April 8 2014: The end of Windows XP

Philip
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The fact that Pete had no idea shows how much they f'd up that release then!
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Pete
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Oh I knew it was possible. However I tried last time and no matter how hard I tried one of the metro apps would always manage to appear, ruining my day. The difference is, it's now a lot easier.

Actually, I think the big thing is you can now right click a tile and click uninstall, or fuck off as I'd have worded the option. In a slightly perverse way, it's the massive usability improvements in metro for those with keyboard and mice that have allowed it to be ignored easier.
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Philip
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Microsoft poking fun at themselves:

http://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualizati ... pe-from-xp
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cwathen
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So, almost 2 months on we've had an update for IE8 released after the end of support date, and over the last week, a simple loophole which will deliver updates for a further 5 years has been uncovered (provided of course Microsoft do not close it).

'Windows Embedded POSready 2009', designed for use as an OS for EPOS tills and ATMs (although most such equipment I've seen actually runs standard XP Pro) is based on XP Professional (and not Windows Embedded despite the name). By 'based on' you can pretty much substitute 'very light rebranding of', it's pretty much the same OS.

POSready 2009 still has a further 5 years of extended support to run, and by hacking the registry to report to Windows Update that you are running it rather than XP, these updates will download and install on XP too. Microsoft is quick to point out that these are not intended for XP, not tested for it and so should not be relied upon, but so far they seem to work just fine.

Looks like the OS that refuses to die is still fighting back from beyond the grave then...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly ... f-support/
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Nick Harvey
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Mmmmmm. Seems to bring down updates that pretending to be a government copy of XP doesn't bring down. We shall see what transpires. I'll keep you posted.
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WillPS
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cwathen wrote:So, almost 2 months on we've had an update for IE8 released after the end of support date, and over the last week, a simple loophole which will deliver updates for a further 5 years has been uncovered (provided of course Microsoft do not close it).

'Windows Embedded POSready 2009', designed for use as an OS for EPOS tills and ATMs (although most such equipment I've seen actually runs standard XP Pro) is based on XP Professional (and not Windows Embedded despite the name). By 'based on' you can pretty much substitute 'very light rebranding of', it's pretty much the same OS.

POSready 2009 still has a further 5 years of extended support to run, and by hacking the registry to report to Windows Update that you are running it rather than XP, these updates will download and install on XP too. Microsoft is quick to point out that these are not intended for XP, not tested for it and so should not be relied upon, but so far they seem to work just fine.

Looks like the OS that refuses to die is still fighting back from beyond the grave then...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly ... f-support/
I wonder if, given the very low sales base for the product, Microsoft will find a way of ceasing support early while appeasing genuine users of that product?
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cwathen
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WillPS wrote:I wonder if, given the very low sales base for the product, Microsoft will find a way of ceasing support early while appeasing genuine users of that product?
I'm not sure they can do that. You can actually still download a trial version from Microsoft's website. I got curious and installed it in Virtual PC. Despite it's name it is just a full general-purpose version of XP Professional, including Internet Explorer and even fricking Wordpad and Paint! The only differences I have seen is that it has a different installer, cuts out some fluff (no games or the standard desktop wallpapers) and has a (gorgeous) Metallic blue theme (which surely is utterly pointless since no one using the OS for its intended purpose would ever see it). The rebrand isn't even complete - it boots up with the standard XP splash screen and the command prompt still reports that it is XP!

Given that it was released only a few months before Windows 7 at a time when all other development had moved over to the NT6 codebase, it seems obvious to me that it's nothing other than 'Windows XP Professional SP3 Extended Support Edition' but was released under an obscure name to try and hide that fact - with the target market of EPOS/ATM vendors being because that kind of software seems the most likely to have quirks which will prevent it from running under newer versions.

Given also that there seems to be no advantage to using it over standard XP except for now, when it remains supported after XP has been retired, I would imagine that anyone using it would be pretty peeved if Microsoft tried pulling the plug when extended support would seem to be the only reason to have plumped for PosReady 2009 in the first place.

Whilst doubtless it won't be very common and will have few customers, it is also extremely likely that the customers it does have will have bulk licencing of thousands of copies and so will be able to shout a lot louder about any attempt to end support early than an individual user can, and will be especially likely to do that as Microsoft pulling support early may have a knock-on effect on support provided to their own customers who will have gone with that supplier on the basis that their hardware would be running a secure and supporting operating system until 2019.

Also, there would seem to be no reason for Microsoft to end support early other than to close off this loophole which now exists - and doing that just smacks of desperation.

As I've said before, I think the real problem Microsoft are up against is that the pace and desire for change and updates that fuelled the PC market in the 90's and 00's has dried up. Nowadays, people have hardware on their desk which is ridiculously over specified for what it actually gets used for, and so some 10 year old Pentium 4 with 512MB of RAM running XP still covers everything a lot of people want even though such a machine belongs to a different generation of PC. The constant desire to upgrade and get the new shiny things that come with it which used to exist isn't there any more as people who aren't even close to the limits of what their existing, outdated system can do won't see a need to shell out for something newer, and so Microsoft are left with the XP problem.

Oh, and for the interested, here's a screenshot of Windows Embedded PosReady 2009 doing decidedly non Embedded and non POS things(click on the link to see the whole screen):
http://up.metropol247.co.uk/cwathen/posready2009.jpg
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cwathen
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Today is the end of support date for Windows Server 2003, and also the final nail in the coffin for XP. After security updates ended last year, they continued to provide monthly updates to the Malicious software removal tool and definition updates for Security Essentials for users who already had it (read: users who had already downloaded it or could source it from somewhere other than Microsoft's site), you were still able to install it after the end of support date and update it just fine). Today marks the final set of these updates, XP is now totally unsupported (unless you have some insanely expensive paid support deal of which a few are still around).

Presumably though the PosReady 2009 hack will still allow definition updates for Security Essentials.

According to NetMarketShare, XP's share has dropped dramatically over the past year from the 25% it was at, but nevertheless it still commands 12% of desktop market share (which includes MacOS) which is very high given it is 14 years old, officially replaced 9 years ago and hasn't been sold for 5 years. By Contrast, Windows 8.1 is only at 13%. These numbers also don't take into account the number of specialist use systems still running XP (cash machines, EPOS, controllers for factory equipment etc) which will be much harder to track, and it is interesting to note how many large businesses still haven't moved on - I noticed when Natwest did their refit in Exeter which brought PC's out into the banking hall that their entire branch network is still on XP Professional.

On another note, it was interesting to see that Windows 7 is still growing despite being more than 5 years old and 2 weeks away from being 2 versions out of date - it has grown from 51% to 61% in the past year, which is a faster rate of growth than Windows 8.1 has achieved.
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WillPS
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It's not that surprising given business take up of Windows 8/8.1 has been almost nil on the grounds that it would cause no end of trouble for IT departments who would have to retrain or at least provide quite a lot of help to end users. Their incentive to do that, given 10 essentially undoes that problem.

There are still some things I know how to do in 7 but not in 8, managing wireless networks is one example of a mess between old and metro.
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Nick Harvey
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Yes, the POSReady hack still works a treat.

Looking forward to the end of the month and only two versions, XP (POSReady) and 10 to support across the family and friends.
Alexia
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Still going strong here, had another set of updates on Tuesday night.

Supported or not, I reckon the mix of 3rd party apps I've got will keep me going for a while. To be honest the hardware will probably clunk out first....
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