April 8 2014: The end of Windows XP

[cwathen]

You may not have realised it, but apparently right now we are on the eve of what some claim could be a technological apocalypse. Tomorrow is the 2nd Tuesday of the month. Every 2nd Tuesday of every month Microsoft releases the latest critical security patches for it's supported operating systems. Tomorrow will be the final patch Tuesday for which there will be updates for Windows XP released, as it's the end of support date for the venerable OS.

A Microsoft operating system reaching it's end of support date is nothing new. Windows NT4, 98, ME and 2000 have all been here before (everything older than Windows NT4 was summarily written off as unsupported in December 2001).

It's also nothing new for Microsoft to predict impending doom if you carry on running an OS after it goes unsupported - they've done it every single time they've retired an OS since NT4 was put out pasture in 2004. Yet people have done so and gone on to tell the tale - indeed I personally run an Exchange Server on an old Windows 2000 Server machine (unsupported for almost 4 years) with only a decade-old firewall and the (very basic) Clamwin virus scanner to protect it, but it's still up and running with no issues.

However, the big difference between now and when all prior operating systems were officially obsoleted is that in the past so few people were still using them that hardly anyone noticed - usually when a version of Windows is retired most benchmarks have rated the departing version of Windows at around 2-3% market share at most.

But Windows XP still powers over 25% of the world's PC by some benchmarks. Many of these PCs are connected to a network performing mission-critical tasks where sensitive data is processed, such as being the desktop OS of large corporate companies. Some are not even obvious PCs - XP is also the OS behind countless cashpoints and retail EPOS systems.

There are those that are predicting that the large installed user base of XP combined with no further updates from Microsoft will lead malware authors to start aggressively targeting XP now that exploits opened up won't be patched, and because it still runs so many mission-critical systems, we could be about to face a huge upturn in cyber-crime, identity fraud and systems failures.

Is this just Microsoft scaremongering out of frustration that XP, now replaced 3 times over, just refuses to die?

In fairness, there may be some legs to the anti-Microsoft case, as the other legacy Microsoft stalwart which just refuses to die also reaches end of support tomorrow - that is of course good old Office 2003 with similar predictions of impending doom if you continue using it after that date. I don't recall Microsoft ever making such strong statements about continued use of application software after a certain date before, yet they are with Office 2003. Maybe there are just too many ribbon-haters to convert?

Many corporate IT departments seem to have ignored Microsoft completely with XP's retirement. My own company (a financial business with a great deal of sensitive customer date stored) still has Windows XP deployed across it's entire store estate. This is due to compatibility issues with our EPOS system. We have a migration strategy to Windows 7 which is progressing, all hardware too old to run Windows 7 has now been replaced with 7-capable hardware, but the business has decided that the timetable for actual migration to Windows 7 should be based upon completion of the new EPOS system, not when Microsoft says we shouldn't use XP any more. And so we are likely to still be on XP for at least another year.

What are people's thoughts on this somewhat unique situation?

[Philip]

From what I've read Microsoft is still offering support for businesses migrating from Windows XP at a cost, increasing each year after support ends, a notable example being the government: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/m ... pport.html

XP has had a long run, mainly thanks to the delayed Vista and then Vista being panned so we had to wait another few years for a successful replacement for XP, in 2009 with Windows 7 - 8 years in between. And now presumably Windows 7 will become the next Windows XP thanks to Windows 8, although hopefully the welcoming updates for mouse and keyboard users in 8.1 and the upcoming return of the Start menu will stop that happening.

The OS may still be in good shape, but it was devised in 1999 and 2001, the same period the PlayStation 2 was released, eons ago in the tech world, so I'm glad we can finally move on to OSes that have support for modern and upcoming technology, but I'm biased as a general tech person overall. Personally, I'll just be glad to never have to use Internet Explorer 8 again.

[Nick Harvey]

Indeed.

If you have an NHS copy of Windows XP, your support continues until, at least, March 2015.

[Alexia]

By no means a luddite, and I own a system that could happily run Vista, 7 or 8 (in fact it came pre-installed with Vista, I downgraded deliberately). But XP works, and does everything I want it to, for relatively little RAM and disc space. I can count the serious virus and malware attacks on one hand, and have gotten so used to where everything is and how everything works that even if something did go wrong, I'd know how to sort it. It's a car, but it's a xx02 plate car which still has a working engine and four wheels.

If Microsoft wish to rid themselves of the burden of supporting one of their most popular OSes ever, then they could do worse than to make it (or certain parts of it) open source. Let the community of XPers carry on existing, being self-sufficient.

[WillPS]

If Microsoft wish to rid themselves of the burden of supporting one of their most popular OSes ever, then they could do worse than to make it (or certain parts of it) open source. Let the community of XPers carry on existing, being self-sufficient.

If you were to remove the parts of Windows XP source which continue in some form in later versions of Windows, you would not have a meaningful OS. Why would Microsoft put that out there?

[cwathen]

If Microsoft wish to rid themselves of the burden of supporting one of their most popular OSes ever, then they could do worse than to make it (or certain parts of it) open source. Let the community of XPers carry on existing, being self-sufficient.

The reality which both Microsoft and hardware manufacturers have not prepared for is that once we got into the 2000's, both software and hardware had developed to such a point that it had largely become overkill for a lot of users; a machine doing basic office tasks and web browsing simply wasn't being pushed at all. And that still holds true today - some circa-1 GHz Pentium III with Windows XP and Office 2003 still represents a largely un-tapped powerhouse in terms of what many people actually use a computer for - in which case it's very difficult to sell the idea of upgrading anything when the user isn't even pushing the limits of their current hardware/software, let alone anything new.

But this doesn't help the hardware and software companies which have built a business model based on the 80's and 90's when new advances were desired and caused natural migration rather than people holding on to the same old thing for years on end.

At the end of the day, Microsoft and the hardware manufacturers are businesses; they depend on being able to develop and market new products. All they will want is for XP to die, it will be a source of severe frustration that despite all their scaremongering it still takes a major chunk of the userbase at it's end of support date and now they will want to see it gone as quickly as possible.

For that reason, I doubt very much they have any interest in allowing the open source community to prop it up.

And now presumably Windows 7 will become the next Windows XP thanks to Windows 8

And perhaps to make sure that doesn't happen, following last year's Windows 8.1 update giving back the Start Button, Microsoft seems to have finally admitted defeat with the Start Screen and is now going to bring back the Start Menu too...

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2138443/ ... ndows.html

Now if only they bring back the option to use Word and Excel with standard menus and toolbars I might think about finally letting go of Office 2003 too.

[dosxuk]

Now if only they bring back the option to use Word and Excel with standard menus and toolbars I might think about finally letting go of Office 2003 too.

Not going to happen. There were solid reasons behind abandoning the menus and toolbars interface.

[cwathen]

Now if only they bring back the option to use Word and Excel with standard menus and toolbars I might think about finally letting go of Office 2003 too.

Not going to happen. There were solid reasons behind abandoning the menus and toolbars interface.

If they were that solid then why won't Office 2003 die?

Why did a third party developer succeed in marketing a product which retro-fitted the old interface back in to Office 2007, and why do they still enjoy success at selling this product today?

Why is Microsoft lumping Office 2003 end of support in with XP end of support date and predicted that the world will end if you carry on using it when they have never done this with application software before?

Whether or not they are ever going to admit it, the ribbon doesn't work for a hell of a lot of people, and Microsoft did get this one badly wrong by not providing a classic interface in Office 2007 and carrying that forward (which a third party company has demonstrated could easily be done).

[WillPS]

Everyone who I knew who's attitude was "ewww" to the 2007 ribbon now happily use 2007 or 2010.

I did some work in the office of an insurance company and people were complaining that they still had to use the "awful menus" of 2003 (a gradual rollout was in progress).

Statements like "the ribbon doesn't for a lot of people" are just rubbish from people who can't accept change.

Remember the Windows 2000 die hards? That, pretty much.

And no, I don't think the Start Screen is a good idea for anyone other than tablet users.

[Philip]

The ribbon was introduced mainly because of the expanding amounts of toolbars, sidebars, assistants and so on introduced in various Office versions throughout the years. It was a clean up of all of Office's functions into one place.

It's 1 hour and 30 minutes long so you probably won't watch it, but if you really want to know the inside and out of why the ribbon was introduced, Jensen Harris went through the history of Office, introduces concepts and explained why the ribbon in the long-term was a wise change back at Mix 2008 (the old name for Microsoft's Build developers conference). http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/MIX/MIX08/UX09

[dosxuk]

Now if only they bring back the option to use Word and Excel with standard menus and toolbars I might think about finally letting go of Office 2003 too.

Not going to happen. There were solid reasons behind abandoning the menus and toolbars interface.

If they were that solid then why won't Office 2003 die?

Same reason Office 97 won't die - some people still want to use it for various reasons.

Why did a third party developer succeed in marketing a product which retro-fitted the old interface back in to Office 2007, and why do they still enjoy success at selling this product today?

Because they decided it would be a nice niche to spend a load of time and effort on?

Why is Microsoft lumping Office 2003 end of support in with XP end of support date and predicted that the world will end if you carry on using it when they have never done this with application software before?

They have announced end-of-support dates for many pieces of application software in the past. Here's some for previous versions of Office.

Whether or not they are ever going to admit it, the ribbon doesn't work for a hell of a lot of people, and Microsoft did get this one badly wrong by not providing a classic interface in Office 2007 and carrying that forward (which a third party company has demonstrated could easily be done).

Office would have become an unworkable from Microsoft's point of view to support two completely different user interfaces. They have the data which showed that the existing UI wasn't working (as demonstrated by the changes they made to every version - like hiding non-used items - HIDING options - whoever thought that was a good UI decision). They also had many people requesting features that already existed, but were two or three levels of menus deep - that can now be on the front of a tab in the ribbon.

The majority of the people who still have trouble with the ribbon are the same people who actually do leave Facebook for two weeks rather than just complain about changes made to the UI there. If they're willing to use an outdated piece of software, or pay another company money so they can remain in the past, that's not exactly going to bother MS, who've sold hundreds of thousands of Office licences since 2007 came out.