I very much doubt that systems were easily available with Windows XP in 2010. My guess is that the default would have been Windows 7 and the customer would have had to specifically request that Windows XP be provided. Presumably such a customer was aware that Windows XP was already obsolete.
They shouldn’t?
Because Steophan proclaimed it?
Your mistake is believing that most purchasers of computers think about updates when buying the machine. Computers are quite anomalous in this regard - nothing else we buy needs ‘updates’ in order to continue to function, just normal care and maintenance. And the computer biz semi-conceals this difference by making most of the updates automatic.
Also, we’ve gotten to the point in the evolution of computers where people simply expect them to keep functioning longer. Used to be that a computer you got three years ago was starting to have trouble coping with an online universe where webpages were much more sophisticated (and required much more in the way of your computer’s resources) than they did a few years earlier. Unless you’re into online gaming, that’s slowed down considerably. Also, the XP operating system itself is less buggy than its predecessors, and the combination of PC and XP just keeps on going.
Just like I now expect a new car to be reliable for 10-12 years, though I can remember when 3-4 years used to be the norm, I can’t see why I shouldn’t expect the same sort of increasing longevity from a computer. If that’s dependent on continued updates of the OS, then either the manufacturer should keep updating it, or hand it over to some nonprofit, open-source group that will.
The notion that my computer will be obsolete for no better reason than Because We Have Decided Its Time Has Come is just bullshit. Nothing else works that way. Honda doesn’t decide that my 2000 Accord will no longer work, Amana doesn’t decide that their 1994-vintage refrigerator that I own will stop working, Sears doesn’t tell me that my Craftsman mower’s time has come after 10 years…you get the idea.
again, it was still sold in 2010. 3 years is too short a time span to abandon a product that was sold to the public. If nothing else it was a cash cow they were milking for what amounts to pure profit.
What? I genuinely don’t understand the comparison you are making. Are you saying that Craftsman will service your lawnmower for free after 10 years?
Also, this discontinued candy I bought off ebay is stale and tasteless! The manufacturer owes me recompense!
The fact that it needs a “patch” means it’s faulty. There is no wear and tear on software. It either works or it doesn’t. If they want to use the consumer as a beta tester for their software at least they could fix it for 10 years after the last sale.
Funny you should mention Craftsman products. I returned a 20 year old ratchet and got a replacement for free. As for parts support, they are known for stocking parts for many many years on their lawn mowers. Don’t know if all their products are as well served but their mowers are great to work on because of this.
Ah, I see you were responding to RTFirefly. The statement still stands though.
Thanks for clarifying. I’m guessing that with 500 million XP machines running, there are all manner of good and bad reasons for keeping them. Some are running mission-critical legacy software, a lot are in foreign lands, some should have been upgraded years ago, others do just fine. My default assumption is that owners mostly know what they are doing, and that forcing a change from above is likely to lead to inefficiencies.
Sure it’s their decision. And it’s the decision of our elected representatives and courts whether they want to extend fire, police and intellectual property protection to Microsoft. Freedom! Along the same lines, MS owns a highly lucrative public utility, one that could be justifiably subject to regulation. I doubt whether that’s advisable, but threats of the same could focus minds.
Back to the OP.
- Mentioned before, but take a full image of your machine, something you can roll back to.
I opine that if you are an intermediate user with a mission-critical piece of legacy software, that the above should be fine. In fact, you could even stay connected to the internet if it is used occasionally. Let the firewall block internet access most of the time. Keep a backup desktop in the closet, ready to be slid in at a moment’s notice. With all the XP machines soon hitting Ebay, you should be able to buy them cheap. I am an intermediate user, not a power user. Most power users are unqualified to make such assessments: only security professionals should be doing that. In other words the value of my opinion is dubious. Repeat link: article on image and other sorts of backup: Introduction to backup | PCWorld
The above is fiddly and time-intensive. So I guess casual users are going to have to learn Win7 or Bog help us Win8, whether they like it or not. Suck it up gramps! Ditto for umpteen million people who really don’t find computers especially fun. They just want to do their job.
I’m re-evaluating my view of Linux. We might see used XP machines going for $50 or less next year. At those prices it makes sense to [del]buy them up, restore deleted files and sell credit card numbers to the Russians and secrets to the Chinese[/del] buy a couple and experiment with Linux if you have the space. Or if you don’t, ditto with a laptop (though they are more difficult to configure). So 2014 might be good for hobbyists, maybe [del]giant killer[/del] robot builders.
I am in fact under no such mistaken belief.
XP isn’t going to abruptly stop working. The manufacturer has decided to stop servicing your model. That happens in other markets besides computers.
No, it doesn’t. It means it needs updating.
Do you understand the real definitions of “patch,” “faulty,” and “beta tester” at all? Because from this paragraph, I’m guessing the answer is no.
Yes I understand everything I wrote. Do you understand that software that needs to be fixed is faulty? They didn’t add new features, they fixed what didn’t work or was vulnerable in the first place.
And 3 years from the last sale is too soon for something that many corporations rely on. Now they’re going to charge a yearly fee for what is the cost of the software in the first place.
I thought your argument was that naive consumers bought them, unknowing that support life was limited.
Corporations have absolutely no excuse for not seeing this coming a long way off, and making properly-planned decisions. Anyone responsible for deploying desktop computers in a corporate setting, and claiming ignorance of the EOL date for XP, is guilty of gross incompetence.
You clearly didn’t understand it, then. If someone invents a new kind of lockpick, it doesn’t mean all old locks are suddenly faulty. Same with software, except that, with software, you get years - in this case, well over a decade - of updates when new attacks are created.
Another good example is IPv6, which will at some point (the sooner the better, really) become the default for internet addresses, and which is not supported by XP. That’s not a flaw in XP, as it was - and is - not expected to be necessary in the lifespan of that OS. But if you keep using it too long past its obsolescence you’ll simply not be able to access a lot of the web.
So, you’re wrong on every count. We’re not talking about faulty software that needs fixing, we’re talking about the need for continual security updates and somewhat regular feature updates. And with enough feature updates, you have a new OS.
You’re not wrong in saying that Microsoft should be providing these fixes, but you are wrong if you claim it has not done so for long enough. It’s done so for longer than it promised to, a promise that was made 11 years ago when the software launched. This is not something new or unusual, or wrong - the only surprising thing is that they chose to support it for longer.
Windows 7 came out over 4 years ago, so no-one’s been taken by surprise by the existence of a new OS.
Yup - in our medium-sized corporate setting, we were very late in migrating from Win2K to XP - by the time we finished, Windows 7 had been available for a while - and work began almost straight away on migration to Windows 7.
Even before Win7 came out, we knew the new deadline we were facing for XP, and knew we were going to skip Vista.
No one is trying to hack your Accord. No one is trying to hack your lawnmower. No one is trying to hack your refrigerator.
If it required constant vigilance and teams of engineers rolling out weekly updates to keep then lawnmower in your garage running, then Craftsman would have a different support policy. TANSTAAFL.
Microsoft isn’t breaking Windows XP. They’re just not going to fix it when future problems come to light. There will, I’m sure, be Windows XP machines running for many years to come.
As for your computer hardware, it will keep working fine. Go install another OS on it. If you bought it in 2010, I’m sure you can install Linux and a run XP in a virtual machine to keep using whatever XP-only software you need.
Can’t say I’ve ever experienced this in a meaningful* sense with a product that I’d bought in the previous decade or so. Can you give a couple of for-instances?
*‘Meaningful’ means that it has to make a real difference. If Sears chose to no longer service my Kenmore washing machine, it wouldn’t make much difference as long as I could get similar service from an independent repairman. And the absence of the availability of such service wouldn’t make my washing machine any more likely to have problems; it’s just that I’d have to get someone else besides a Sears mechanic to fix it when it did.