Microsoft's Attempt To Convert Users From Windows XP Backfires 860
MojoKid writes "Microsoft has been loudly and insistently banging a drum: All support and service for Windows XP and Office 2003 shuts down on April 8. In early February, faced with a slight uptick in users on the decrepit operating system the month before, Microsoft hit on an idea: Why not recruit tech-savvy friends and family to tell old holdouts to get off XP? The response ... was a torrent of abuse from Windows 8 users who aren't exactly thrilled with the operating system. Microsoft has come under serious fire for some significant missteps in this process, including a total lack of actual upgrade options. What Microsoft calls an upgrade involves completely wiping the PC and reinstalling a fresh OS copy on it — or ideally, buying a new device. Microsoft has misjudged how strong its relationship is with consumers and failed to acknowledge its own shortcomings. Not providing an upgrade utility is one example — but so is the general lack of attractive upgrade prices or even the most basic understanding of why users haven't upgraded. Microsoft's right to kill XP is unquestioned, but the company appears to have no insight into why its customers continue to use the OS. "
I have your conversion right here... (Score:4, Funny)
...to a Mac mini for $599 with the latest OSX.
FUCK YOU!!!
Re:I have your conversion right here... (Score:5, Interesting)
My grandmother refuses to upgrade because she's so in love with the greetings card workshop software that came with her first computer in the mid-90's. It's run fine on each computer since, but definitely won't run on Win 7 or 8 so she won't upgrade again. I don't think your solution is any better for her, and she's pretty representative of a large segment of the people still on XP.
Re:I have your conversion right here... (Score:5, Informative)
VirtualBox + Seamless mode + boot VM on host login.
So automated, even your grandmother could use it. Throw in an SSD and the VM will work so smoothly, she won't even notice.
Re:I have your conversion right here... (Score:5, Interesting)
+1 informative.
I did the same for our PC's at the family business. We use Peachtree 2004, and have been using Peachtree since 1999 or so. Of course it won't run in Windows 7 nor will it run under Wine. I moved the XP install from the P4 hardware to a virtualbox VM with a few registry hacks to change the disk controller (the blight of moving windows installs). I then bought new AMD APUs, motherboards and gave each one a 1tb hard disk and 8gb ram (a little over $300 in parts). Installed Xubuntu 12.04, VirtualBox and automatically start the XP VM in full screen.
No re-installing anything so downtime was about a day so and I did it on a sunday. My mother can't tell the difference and XP runs *way* smoother. The benefit comes from the faster CPU, more memory and faster HDD (vs the old 5400RPM ATA disk) for the VM. I can also snapshot the VM or move it to a new PC without worrying about hardware changes. The beauty of a VM: hardware abstraction.
You only boot the system and start the software once a day so an SSD is overkill. I would skip the SSD as you really don't need it unless you have the money to spare or are loading large programs or files constantly. For basic desktop use 1TB is HUGE. I would rather more space for snapshots and other VM's if necessary. A 1TB WD Blue is about 55 bucks on newegg.
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VirtualBox + Seamless mode + boot VM on host login.
So automated, even your grandmother could use it. Throw in an SSD and the VM will work so smoothly, she won't even notice.
And this is for his grandmother?
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If you're talking about the Broderbund Printshop software, it works quite well under Wine.
http://appdb.winehq.org/object... [winehq.org]
Re:I have your conversion right here... (Score:4, Interesting)
My grandmother refuses to upgrade because she's so in love with the greetings card workshop software that came with her first computer in the mid-90's. It's run fine on each computer since, but definitely won't run on Win 7 or 8 so she won't upgrade again. I don't think your solution is any better for her, and she's pretty representative of a large segment of the people still on XP.
But that's easily solved by XP Mode, which can be downloaded from Microsoft's site. So let's say she has a computer w/ Windows 7 and needs to run this, she can, for this application, run XP mode, run her greetings & card workshop in that Window, and she'd be just fine. She doesn't have to put up w/ all the security holes that won't be patched under XP moving forward.
Re:I have your conversion right here... (Score:4, Informative)
XP Mode is only for Windows 7 Pro, and Windows 7 Pro usually doesn't come on the low-end PCs that would be suitable for her. So in the end, it's a choice between "Stick with XP" or "Upgrade to an OS that's already 5 years old and get a higher-end version that usually only comes on slightly higher-end hardware for more money".
Re:I have your conversion right here... (Score:5, Interesting)
Can I get the full text of that legal guarantee?
I'll need to use it, since I have a decent library of XP-era software that won't work, even in compatibility mode. Turns out that compatibility mode won't actually let you ignore all the new security policies that XP didn't have.
Re:I have your conversion right here... (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows XP mode runs a Windows XP VM on VirtualPC. It is not compatibility mode.
It is not officially available on Windows 8, though, and the problem with being unsupported after April is exactly the same as with the original Windows XP, of course (although if you only run specific programs with no net access in it I imagine the security risk is much reduced).
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I'll need to use it, since I have a decent library of XP-era software that won't work, even in compatibility mode. Turns out that compatibility mode won't actually let you ignore all the new security policies that XP didn't have.
And how long do you think that will last? Will you continue to use XP in 10, 20, 30 years from now? If not then your should really start looking for alternatives, preferably free software alternatives that don't hide their source code. That way you're more likely to not get into the same situation again.
Re:I have your conversion right here... (Score:4, Interesting)
There aren't always alternatives available, especially when you're talking stuff like games. Most of my favorite games are from the late-90s because I feel many newer games tend to have too much micromanagement for what I want to do.
Re:I have your conversion right here... (Score:5, Informative)
There is an alternative, ReactOS [reactos.org].
But it isn't viable yet.
I strongly encourage everybody to contribute somehow.
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There is an alternative, ReactOS [reactos.org].
But it isn't viable yet.
I strongly encourage everybody to contribute somehow.
I would like to see this actually become a viable option, but I'm more excited by Android-x86. [android-x86.org]
Many of the XP hold outs do have an Android phone already, turning the learning curve into a slight bump. That being said I don't know if Android-x86 will ever be ported back to XP age hardware...
Re:I have your conversion right here... (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you tried running them in WINE? A lot of old Windows software works quite well in it.
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With old Windows games you can run in warts such as how to fit a 1024x768 game on your monitor, DirectX 5 games that barely worked in their day already, and I guess that elaborate CD-checks which install a *driver* will eventually bite us in the ass - that's before server side DRM. Or your modern computer has no CD-ROM drive (if you use some laptop, or haven't bothered to buy a SATA one for your desktop)
Now that's not too bad usually.. if you try to game with Wine it's more like Russian roulette (with five
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No need to be snarky.
It seems you're unaware that Windows 7 Professional and higher include Windows XP running in a VM to support programs that won't run on 7. This is not the same as the little check box under the property settings for compatibility with older OSes.
So assuming your applications don't require high performance 3D graphics, if it ran on XP, it will still run on virtualized XP under 7.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/install-and-use-windows-xp-mode-in-windows-7
You're welcome.
Re:I have your conversion right here... (Score:5, Informative)
No need to pretend to be informative.
It seems you're unaware that this article is about upgrading to Windows 8, which doesn't have Windows XP mode. Also, most home users wouldn't have access to it anyway in Windows 7 (IE: Home edition). Windows 8 does have Client Hyper-V for the business-oriented editions, but it does not include a free XP VM as Windows 7 did.
Re:I have your conversion right here... (Score:4, Informative)
It seems you're unaware that I'M THE GUY who you just referenced. And for the record, XP mode doesn't always support the applications for one reason or another.
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Just google XP mode. it is a feature of Win 7 pro, but you can get it to run on 7 home. Again google is your friend.
Seriously, just go google it, and stop asking silly questions like can I get a legal gua
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Have you tried WINE? I've been pleasantly surprised by it's support for a lot of old software that won't run on newer versions of Windows. And it manages to do so in a nice little sandbox inside an OS that's at least as secure and reliable as Windows 8, and can be configured to be almost identical to XP (or OS X, or plenty of other OSes most people have never heard of)
Re:I have your conversion right here... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:I have your conversion right here... (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, if your computer does what you want it to do and does it well, then there is no reason to upgrade. I get so sick of seeing tech savvy folks act like it's better to have the latest just for the hell of it. It's not, I have downgraded several times because previous generation software and/or hardware works better for the reason I'm utilizing it. If you have to do the main thing you use a computer for in "compatibility mode" then what was the point of the money you spend to upgrade? Just to throw away.
Re:I have your conversion right here... (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem entirely unfamiliar with the concept of "security updates". Even if your computer "does what you want it to do and does it well", you may wake up one morning to find that it's doing what a stranger wants it to do.
Re:I have your conversion right here... (Score:5, Insightful)
So Grandma is supposed to backup her files, wipe the computer, install Windows 7 or later, reinstall her software, restore her files, and enable XP compatibility mode versus keep things exactly as they are.
You are a crack smoking monkey.
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Did you read the site you linked to?
ReactOS 0.3.16 is still in alpha stage, meaning it is not feature-complete and is recommended only for evaluation and testing purposes.
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So do some evaluation, and then go on testing until a stable version comes out!
It worked for Linux.
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Knives and spoons are not connected to the internet, and in every case I can imagine, cannot be programmed to do things other than what the person that is physically holding them wants them to do.
With XP.... all it will take is a single exploit that can potentially give someone remote control of what runs on your computer...
That can happen with any version of any operating system, of course... but it's generally less problematic for current ones because they can actually be patched. After next month,
Re:I have your conversion right here... (Score:4, Funny)
"in every case I can imagine, cannot be programmed to do things other than what the person that is physically holding them wants them to do."
You've clearly never had someone steal your spoon and stab you with it.
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Indeed. In fact, just the other day I updated my Mac OS 9.2.2 G3 to Mac OS X 10.9.
Rather impossible but I only take your comment as sarcasm but you could compare apples to apples. OS 9 was first released in 1999 for the PowerPC. XP was released in Aug 2001, 4 months after OS X. Apple did provide a transition for the OS 9 to OS X and for PPC to Intel transition (Rosetta).
lack of attractive upgrade prices (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention the fact that upgrading from any computer old enough to have come with XP to Windows 8 is highly unlikely. You will almost certainly have to buy new hardware along with that expensive software.
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There are still a ton of windows XP PC's out there capable of running 8.1. Any Core 2 (and some last gen P4's) or Athlon 64 PCs or Higher will run it fine as long as it's got at least 2GB of RAM, but it's the transition that's the pain, especially since MS removed Windows Easy Transfer From Windows 8.1
There is talk that MS is going to release a Free edition of Windows 8.1, but it will most likely be gimped or restricted on who can install the OS, such as Large OEM's only. If they played their cards correctl
Re:lack of attractive upgrade prices (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft's list of reasons to upgrade include:
* Designed with the new mobile lifestyle in mind
* More background designs and colors
* Enhanced Bing search
* A beautifully redesigned store.
* Deep cloud integration with OneDrive.
With reasons like that I can't imagine why XP users aren't rushing out to drop $500 on a new PC, $100 on a new monitor and another $300 on a new printer/scanner then replacing/reinstalling all their software and trying to get everything working like it already was...
Re:lack of attractive upgrade prices (Score:4, Funny)
I can't wait to live a new mobile lifestyle!
Re:lack of attractive upgrade prices (Score:5, Informative)
Don't forget the $100/year charge for Office 365 or the $220 for Home Office Premium.
Opportunity: Linux Upgrade option (Score:3)
Re:lack of attractive upgrade prices (Score:5, Interesting)
When you make $10/hr, $600 a month off of social security, or laid off and or under employed as 20,000,000 Americans are (only un and underemployed) that $500 to replace an already perfectly good computer means starvation!
Yes many folks live in a bubble and make $70,000 a year writing software are not average.
Also if 93% of folks don't even know what a freaking browser is [youtube.com] you can bet those with money don't even know what Windows is either or why you should upgrade. Those folks in that link were not nursing home folks but real professionals in Manhattan
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For basic tasks, almost any computer from the Core2/Phenom era is sufficient.
I still game on my old core 2 duo (E6850)... I do have a gtx460 too, though. I'll bet it's better for gaming than at least 90% of new PCs sold.
Amusingly, it's currently pegged at 30%, because something's up with the fan/heatsink/thermal paste... it currently runs at a constant 95 degrees celsius under load, which is much cooler than before I pegged it. Yes, I'm going to sort it soon. It still runs games fine.
Re:lack of attractive upgrade prices (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm capitalizing on the fact that XP is going un-supported in April.. I've started a business here installing Mint Linux to replace XP. I'd started slowly a while back, simply catching people with malware-crufted XP installs, and who only did simple tasks on Windows. The first couple were "forced" *upgrades* since the owner of the machine did not have any recovery disks, and there was so much malware that it would have taken many hours to clean. I showed them a LIveCD of Ubuntu, and gave em a ultimatum.. Linux or a new system, since the old system was not a candidate for Win7/8. They grudgingly accepted, and since then, when I see the client, she's happy, with no more slowness due to crap on the system. In fact, the new few "upgrades" were by word-of-mouth from this original user. I'm gonna put out flyers explaining whats gonna happen in April and I and my partners stand ready to give their machines new life withOUT the risk of Microsoft products...
XP Works (Score:5, Insightful)
People keep using XP because it works just fine.
There's nothing wrong with it. Why would we change?
If it aint broken, why fix it?
Save Windows XP!!
Re:Office 2003 works (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Office 2003 works (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll go a step further - I prefer Office 2003 to 2010. I've been using the "ribbon" for a few years now, and it still sucks.
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I've been using the "ribbon" for a few years now, and it still sucks.
QFT
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I'll go a step further - I prefer Office 2003 to 2010. I've been using the "ribbon" for a few years now, and it still sucks.
Exactly. People, even technical people, have to consistently go to google to find out how to do X or Y on MS Office 2010 whereas in 2003, such things were easily discernible. I would say that the 2003 interface was the pinnacle of Office's usability. I cannot understand, from a UX point of view, why things were changed so from 2003 to 2010. There is no inherent functional advantage from the later over the former.
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What I can't understand is why other companies have followed their lead. Mathworks copied the ribbion for MATLAB, which makes me seriously wonder whether they are sane. MATLAB is almost by definition for power users and it costs a fortune.
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No, it won't magically break. It will keep doing what it always has been doing. Yes, new security holes might be found that won't be patched. Yes, this means you need to have a good firewall and practice other safe computing strategies. Yes, you should be doing that already.
So essentially, very little is changing.
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To protect from malware from a web site, you should do the following:
*) Run a good anti-virus program
*) Make sure all plug-ins are current, especially Flash
*) Use a Flash block add-on
*) Remove Flash
*) Use an up-to-date browser (probably Chrome or Firefox)
*) Use an ad blocker (most malware on legitimate sites is from ad networks)
*) Configure private mode to not allow plugins
*) Use private mode for untrusted web sites
None of those have anything to do with whether Microsoft is supporting your OS or not.
Win 7 (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who I have known who wanted to buy a new computer, I have told them to make sure they get windows 7. Those people have been pretty ok. If Microsoft wasn't trying to kill their good product (Win 7) by pushing everyone to Win 8, they'd be fine.
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It's the equivalent of saying X model of car is absolutely horrible because you don't like the layout of the dash.
You may be right about that. The thing is, most people don't want to buy a car that pisses them off every time they slide into the driver's seat.
Re:Win 7 (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the equivalent of saying X model of car is absolutely horrible because you don't like the layout of the dash.
Why the hell would I buy a car if the dashboard is butt-ugly? The dashboard is the one part of the car that I look at the most. I see it whenever I'm in the driver's seat (or front passenger's seat for that matter). For someone who actually uses the car, the dashboard aesthetics are arguably much more important than the exterior design of the car. You only see the outside of the car when you're walking towards it in the parking lot. Moreover, the dashboard layout is critical to my operation of the car. If it's poorly laid out, that'll affect my usage of the car greatly, and if it isn't laid out well, this can be annoying and even dangerous in heavy traffic.
So yes, if a car has a terrible dash layout, then that model of car IS absolutely horrible, and I'm not going to buy it.
The UI is the most important part (Score:3)
It's a perfectly valid reason to not buy a car, but it's an utterly stupid reason to say that the car, as a whole, is horrible - which is what people are saying about Windows 8 when most of the complaints are just about the UI.
The UI? You mean the only part of the OS that you actually see and interact with? Gee, wonder why people would be upset if they didn't like that part.
A lot of the complaints are simply "it doesn't work exactly the same as it did before" variety which isn't the same thing as being objectively worse. People don't like change even when the change is for the better. In this case the changes Microsoft have made are not clearly objectively better AND the interface is different. Unsurprisingly a lot of people
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It has worse multi-monitor support in my experience, the hi-dpi scaling is incredibly brain damaged and wants to scale things to different sizes between my 2 displays. I cant turn that off. Applications still open on a random monitor irrespective of which one i launch them from. It starts up faster because it doesn't start everything Windows does - stuff that i might want like oh I don't know - the desktop, and reconnecting to network shares (they are delayed until 5 minutes after login).
I've run 8/8.
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huh? (Score:3)
i'd have to say...isn't it a pretty good assumption that 90% of machines running XP are under-powered (by modern standards) boxes that just won't really be able to handle the transition to the soon-to-be-free 8.1?
running even win7 on a machine with less then 2G is a nightmare...i can't imaging 8.1 being much better.
ms has to know this...besides the obvious (to us slashdotters of course) idea to move them to linuux peppermint or xfce, what does ms expect these user to do?
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For a lot of these hold-out users, it's a matter of pride to keep a 50 year old tractor running, because it proved they made a good investment when they acquired something that has durability. For them, acknowledging that they have to replace a 9 year old computer means they made a bad decision when they bought it, and they don't want to admit that they invested in a piece of crap. Investing in a new computer after such a short time means they personally failed. They can understand replacing damaged parts
Re:huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
really?
i HIGHLY doubt this...the people i know running XP on old hardware are totally clueless about linux...all they really use the machines for is browsing, email, and perhaps an application here n there.
I already upgraded years ago... (Score:5, Funny)
To DEBIAN, bitches!!
Windows 7 (Score:5, Interesting)
They should just roll back to Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and start from there. It's bloody good, and all this is a bloody shame. They were just getting good and learning from the UNIX crowd about security and user space. Aero is gorgeous and efficient. And they threw all the best bits I got excited about in the bin - and no I didn't get excited about Vista - 7 runs better on anything that runs Vista.
I've posted before about this calamity that is removing Windows 7 from the shelves for this 8 nonsense.
Meanwhile, the Linux community ... (Score:4, Funny)
And once she's running Linux, grandma will stop calling with all those support questions.
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Windows 7 runs beautifully on my 8 year old Thinkpad, and is more likely to be compatible with Grandma's favorite greeting card maker than Mint is.
Yes and No (Score:3)
MS is a public firm, so if XP is losing money, and share holder value is not being honored, then yes MS has every reason to kill it.
But if customers are still finding enough value to pay MS to support it, then MS is just making arbitrary decisions that are hurt long term value. If business customers are not going to be able to trust MS to support core technology that is good enough, they will go somewhere else. Business customers can't be expected to change their business models just because MS want to sell a new toy.
Re:Yes and No (Score:5, Insightful)
XP is over 12 years old, that's one hell of a *free* long term support package. Is there any other OS available that has a 12 year support lifecycle? Ubuntu's LTS releases have a 5 year support cycle, Apple doesn't have a published official policy for OSX but it's about 4 years on average. RHEL comes the closest I can find at between 10 & 13 years depending on the version, but you have to pay for that so it's not directly comparable.
XP has had a pretty good run of it, all things considered and if Windows 8 wasn't such a PR mess, this "forced" upgrade would probably a lot less contentious.
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But if customers are still finding enough value to pay MS to support it, then MS is just making arbitrary decisions that are hurt long term value
Not quite. You are skipping over the strategic goals of the company and road map to the future. MS saw mobile platforms, specifically tablets and phones, as the future of computing and started gearing their software to that market. The big mistake they made was ignoring the current users by making a unified UI geared towards the touchscreen mobile market. If they had been smart, they would have provided two UIs, one that is effectively Win7 and the other one Metro, and allowed the user to choose which UI t
The win8 desktop fixes are obvious (Score:3, Insightful)
Get rid of metro
Get rid of apps that take up the entire screen. Don't even tell me I could split the window in half, it pisses me off
Fix the start button so I can see my programs again
Restore popular programs that were removed, like video player.
Upgrade is reinstall (Score:3, Insightful)
This article is bogus and even /. MS bashing unworthy. A proper upgrade is a OS reinstall, not a wizard that performs some half-ass "lets copy files and hope it works". Windows XP was never intended to boast a upgrade system like this. Applications can do anything on the whole computer and there is nothing to properly wall these in, except for using a sandboxed OS like Android or iOS. But these are, ofcourse, not as productive.
Quit the whining, just buy the new hardware and accept that the world doesnt stop spinning because you got stuck in 1994.
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Yes, yes, a proper upgrade is a wipe and re-install. A proper patch requires you to reboot your computer at least once. Those things are only true for Windows, because Windows is broken.
Simple really (Score:3, Insightful)
Most People don't want to relearn anything. They know how to do this or do that and its different the second you move up to the next version after windows xp and office 2003. Microsoft has to accept its customer base doesn't want to have to learn how to drive a new operating system or application every few years.
Re:Simple really (Score:5, Insightful)
As well they shouldn't. Having to relearn something you already know how to do is dead, wasted time. By itself it serves no purpose. Forcing people to relearn things is only justified if it is inextricably tied to making those things better, which, alas, too often it is only in the developer's mind.
Because it works (Score:3)
When something works, why change? And don't give me the crap about security and this and that. Cars from the 60s don't have anywhere near the safety features modern cars do yet have no problem operating safely.
For the average person who does some web surfing and checks their email, there is no legitimate reason to upgrade ESPECIALLY when you take into consideration the costs involved.
This will be one of the few times you'll hear this, but Microsoft did too good a job creating XP.
Obvious answer (Score:3)
WinXP: It's good enough.
My retired parents use their computer for the exact same things today as when they bought it ages ago. They surf the web, do email, occasionally skype and keep track of things in excel, word and a bit of time on FB. It sits in their home office and each morning one of them turns it on uses it and then at night when the last one is done using it, (s)he powers it off for the night. They've got some ext HD that backs up their computer every day in case something happens.
It works. Sure they have kindles to read books, but there's no need to fork over $500+ for a new system and then the hassle of migrating all of their apps/data/settings to a new platform.
What else do they have that "just works"? A toaster oven, a microwave and other appliances. They see the computer as an appliance, it works, it has an interface and a set of expected behaviors. Nice and simple.
Windows 8 = Apple's best sales tool (Score:3)
I have long been a PC user, not because I like Windows, but because it was cheap, and Windows was functional enough for my needs (really prefer the fine grained control I get with Linux, but Linux and Laptops have never really played nice.
but I recently bought a new laptop for my wife, which sadly came with Win8. The laptop itself is a wonderful, solidly build Lenovo ultrabook.
Windows 8 makes it damn near unusable. the touchscreen oriented tile interface, the singletasking everything full screen all the time Metro interface all of it is garbage. might be good for a phone or tablet, but positively counterproductive on a laptop or desktop. I had to spend a fair amount of money and time finding and installing third party software to at least partially restore Win7 levels of usefulness
if the next release of windows doesn't restore Win 7 levels of usability, we will bite the bullet and spend the money for Macs.
Why use XP (Score:5, Interesting)
Also these people typically will budget 100% of the technology budget to getting a better mobile device. So they aren't upgrading their hardware which is often a 6 year old laptop with a battery good for 5 minutes and they are happy with it.
I recently upgraded my Mac OS X to Mavericks only because I needed the latest copy of XCode and it wouldn't run on my two version behind OS and I am a programmer. I won't argue that Mavericks isn't better than its predecessors but if a fairly hard core user such as myself can't be bothered to upgrade unless forced how on earth can you convince Granny?
A great example of just how odd people's priorities can be would be with my mother. I switched her from an Old Ubuntu to the latest and her number one gripe was that her icons moved a bit; she didn't not appreciate any of the many benefits of the far newer OS such as stability or speed. Apple does have the upgrade system set up to be fairly painless with a low chance of changing things like the positioning of icons so that shows some awareness of the consumer.
But where I am leading with all this is that if MS wants people to upgrade they need to make a more compelling case. Most people would be happy with Word 97 and Windows XP (except when they got
I remember back in the early 90s when most C++ programmers used Borland. Everyone wanted to get into Windows programming but even Hello World was a pain in the ass. Borland had this stupid OWL system. Then a new thing Visual Studio 1.0 came out with a few templates and then this MFC thing that made you look like a programming superstar. Within a year I didn't know a single person still using Borland C++. That was a compelling feature. The same with Word Perfect. Word was an interesting product but it wasn't until you really needed Wysiwyg for laser printers(and other new not dotmatrix printers) that everyone made the leap into Windows and Word. Almost overnight Word Perfect for DOS just wasn't the cool thing.
So where I made the switch to Mac was because it was BSD based and very similar to the linux environment where I deploy my applications. Plus for iOS app development there is no other choice. Those are compelling reasons. What positive compelling reason does anyone have to switch from XP that doesn't require a technically nuanced discussion?
Microsoft Is Correct But Missed The Point (Score:3)
Microsoft is completely correct that if they are on the hook for stability and security of Microsoft products then they need to kill off software they can no longer sustain or maintain. Microsoft should be free and clear to "end of life" both Windows XP and Office 2003. What the problem is that their "replacement" for the products seem dubious.
We know what the problems are with Windows 8 where you can find the issues all over the Internet with simple searches. Since /. loves the car analogy: Windows 8 is a replace for Windows XP like scooter is a replacement for a 2001 sedan. Or more exactly, it is like trading in your quirky but workable 2001 sedan for a new 2014 model but find the car manufacturer thought scooters were the superior are the future so they completely rearranged the inside around one big scooter seat, a Y steering stick instead of a wheel, and threw out a bunch of nice features normally found in cars under the guise "it was too complex for people". And after all of that the dealer perks up and says, "But don't believe the hate....the Bluetooth integration works great!" Lots of things work really well in Windows 8 but the major interface features do not.
As for Office 2003, many places have already "dealt with it" where they are sticking with it or moved onto simple alternatives. If one is still using Office 2003 then they didn't need the "cutting edge features" of modern Office where Google Docs is easily more than enough for them. Convince this "bottom segment" of the market to upgrade is a lost cause for Microsoft. These customers feel like they don't need the new features and complexity and not at the price they are asking.
In touch with customers...Microsoft? (Score:4, Interesting)
You owe me a new keyboard.
Microsoft has never given the least bit of thought to its (individual) customers or their needs. To say that there has ever been a "relationship" is laughable. For the past few years, Microsoft's effort has been to force upgrades to maintain a revenue stream. Useless features and frills (Metro, ribbon, addition of gratuitous whitespace) have been added to products, because the company is either unable or unwilling to make substantial improvements in quality or performance, choosing instead to force upgrades with incompatible features and formats. Each release is less well thought out than the previous one, and I have yet to meet someone who wants a Microsoft tablet. (I will grant that Microsoft has paid some attention to the corporate customers, but that's not who we're talking about here)
OK, maybe the above is a bit harsh, but the fact remains that Microsoft seems to have lost the trail (if it was ever on it). When I think about companies in touch with individual customers and their wants, Apple comes to mind, not Microsoft. Love 'em or hate 'em, the folks in Cupertino don't seem to have any problem shifting their rounded-corner wares... People don't want to upgrade from XP, because it does what they need it to do, and it works for them. They don't want (or need) to learn a completely new UI. They'd probably appreciate a more secure OS, but buying an entirely new computer to get it (and shifting all their applications and data over) seems like too much work.
Not so fast (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft's right to kill XP is unquestioned
Well, I'll question it. XP, like it or not, is a major part of America's IT infrastructure. Why should one private company have the right to unilaterally declare this kind of planned obsolescence?
If we had sane copyright laws, this wouldn't be an issue – Microsoft would have been required to put the source code in escrow back when XP was first released, and after 5-10 years (i.e. by now) it would automatically become open source. But since we instead have copyright laws bought by Mickey Mouse, there would have to be another way to achieve this. Perhaps one or more governments could use eminent domain to seize XP, then make it open source and fund its maintenance. Not only would that do a great deal of good for the computing public, but it would also light a fire under Microsoft – they would have to compete with free versions of their old OS, and would have an even harder time trying to shove Windows 8 down all our throats.
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Why should one private company have the right to unilaterally declare this kind of planned obsolescence?
Because they made it?
V-V-V-Virtual Box! (Score:3)
So 'Desktop Linux' is just not cutting it for me yet. Almost, but not quite. (Seriously, get USB keyboards working with yer full disk encryption, Debian.)
That said, I'm not going to Windows 8 or even 8.1. Evar. In the rare event that I need to run something that only runs on Win 8, I've got a company supplied Virtual box VM image with a legit corporate licensed copy. (I've booted up to run the latest version of MS Dev Studio less times than I can count on one hand.)
In the slightly more common event that I need to run something that ran fine on WinXP, but won't run on Win7, I have a WinXP Virtual Box image. This has saved my older, but perfectly working USB scanner.
In the much more frequent event that I want to run in a Linux desktop environment for, say, development work, working with iptables, or the like, I've got a couple different Mint Linux Virtual Box images.
About the only thing I don't have an image for is a Hackintosh... but I've got a company-supplied Macbook which also has an array of Virtual Box images hanging around.
Mint is about || yay close to being usable as my main desktop OS, but has a few standout problems. I DO use it as my laptop OS.
Win 8 will NEVER be an issue for me.
Getting rid of XP would mean I can't do my job (Score:3, Interesting)
Software designed for Windows 3.1, or even DOS 5.0, will still run under XP. They will not run under Windows 8, or even Windows 7 (64-bit, I have to get my hands on a Windows 7 32-bit disk and see if it works).
Moreover, on chips that old you talk to them via serial (either RS232 or RS485). To do it properly, this MUST be done using a real serial port. USB to serial dongles need not apply. This means old hardware. Which means they do not have the horsepower to run Windows 7 / Windows 8.
I've played with some VM's but there is a problem -- limited access to the actual system hard drive. So I either have 99% of my system in the VM (so all projects area availble), which means I spend all my time in the VM (and am effectively running XP anyway), or multiple small VM's, which limits access to different projects for code sharing...
Back up your data! (Score:5, Informative)
But there's a gotcha.. I upgrade to 8.1 via Windows 8. The first step from Windows XP to 8 ran pretty smoothly, all of my data from the XP installation was moved to a folder called windows.old where it could be recovered from by someone with a basic understanding of PCs. All well and good, but the obvious next step was to upgrade to Windows 8.1.. a bit trickier as you can't do that without installing KB2871389 first (either through Windows Update or manually). The Windows 8.1 download is enormous, 3GB+ but it installs smoothly enough.
The catch? Well, upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 8 creates the windows.old folder with the old data in. Upgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 DELETES that folder and creates a new one with the old Windows 8 settings.. obliterating your original data from the Windows XP installation.
Well, that wasn't a problem for me as I'd backed up everything onto another drive which I unplugged to be on the safe side. But it wasn't what I was expecting to happen *at all*.. and you can see that a less paranoid customer (or one without a suitable backup disk) could well lose everything if going from XP to 8 to 8.1. And I do notice that there doesn't seem to be a Windows 8.1 Upgrade version available anywhere, so this is the path that a lot of people would take..
upgrade (Score:5, Insightful)
I know it's shooting fish in a barrel... with a shotgun... and they're already dead... but:
Look to OS X on how updates are done right. Why does MS always steal the somewhat-nice parts from Apple and never the really cool ones?
Upgrade OS on the same machine: Insert disc or download image. Click installer. Wait. Reboot. Done. All your data and configuration is intact, down to the desktop background and even the applications you had running will be open again after the reboot.
Move to a new machine: Get new computer. Turn on. It asks if you want to copy your stuff over from an old machine, so say yes. Connect (WLAN, cable, whatever). Wait. Done. New machine looks exactly like the old one, including all your applications, data and configuration.
So, it is technologically possible. Makes you wonder why one of the biggest IT companies on the planet is incapable of doing it this way.
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It does do that. Both of those, in fact (search for "Windows Easy Transfer"). Yes, even in XP, although we'd consider it very archaic today if you used what was built in at the time. You don't necessarily even need the Easy Transfer tool if you've got the installation media. It's just not supported to migrate directly to 8 without a clean install. The supported upgrade path for XP is to Vista. If you wanted to go to 8, you'd have to upgrade to Vista, then 7, then 8.
Yes, you very likely need to do a cl
My Niece (Score:5, Interesting)
My niece came to me crying because her Windows 7 PC was reinstalling its video driver every other day, the sound didn't work half the time. It wouldn't boot sometimes. One day it just died. Wouldn't boot. I did not have a Windows 7 license around, and she couldn't do her homework. To allow her to do her homework, I put Linux Mint on it. Installed Libre Office, Skype, and a handful of teen related things she might want. I figured after a few days we would have to sort her out. and find a Windows to install.
That was a year and a half ago. You would have to pry that machine out of her cold dead hands. No viruses, no crashes, battery lasts longer than it EVER did running Windows. Her Videos work, her music works, Libre Office works. She wants nothing at all to do with Windows. She says Mint is perfect. everything works, it's responsive and nothing she needs to do is missing. She can find a tool in Linux to do anything she needs, and most of it is as good as the Windows version. I asked her the other day if she misses windows... She said she misses Windows at least as much as cancer.
Metro wasn't designed for people who read /. (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's some insight into why Metro is the way it is and why it's the default UI for Win8: http://www.reddit.com/r/techno... [reddit.com]
Metro exists, specifically, for the segment of the population that (mostly) single tasks and doesn't want to get bogged down in the nitty gritty of the OS. They don't want multiple desktops or have 10+ windows open; they want to, in the words of pwnies, do nothing more intensive than watch cat videos. It appears to be a deliberate move by MS that most of the included apps suck for "power users" (Mail and Calendar get singled out) and that Office 365 is meant to run in Classic. And, apparently, it's why Metro is Win8's default UI; so-called power users can figure out how to nuke Metro and work more or less solely in classic desktop. Casual users would, apparently, never find Metro if the default UI were classic -- or, at least, they'd never use it since it's unfamiliar. And familiarity's a big deal when it comes to UI design. Think about it for a moment; it's apparently straight-forward make an app that returns the classic UI -- MS must have made it very, very easy to do so from the OS-side of things.
That's why, in large, part MS has been flouting colours! and customization! and Bing integration! in its marketing -- they're trying very, very hard to get media consumers to use Metro and like it.
But there are some very large problems to this. Metro is designed around touch and keyboard shortcuts -- not mouse. If you're using a touch screen, Metro's not bad once you grok that swiping from the edges of the screen makes stuff happen. But, damn, good luck figuring out hot corners with a mouse (switching between open apps is not, in particular, very intuitive). Or alt-tabbing. Or "type to find program" (in Win7 / classic, Windows key then type). But ... how many casual PC users have touch screens? To me, it's the flip side of Kinect; with XBone, you get a piece of hardware that's tightly integrated with the system, but provides comparatively little user benefit. With touch screens, there's a low installed user base among the people who would get the most use out of Metro.
The funny thing is that, by so forcefully going after casual users MS has incurred the wrath of people who need their PCs for work. And those people? If they have to set up a new PC for granny, the first thing they do is install something like Start8. For whatever reason, MS's marketing people have focused on the improved casual user experience for Metro and made it seem like classic is being phased out (apparently, it isn't). And ... Win8 IS a good OS. It was fast and stable out of the box. Driver support is excellent. Security, apparently, is superior to Win7. Unlike Vista, it works well on (comparatively) old hardware.
MS has become a deeply weird and schizo company. They're supporting a handful of separate UIs (Office: ribbons; Win8: classic; Metro). It's been marketing its new OS as being a superior choice for media consumers who have either already switched to smart phones and tablets or, simply, don't want to change from something that works well enough. The only possible way Metro on a desktop makes any sense is if MS is using it as a Trojan horse to get people to consider using Windows phones and tablets. But, damn. That's kinda' crazy.
Re:Tired... (Score:5, Insightful)
You may want to take a seat, this may be a bit of a shock to you; this is a website about technology. Perhaps surprisingly, the desktop many of us have to support counts as "technology". Therefore, the company behind the OS on these desktops gets attention. More so when they make as many boneheaded moves as MS has over the past several years.
For a while there, MS was doing "OK". Windows 7 was decent ( even though they moved shit around on me and broke some functionality that was useful to admins in xp...but I digress ), security was 1000% better than it used to be. They were really picking up steam, especially after vista.
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Windows 7 was just a service pack for Vista. The renaming was a PR move to move away from the stigma.
Give them enough time and they'll iron out all of the flaws. Of course the Metro interface was inherently flawed from the beginning, but I think they've learned their lesson and supposedly Windows 8.2 which may be named Windows 9 is their solution to this whole mess.
But the GP does have a point, I see people still complaining about features of Windows 8 that were fixed in 8.1.
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No, it's based off 2000.
Re:Tired... (Score:4, Insightful)
While it's true that /. has a long history of MS-hating, I'm even more disturbed by the fact that Apple still seems all-too-often to get a free pass around here. Apple has, IMHO, *WAY* surpassed MS in the "evil empire" category. MS, even at it's most arrogant and heavy-handed, never tried to construct a walled garden around its OS's and forbid users from loading 3rd-party software that they didn't approve of. Apple has not only done that, but it's become their trademark.
There are loads of people on /. who are still blasting MS for putting a fucking their own web browser in their OS back in the 90's. But when Apple not only puts their own web browser in their OS, *BUT FORBIDS INSTALLING ANY OTHER THIRD-PARTY BROWSER*, everyone just shrugs their shoulders and talks about how great a guy Steve Jobs was.
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But when Apple not only puts their own web browser in their OS, *BUT FORBIDS INSTALLING ANY OTHER THIRD-PARTY BROWSER*, everyone just shrugs their shoulders and talks about how great a guy Steve Jobs was.
Huh? I've never had a problem installing other browsers on a mac. Ran Netscape for ages, back in the day, switched to Firefox, played around with Opera and Chrome-- even ran IE a couple of times (had to check how some sites displayed with IE)-- no problem.
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Do you honestly think they're not going to eventually bring it to their Mac desktops too (if they even keep making desktops)?
The suggestion was that Apple is already doing this on their desktop OS - which is not true.
Moving the goalposts from present to future doesn't change the fact that you were incorrect in your original supposition; be a man (or woman) and either admit your mistake, or at least stop prattling on about it - doubling down on being wrong isn't going to win you any friends (although it may influence some people).
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Fuck, I guess this Chrome app on my iPad is just an illusion.
I'm so disappointed.
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But that doesn't address one of the huge issues - software that runs on XP that won't run on Win 7 or 8 (especially 16bit software). In my experience, that's one of the main causes for not upgrading, and is the reason we still have an entire department on XP where I work.
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I've been looking for a way to compile applications for Windows and CUDA/OpenCL, without installing Windows. So I tried ReactOS a week or two ago.
So I installed the VM, fine. It loaded fine. Then I tried to insert the virtual Visual Studio Express 2008 CD. Result: ReactOS can't read ISOs with long filenames.
OK, next I extracted the relevant part (Visual C++ 2008) in the Linux host OS, and tried to access it over Samba/SMB. I entered \\192.168.my.pc\dir in ReactOS Explorer. I expected a dialog to appea
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Do you replace a perfectly working toaster, microwave, TV, car, etc. just because it's old? Most people don't - the new thing has to be enough of an improvement to justify the expense. Why would you expect them to replace a PC that lets them browse the 'net and check their email just fine? Especially with something that may well not run their favorite old software? Where's the upgrade for these people? I'm certainly not seeing anything worth them paying a month's rent for.