On Dec 30, 2012, at 3:25 PM, Mark Wallace wrote:
> It is untenable for Microsoft to phase out support of XP on schedule. It > will either create an after market of companies who will keep the XP systems > running, or some move to Linux or something. the companies are not going to > pay to upgrade their desktops, especially since is the desktop that is > running XP it is fairly old and might be both technically obsolete and not a > high priority use. > > I think that there problem is that XP is different from state of the art to > the point where maintaining a product that they are no longer getting revenue > from is untenable. If you upgrade from XP to seven, the only thing that the > upgrade CD does is make sure that you have a valid XP license and then > completely installs seven from scratch. > > My guess is that Microsoft will give free upgrades to a unique product that > isn't a completely different environment from eight rather but will run on > legacy systems. I am not sure that Linux will be the clear beneficiary, as > it has moved on too. Only Lubuntu among the Ubuntu distros will install on > 386 architecture. > > But I played around with a Windows 8 system for a week and put it back. The > tablet style desktop makes sense until you think about it. Very few people > maintain corporate dbases or do desktop publishing on tablets. You need an > old fashioned start menu, etc for them. Why should Microsoft give free upgrades to an obsolete OS? It may be viewed as unfair for the folks who purchased a netbook in the past couple years with XP, but for customers with systems over eight years old not so much. Just because support will end, does not mean people and business will stop using it. If you go to MHVFCU you will likely see workstations running Windows 2000! I'm sure they're not alone. XP is over 10 years old, and has passed it's shelf life. As stated earlier, Windows 7 will likely run better on systems with 1Gig of RAM or more, compared to the same system running XP fully patched. This is of course if the video and other hardware has drivers available. To put things in perspective, Microsoft is not alone. I build a PC in 2009 expecting to use onboard ATI graphics. I had mixed results with open drivers and proprietary drivers, running Mythbuntu 7.10. Now the same card is considered legacy and no longer supported by ATI. If you purchase new hardware it likely only has a one year warranty, with few exceptions. Personally I think it has been a fairly amazing accomplishment to keep XP supported for so long. I hate to imagine the dollar value invested in such as task. I'm sure MS is still in the black though :) Eric PS: I think we may have drifted from the original post. > > > > > On 12-12-30 09:05 AM, James E. LaBarre wrote: >> On 12/27/2012 07:02 PM, Mark Wallace wrote: >>> I can't believe that Microsoft would be stupid enough to stop supporting >>> XP on schedule, unless they offered the remaining users some sort of >>> free upgrade, but I am old enough to remember the New Coke and the Edsel. >> >> Well, I did some experimenting with Win7, and was able to decruft it enough >> to be usable. Granted, when I customize an install of XP through Win7, it >> ends up looking more like Win2000 (I disable the theming service, shut off >> all effects, etc). Surprisingly, Win7 even ran on a 1G ThinkPad T23, better >> than XP on the same machine. If I could have bought a dirt-cheap license >> for W7 ($25-35, about the most it would be worth), I would have considered >> leaving one clunker in the house running native Windows (not going to waste >> my good hardware on Windows <g>). The only thing I end up using Windows for >> these days is running a couple of Windows applications that need USB >> connectivity; Win7 Starter Edition would be enough to run those. >> >> Really would prefer that MS would make a basic version of Windows at a cheap >> price. Look at the way they package their versions: "Home Ultimate"?? How >> can you have an "Ultimate" version if you don't have a non-ultimate version? >> Like I said; would like buy legitimate upgrades to Win7, but not at the >> prices they sell them at. Would rather give that money to the Wine or >> ReactOS projects to get FLOSS alternatives. >> >> And forget about Win8: I have enough hardware without PAE processor support >> that I can't load it on them, and can't strip the GUI back to a dead-simple >> look anymore. >> _______________________________________________ >> Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org >> http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug >> >> Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) Vassar College >> Jan 9 - High Performance Computing at a Small Scale >> Feb 6 - Raspberry Pi >> Mar 6 - 10th Anniversary Meeting - Linux where you least expect it > > > -- > Mark Wallace > PO Box 11144 > Newburgh, NY 12552-1114 > Telephone: (845) 541-7396 > > _______________________________________________ > Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org > http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug > > Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) Vassar College > Jan 9 - High Performance Computing at a Small Scale > Feb 6 - Raspberry Pi > Mar 6 - 10th Anniversary Meeting - Linux where you least expect it _______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) Vassar College Jan 9 - High Performance Computing at a Small Scale Feb 6 - Raspberry Pi Mar 6 - 10th Anniversary Meeting - Linux where you least expect it
