that update things often.
I know of systems that still run in dos running the same software for years and years.

 

[QuixoticOne]

I don't quite know what the problem is. The composition window is hardly WYSIWYG since the wrapping is controlled by the reader's browser client as well as the forum formatting engine so it is hard to know how to break/format any parts that are especially important to distinguish. Whenever there is a hard line break it is probably just because I hit return during composition because as composition time the run-on text got hard to parse when proofreading or didn't look good.

The preview thing doesn't work well for me, and even if it did, going back to edit for aesthetic formatting reasons on a non WYSIWYG composition window is just to painful to deal with.

Originally posted by: corkyg
I agree with your entire statement - but what are you doing word wrap-wise that causes hard returns in the middle of your sentences? Makes it hard to read.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: drebo
All you need to do is buy an OEM Vista Business or Ultimate license and you can legally install XP Professional on your system.

Clarified OEM licenses get you downgrade rights, retail ones do not.

There'll be the question of driver support for WinXP, though... try finding Win98/ME drivers for today's hardware, as a case in point.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
There'll be the question of driver support for WinXP, though... try finding Win98/ME drivers for today's hardware, as a case in point.

It certainly will be a problem eventually. But with each generation of Windows, the install base has increased enormously. There's gonna' be a LOT of XP computers in homes and offices for quite a while, making a larger payoff for vendors to supply drivers for their devices.

 

[Jeff7181]

I'll wonder why general consumers give a shit, since corporations are the only ones who should care, just like when support for Windows 2000 was discontinued.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I'll wonder why general consumers give a shit, since corporations are the only ones who should care, just like when support for Windows 2000 was discontinued.

But Windows 2000 was only sold for two years and was mostly limited to businesses. How many XP computers are in homes? Worldwide, I'm pretty sure we are talking hundreds of millions, most doing everything needed by the typical consumer.

The U.S. alone has 850 PCs per 1000 people while China has 111 PCs per thousand people (Source: Garner, 2008). The bulk are XP. Many of those won't comfortably handle Vista, so their XP OSes will need to be maintained until they are replaced with new Vista-loaded PCs.

 

[Snapster]

At home I'll probably still be using Windows 7 by that time, or moving to Windows 8. At Work I'm sure most rigs will be Vista or Windows 7 and I'll be retiring the last XP box that was kept for legacy checking.

 

[sourceninja]

I made my choice years ago that I did not like the direction MS was taking for their OS and I made the switch to linux. More recently I have moved to mac and I have found the experience enjoyable. I'll stay in those worlds until microsoft has something I feel is worth using.

 

[Smilin]

I'll be clapping my lil hands because I won't have to support that crusty old thing anymore.

 

[toadeater]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
It certainly will be a problem eventually. But with each generation of Windows, the install base has increased enormously. There's gonna' be a LOT of XP computers in homes and offices for quite a while, making a larger payoff for vendors to supply drivers for their devices.

Vista's marketshare at best is 16% right now. I suspect the number of active installations is lower than that, and dual-boots and downgrades aren't taken into consideration in that figure. So with XP's marketshare of about 70% (including OS X, Linux, etc), there isn't going to be a lack of drivers anytime soon. Not before Windows 7 is out.

Vista is going nowhere. It may reach 50% marketshare by 2010, at which point Vista SP2, AKA Windows 7, will be out and everyone who was sitting on the fence will either get it or ditch Windows once and for all--depending on how it turns out. I assume since it's the same kernel, Windows 7 will be quite a bit better than Vista because it won't have the same problems that Vista had with introducing a new driver model, new TCP/IP stack, new DX-based GUI display system, etc.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I'll wonder why general consumers give a shit, since corporations are the only ones who should care, just like when support for Windows 2000 was discontinued.

But Windows 2000 was only sold for two years and was mostly limited to businesses. How many XP computers are in homes? Worldwide, I'm pretty sure we are talking hundreds of millions, most doing everything needed by the typical consumer.

The U.S. alone has 850 PCs per 1000 people while China has 111 PCs per thousand people (Source: Garner, 2008). The bulk are XP. Many of those won't comfortably handle Vista, so their XP OSes will need to be maintained until they are replaced with new Vista-loaded PCs.

By the time support for XP is discontinued we'll likely be using the successor to the successor of Windows 7. Again, not something the general consumer has to worry about... it's corporations who have millions invested in their personal computers that worry about upgrade cycles being too frequent.

*EDIT* And there are of course companies who will continue to use hardware and software well after support for it has been discontinued. (I work with NT 4 and Windows 98 boxes daily)

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: Smilin
I'll be clapping my lil hands because I won't have to support that crusty old thing anymore.

Agreed!... I'll be glad when XP is finally gone,personally Microsoft should phase it out ASAP and just concentrate on Vista,Windows 7 etc...which would free up more of their resources.. XP has had more then a good run,users certainly can't say it has not be supported long enough.



Side Note its nice to see Vista x64 sales growing.