Microsoft announce End-Of-Life dates for Windows XP
-
Well, actually they don't - this article[^] announces the release of 'Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2c'. There's nothing actually new, feature-wise or even patch-wise, in this release, except in the product key logic - Windows XP has now been out for so long, and sold so many copies, that Microsoft have run out of product keys! But it does add some information I haven't seen before - that Windows XP will stop being available through retail channels in January 31 2008, and from OEMs a year later than that. You should be aware that XP Professional product keys you receive from September onwards will only work with these new discs, not with older ones. Presumably new MSDN subscribers will have the same issue. I imagine you might have to update any system images you're using as well.
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
-
Well, actually they don't - this article[^] announces the release of 'Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2c'. There's nothing actually new, feature-wise or even patch-wise, in this release, except in the product key logic - Windows XP has now been out for so long, and sold so many copies, that Microsoft have run out of product keys! But it does add some information I haven't seen before - that Windows XP will stop being available through retail channels in January 31 2008, and from OEMs a year later than that. You should be aware that XP Professional product keys you receive from September onwards will only work with these new discs, not with older ones. Presumably new MSDN subscribers will have the same issue. I imagine you might have to update any system images you're using as well.
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
Mike Dimmick wrote:
Windows XP will stop being available through retail channels in January 31 2008, and from OEMs a year later than that.
Is that a change? I thought OEMs were being stopped after Jan 31 2008 too?
Kevin
-
Well, actually they don't - this article[^] announces the release of 'Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2c'. There's nothing actually new, feature-wise or even patch-wise, in this release, except in the product key logic - Windows XP has now been out for so long, and sold so many copies, that Microsoft have run out of product keys! But it does add some information I haven't seen before - that Windows XP will stop being available through retail channels in January 31 2008, and from OEMs a year later than that. You should be aware that XP Professional product keys you receive from September onwards will only work with these new discs, not with older ones. Presumably new MSDN subscribers will have the same issue. I imagine you might have to update any system images you're using as well.
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
Again?
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
Well, actually they don't - this article[^] announces the release of 'Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2c'. There's nothing actually new, feature-wise or even patch-wise, in this release, except in the product key logic - Windows XP has now been out for so long, and sold so many copies, that Microsoft have run out of product keys! But it does add some information I haven't seen before - that Windows XP will stop being available through retail channels in January 31 2008, and from OEMs a year later than that. You should be aware that XP Professional product keys you receive from September onwards will only work with these new discs, not with older ones. Presumably new MSDN subscribers will have the same issue. I imagine you might have to update any system images you're using as well.
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
Whenever I need a Windows machine (usually a virtual one in VMWare or Parallels) I install Windows XP. It works, with the updates it is secure and on modern hardware it runs well. I tried Vista out once but as a casual Windows user it offered nothing I needed but ate up more resources and gave more trouble. At the end of its life Microsoft should think about donating Windows XP (and Windows 2000) to the community in some form. I know they won't, but they should. (Thanks for the info. I see Vista on the horizon, hopefully by the time I am forced to use it something better has been released and I can skip it alltogether.)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
-
Whenever I need a Windows machine (usually a virtual one in VMWare or Parallels) I install Windows XP. It works, with the updates it is secure and on modern hardware it runs well. I tried Vista out once but as a casual Windows user it offered nothing I needed but ate up more resources and gave more trouble. At the end of its life Microsoft should think about donating Windows XP (and Windows 2000) to the community in some form. I know they won't, but they should. (Thanks for the info. I see Vista on the horizon, hopefully by the time I am forced to use it something better has been released and I can skip it alltogether.)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
I agree: have been using Vista for a while and whilst I liked it at first I'm getting more and more irritated with it's general crappiness. It is pretty but so what? If I wan't deep into a project and can't afford the down time I'd wipe the hard disk and go back to that gorgeous little XP.
-
Well, actually they don't - this article[^] announces the release of 'Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2c'. There's nothing actually new, feature-wise or even patch-wise, in this release, except in the product key logic - Windows XP has now been out for so long, and sold so many copies, that Microsoft have run out of product keys! But it does add some information I haven't seen before - that Windows XP will stop being available through retail channels in January 31 2008, and from OEMs a year later than that. You should be aware that XP Professional product keys you receive from September onwards will only work with these new discs, not with older ones. Presumably new MSDN subscribers will have the same issue. I imagine you might have to update any system images you're using as well.
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
Not really clear from the article, but is that only going to be a keychange, or will it also include a rollup of the ~100 updates that fire off when you make a clean install at this point?
-- You have to explain to them [VB coders] what you mean by "typed". their first response is likely to be something like, "Of course my code is typed. Do you think i magically project it onto the screen with the power of my mind?" --- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
-
Whenever I need a Windows machine (usually a virtual one in VMWare or Parallels) I install Windows XP. It works, with the updates it is secure and on modern hardware it runs well. I tried Vista out once but as a casual Windows user it offered nothing I needed but ate up more resources and gave more trouble. At the end of its life Microsoft should think about donating Windows XP (and Windows 2000) to the community in some form. I know they won't, but they should. (Thanks for the info. I see Vista on the horizon, hopefully by the time I am forced to use it something better has been released and I can skip it alltogether.)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
Paul Watson wrote:
At the end of its life Microsoft should think about donating Windows XP (and Windows 2000) to the community in some form. I know they won't, but they should.
They will only do this kind of thing if and when they lose their monopoly.
Kevin
-
Not really clear from the article, but is that only going to be a keychange, or will it also include a rollup of the ~100 updates that fire off when you make a clean install at this point?
-- You have to explain to them [VB coders] what you mean by "typed". their first response is likely to be something like, "Of course my code is typed. Do you think i magically project it onto the screen with the power of my mind?" --- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
The page only says "[t]here are no other features or fixes included in this service pack". It's possible for system builders to slipstream updates into the image, but few do. The Security Bulletin Search[^] page shows 79 security bulletins that haven't been superseded by another update since XP SP2 was released. It may seem incredible, but XP SP2 has now been out for three years! It was released in August 2004.
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
-
The page only says "[t]here are no other features or fixes included in this service pack". It's possible for system builders to slipstream updates into the image, but few do. The Security Bulletin Search[^] page shows 79 security bulletins that haven't been superseded by another update since XP SP2 was released. It may seem incredible, but XP SP2 has now been out for three years! It was released in August 2004.
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
and once you add all the useful optional stuff and patches for it, you get into the high 90s. At a minimum, a rollup SP is badly needed.
-- You have to explain to them [VB coders] what you mean by "typed". their first response is likely to be something like, "Of course my code is typed. Do you think i magically project it onto the screen with the power of my mind?" --- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
-
and once you add all the useful optional stuff and patches for it, you get into the high 90s. At a minimum, a rollup SP is badly needed.
-- You have to explain to them [VB coders] what you mean by "typed". their first response is likely to be something like, "Of course my code is typed. Do you think i magically project it onto the screen with the power of my mind?" --- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
XP SP3 has just recently gone into beta test. However, I expect this to be a regular service pack, like Windows Server 2003 SP2 was - it won't have any new features, only security patches and all other hotfixes that MS have produced over the last three years. The only major technology change to have occurred since XP SP2 released is the change from AGP to PCI Express systems, and even this does not require new drivers - it's programmable in the same way as PCI (even AGP looks like a PCI bus to the OS, just a particularly fast one). It does have some new features that need to be specifically programmed for, like prioritisation, but the benefit is not worth perturbing XP for. In comparison, XP SP1 introduced support for 48-bit Logical Block Addressing, to support IDE drives connected to the (BIOS-compatible) controller which are bigger than 128GB. That was a requirement for using all the capacity of such disks. Serial ATA is also a pretty big change at the hardware level, but at the software, programming-interface level, it looks exactly the same as Parallel ATA.
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
