Submitted by Paul Thurrot writes about Windows XP SP3: “If you were looking for any glimpse into the mind of Microsoft, this is it: the company has completely abandoned Windows XP, and it has absolutely no plans to ever ship an XP SP3. My guess is that Microsoft will do what it did with the final Windows 2000 Service Pack: claim years later that it’s no longer needed and just ship a final security patch roll-up. This is the worst kiss-off to any Microsoft product I’ve ever seen, and you’d think the company would show a little more respect to its best-selling OS of all time.”
why a free service pack to make an older system better when you can buy the new and already improved one?
just learn to live with it if u choose to use microsoft products.
Many people, including myself, will disagree about the “improved” part.
Many people, including myself would agree with the improved part.
Many people, including myself, will disagree about the “improved” part.
Along with many linux and gpl zealots, hardcores and chauvinist, plus them who modded you up and them who mod me down.
I really have nothing against Windows 2000 and XP. They are quite solid, stable and afer XP SP2 I would even dare to say that it’s secure. Sometimes I like to have fun at expense of Windows bugs but I didn’t even mention Linux in this discussion.
Modded up for telling the truth. But it’s not just those people. But also developers who have no clue (ignorant) of how broken Vista really is. And the users who just follow the masses.
I’ll buy that for a dollar…
I think that original post that you have replied to is meant to be ironic.
The service pack certainly aren’t free. They were paid for with the license fee when buying XP.
I think MS should live with the fact, that their customers are tired of living with and fixing a plethora of new beta versions of new operating systems that are constantly and endlessly streaming out from the Microsoft OS-factory with little or no added usability but just new restrictions.
My first thought upon reading your comment was that the same can be said of free software. Then I remembered that free software comes free ie. no purchase cost.
Yes, free software is developed by enthusiasts, support is iffy and you have to sometimes fix it yourself or depend on voluntaries in online forums, there are bugs and no guarantees whatsoever.
But, to have the exact same conditions provided for a piece of software I paid for (and not a small sum, mind you) is a damn disgrace. It raises the question “why am I paying that money up front if I can still get the same experience overall without it?” For the priviledge of being locked in Microsoft’s incompatible formats, for the world-famous security, for the endless attempts to limit what I can do with the hardware and software I’m supposed to own?
Because we’re humans. We don’t have infinite money. We can’t replace our car whenever a new model is developed, we can’t replace our television whenever a new model is developed, etc. Same applies to the operating system.
Stand up for yourself – Use Linux!
Actually since I moved to the US 4 years ago I noticed a lot of people live like that here…
Who said Vista is “improved”?
Vista is slower, buggier and less compatible with common programs than Windows XP is currently, so it’s not much of an improvement.
It will be approximately a year before Vista is ready to use, if past history with microsoft is any indicator. Until then, many people would LOVE to continue using WinXP but MS has started a campaign to snuff it out because they want to force people on their newer product despite it not being usable.
Itz like betraying gud old customers who paid so much & obtained their copy.
MS should consider the fact that it had worked on what ever new product from the money it got from selling its (currently old) products.
Of course, they are busy making Vista SP1 and trying to invent reasons to make people buy Vista.
Vista is a bad joke and the worst MS product since Windows Me.
I use linux and I am satisfied.
And linux is a product i neither understand or can work with , i rather wait for reactos to be complete
By the time ReactOS is finished, you will be using Vista SP2!
What the heck, you will gettin vista with your new comp when you buy it. XP will become a memory just as Win98.
Not if you buy a new Dell with Linux preinstalled. If you don’t like Dell there are many small companies that will sell you a Linux system already configured.
What the heck, you will gettin vista with your new comp when you buy it. XP will become a memory just as Win98.
I always buy a clean pc.
Rather then an infected PC? Smooth …
Edited 2007-04-09 16:56
I always buy dirty PCs…
I like dirty PCs .. they sell for real cheap.
If you use linux then how do you know Vista is a bad joke and the worst MS product since Windows Me? I know the new trend is to bash Microsoft with unsubstantiated claims just for some points but c’mon. At least give some reasons that are your own and not what you heard some biased reviewer on a linux site say.
It’s not exactly a NEW trend.
In all seriousness, if you are going to bash a product, you need to atleast give reasons. Personally, I use XP, Vista, Mac OS X, and Ubuntu on a regular basis and I believe they are all great pieces of software. Just use what works for you.
Hear hear
Agreed. They all have their minuses, and they all have their pluses.
There hasn’t been a perfect OS created yet.
[Now I just have to wait and see how long it is until someone says Unix is perfect.
]
I’m no fan of Microsoft and would love to see Linux or some other OS take the top spot, but I can’t help but agree with your statements point. It’s so very easy to bash something simply because you don’t like it.
Anyway I think you made a good statement. You got a mod up from me.
Paul Thurrott actually recommended Windows Me when it was released, even going so far as to say it was “stable”.
That aside, I’m actually a bit of a fan of Thurrott, but it seems he has really headed out into the deep end lately.
Ive got no plans buying windows vista ;p
I ordered Vista Home basic as an express upgrade for XP Home.
Chances are I’ll try it for a week, find out that 3/4 of my programs (most from the 90’s) wont work. Then I will suffer from crippling: no Aero, backup/restore, media center, cool games, DVD creater, movie maker, laptop center, bitlocker, remote desktop, fax and scan, windows meeting space, so on!!
My guess: Absolutely no benefits, all disadvantages.
That’ll probably drive me right back to Linux.
Heh, I bet Wine will do a better job of running my Windows programs than Vista.
We’ll see soon enough (6-8 week wait for Vista arrival by mail).
Edited 2007-04-07 21:42
“Heh, I bet Wine will do a better job of running my Windows programs than Vista.”
I’ve found that IEs4Linux runs better than IE does natively in Windows Vista. So you’re probably right.
On another note. I’m a Linux fanboy but Vista is really not that bad. It’s a resource hog and due to that it’s just as aweful about taking forever to close a crashed program, far slower at multi-tasking than Linux and so forth but it’s not bad, considering. Some issues I had in XP are resolved with Vista such as my sound chip driver. For no apparent reason under XP the sound would just stop working. But under Vista 64 using the exact same driver from Dell it runs flawlessly (of course it also ran flawlessly under Ubuntu, & OpenSuse).
The only downside I’ve found with vista so far (not counting the other things mentioned because those problems I had in xp as well) is that iTunes won’t burn disks because Apple refuses to support 64bit.
At this point I’m getting very tempted to just make Ubuntu my main OS, get Parallels and do the twin install trick to get my Vista upgrade disk to install (can’t run my Dell XP virtually) disable Aero so it runs like Home Basic and thus isn’t so resource hungry, then just run the few windows things I need that way.
Heh, I bet Wine will do a better job of running my Windows programs than Vista.
Isn’t this equal to say that there is shorter path than straight line that connecting two points?
Ok, may be you feel wine is better than native windows, but I doubt you believe that linux programs that run on FreeBSD’s linux compat layer are faster than when run on linux natively.
Sorry to nitpick, but there indeed are shorter paths, that connect two points in general settings, where “general” means that you don’t happen do have a purely euclidean metric / topology ==> your two points are not sitting on a flat (hyper)plane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesic
is a quite accessible introduction to an important mathematical concept.
So with that in mind, it is entirely possible to achieve better performance with an comp ability layer like WINE than with the native stuff (once the compability layer works, which starts to become increasingly true for WINE, judging from my limited exposure), if the compability layer and the OS that hides beneath manage to be more efficient than the “original” OS.
I’m not implying that this is the case here, as I have not done measurements myself, but judging from posts like the Grandparent post of this and this [1]
, it is – repeating myself – not entirely unlikely.
Remember: WINE is not an Emulator
[1]:http://www.winehq.com/site/myths
EDIT: Pressed Submit to early …
Edited 2007-04-08 07:42
Especially when a ‘straight line’ is defined as ‘the shortest path between 2 points’. So No you’re wrong.
You are limiting this definition to euclidean geometry, are you ?
No. If you were to look, from a distance, at a straight line (can be analogized by a beam of light) near a gravity well, it will apear curved yet still can be defined as a straight line.
As this is already getting to far off-topic, I would suggest we discuss this further in private if necessary.
It may very well be, that I have worded my argument too sloppy, and it is definitly possible, that your knowledge in this field surpasses mine, so feel free to correct me, as I’m very eager to learn if I have made any stupid mistakes.
Say I limit my set of objects to a curved subspace of lets say the R^N with an euclidean metric (prime example: a closed spherical surface R^(N-1) ), then (again to my knowledge) the straight line definition from the R^(N) is no longer the shortest path within the curved space that connects two points. It is in this example the shorter of the two pieces of the grand circle, that goes through both points.
I have approached this whole thing from the variational calculus point of view, where one tries to minimise the
functional of the action on the curved manifolds that result from the (holonomic) constraints, that one has to obey that I’m used to from classical mechanics.
Feel free to correct me here if I have made any obvious mistakes, otherwise I would ask you to contact me at mfschwin [at] gmx [dot] at
to discuss this further. Thanks in advance!
Regards
Edited 2007-04-08 09:14
I’m sure it won’t be too much of a problem for one more post here.
(please excuse the use of wikipedia for convenience)
Firstly, keep it simple. A straight line is a pretty generalised term, there are many more precise ways of defining a path, there probably isn’t any one unified comprehensive definition, but this is how I understand it:
My claim is that a line is always the shortest distance between 2 points[1]*. If that is true, then it will always hold true, you can never shorten a straight path between fixed points, ever. If you define a straight line( f1(y)=mx+c ) in 2d euclidean space and then change the metric such that the ‘distance function[2]’ changes, then the line f1(x) will no longer be straight. As I understand it, then if you define a non-metric or discontinuous space, the entire concept of a straight line becomes patchy anyway.
This becomes useful in the physical world. You can specify that light[3] always travels in a straight line. Therefore when light bends around a planet, the definition still holds. Even a black hole doesn’t stop light traveling in straight lines
. I’m not sure how this definition holds up when taking about dif/refraction.
I can’t find any reliable source to back up my claim that a straight line is always the shortest path. I imagine that there is no properly agreed definition in this case. But I know that it is used in Physics.
* The article only claims this fact when in euclidean space, Physicists believe that this holds in any space.
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_(mathematics)
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distance_function
[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light#Optical_theory
It’s not necessarily true. Take a globe and draw a straigt line between London and Ney Work and I dare say it is not the shortest route (because Earth is somewhat roundish).
Actually, I’m still right.
Read the other thread about this. Your mistake here is to define a straight line in terms of a geodesic space (the surface of a sphere) and then change your metric to a 3d cartesian space (nearly
). If you change metric, then straight-lines can become non-straight (strictly, the functional definition of a straight line is different in different numeric spaces).
Analogy: Take 2 boxes(A, B), put one on top of the other. You can now state S1: A is above B.
Now stand on your head, now you can say S2: B is above A
logically, S2 does not invalidate S1, you have just changed your frame of reference.
I read the other thread just after having submitted my post… *sigh* (spank me, I’m Zoot
)
Anyway, I don’t agree with the redefinition of “straight line”. A straight line doesn’t bend
– one can argue that a bended line is straight, but it can also be argued it is no longer straight. It can also be argued that the straight line I drew on the globe isn’t a straight line since it bends too.
It all depends on definitions. Lovely, isn’t it?
Yeah, it’s a kinda obscure argument too
.
It is my task to appologise for the confusion I have caused (Disclaimer: I’ve not slept much and my memory has failed me.)
Say you want to describe the “free” (no external forces) motion of a particle on the surface of the globe. One can find an adjusted set of coordinates (spherical coordinates r, phi and theta with center R0) where the constraint (e.g. particle can only move on the surface of the globe) is satisfied implicitly. If I derive the equations of motion in this set of prefered coordinates (and forget a moment about the fact, that these are – from our point of view – radial and angular components) then it takes the shape of a “straight line”.
(Side remark: Damn, another definition of “free” we have to deal with in this forums. o_O)
When one changes the constraints (e.g. turn on external forces, maybe even non-conservative like friction) and proceeds to proceeds to describe the motion of the (now non-free) particle, one has to either modify the set of coordinates to take this into account implicitly (which would yield again “straight lines” in the new, adapted set of coordinates) or have to leave with a curved projection.
So the particle moving along the surface of the globe can be either viewed in its adapted set of coordinates as a straight line or in a less adapted set (our falt R^3) and an external constraint (like a very rigid central force), resulting in curved trajectories.
Light travels in “straight lines” in the 3+1 dimensional space-time, but the projection onto our familiar R^3 looks curved. If one switches on a force field so that the particle is no longer “free” and the particle would stop traveling along null – lines (lightlike world lines).
I know, that my knowledge about GRT is currently limited (as I’m only a number cruncher who tries to finally finish his thesis in computational physics), so feel free to correct me. (mental Post-It to myself: Less posting on OSAlert, more learning GRT)
Again, my appologies for the confusion I caused
Ok, last addition /correction:
Additional (external) “forces” result in a modified functional (like the length or the Lagrange function) via “potentials” that has to be made extreme (e.g. minimised in the case of the “length”).
So the resulting Euler – Lagrange equations change, not necessarily the generalised coordinates (they should be only changed, when other (holonomic) constraints are introduced. Non-holonimic constraints can be treated with Lagrange multipliers, IIRC)
*bangs head on the table*, *twice*
I’m off #-|
But taking the shortest route would lead to you getting horribly burned if your mole-machine is not adequately heat-shielded. At our present level of technological advancement, I feel it’s irresponsible to suggest this.
yeah, sure.. and drinking Wine will make you drive better
Maybe when pigs fly, wine will actually run more than 2% of windows programs.
Wine is more compatible with XP than Vista is. And runs a lot more than two windows applications.
But you wouldn’t know that, would you?
I would know that as I run vista, xp, linux WITH wine. And to say that wine is more compatible than windows vista is a complete lie. For you to say that a reverse engineered windows library implementation runs better than the real thing shows that you apparently wouldnt know.
Eeehh.. being reverse engineered doesn’t rule out it can be better, so that’s not a valid argument. The mere fact you claim a reverse engineered library is worse than the “real thing” proves you know nothing about coding.
Wine is more compatible with XP than Vista is with XP. However, Vista-compatible applications runs better on Vista than on Wine. But that is not in conflict with my statement. Fact is Wine is more backwards compatible than Vista is.
Applications that fail to run under Vista runs smoothly under Wine. And we are talking about thousands of applications incl. Direct3D games (DirectX 9 though).
I have been using vista since day 1, and the few software issues I have run into have been fixed by running the application as administrator.
Backwards compatibility in vista is fantastic, what causes issues is the fact that theres a user security model in windows where there was none before.
By contrast, running applications in wine is like wrestling a hippopotamus. First you run the gui utility that is only intuitive if you compare it with the old traditional way of editing the massive configuration file by hand.
Then you get the joy of the per-application dll overrides that is required for many applications to even run. This generally either requires very advanced knowledge and going over the debug log of wine, OR hours of research on the net, if you are lucky enough that the app you want to run is documented.
After that, the end result is generally a buggy, bruised looking, slow app that uses win95ish widgets and shared dialogs.
But i mean, clicking on the “run as administrator” checkbox is SO much more difficult….
For you to say that a reverse engineered windows library implementation runs better than the real thing shows that you apparently wouldnt know.
SAMBA is a great example of just that.
{ Maybe when pigs fly, wine will actually run more than 2% of windows programs. }
Wine runs most Windows programs, particularly non-Microsoft Windows programs, because non-Microsoft programs use only the documented APIs.
Wine runs infinitely more Windows programs that any Microsoft product runs Mac OSX or Linux programs.
Actually, because there is a finite number of programs in the universe, Wine can’t run infinitely as many Windows programs, so go back to sleep
>Wine runs infinitely more Windows programs that any Microsoft product runs Mac OSX or Linux programs.
Division by zero is undefined, it is not infinity.
Despite the mathematical faux pas your point is good.
B^)
Actually, with services for Unix, or Cygwin, Windows can run Linux programs, if they are recompiled.
I imagine so… Its not exactly a difficult title to win when windows doesnt run ANY mac os x or linux programs.. This means it only has to run one to win
I dont see why microsoft would build windows to run mac os x, or linux programs. How many windows program does osx run (not the mac os x port of wine doesnt really count here, as based on your wording it would have to run windows programs because of code written by apple.. apple doesnt support running windows or linux programs either..)? How many os x programs does linux run? We could play this game all day and that still doesnt make wine any better than it is.
I have plenty of experience with wine, and it does not run “most” windows programs. It runs a large number of them possibly, but it certainly has not reached the “most” point.
1st mistake – XP Home
2nd mistake – using the half-twit XP version as a basis for anything dealing with Vista.
“Home” is sub-par, and upgrades, well, let’s just say; there’s nothing like mixing two OS’s together and fooling yourself that it will result in something hopefully useful without issues.
With the various versions of Vista to choose from, you’re opting to upgrade the lowest of XP versions will have you with an even less capable version of Vista. It’s not hard to guess what any ‘review’ you have as a result will contain.
[i]Ive got no plans buying windows vista ;p</p>
I never bought XP
and it has never contaminated my system.
i never bought
windows 3.1
Windows 95
windows 95b
windows 98
windows me
windows 2000
windows 2003
windows xp/xp pro
windows nt
and im not going to buy vista
That’s nice. Do we care?
No.
i never bought
windows 3.1
Windows 95
windows 95b
windows 98
windows me
windows 2000
windows 2003
windows xp/xp pro
windows nt
and im not going to buy vista
You don’t have a computer or only have pentium-pro?
Why ?
He might have built his computer, therefore having the choice of which system to install.
Edited 2007-04-08 07:53
you missed Windows 98 SE.
hah, now we’ve gotcha!
Soon they will be giving Vista away to lure people to Office or other services.
I bet a whole lot of people would be willing to pay for extended support for XP. What a bad decision on MS’ part. If I were them I’d offer extended support for maybe $29 where you’d get SP3 and perhaps some other bonuses. I guess they figure there’s more money in dropping XP than charging for supporting it.
In the past they’ve never charged for extended support for a Windows release have they? Seems like they don’t consider it. Who at MS is considering revenue streams and passed this one up??! *bonk* on your head.
You ar forgetting that Microsoft wants you to upgrade, and not to stay with XP. If you stay with XP, there will be more and more things that would not work as you go. Finaly, if you stay with Microsoft, you will have to upgrade. And they will charge you for the upgrade, more than $29.
My experience that is on recent PC you have to run two generations old Windows OS, and it will run as OS is supposed to, quick and responsive. That means that you should run Win2k now. Many things are not working, but the rest is great.
I still run Windows 2K on an older PC, so far I’ve hardly encountered any software or hardware that doesn’t work on it. There are better 2K compatible alternatives to the handful of multimedia and internet apps I’ve seen that are purely for XP. Even games will generally run on Windows 2K without any problems.
Whatever Microsoft do, people aren’t all going to dump XP any time soon. While a large number of people are still using older versions of Windows, software/hardware companies are likely to keep on supporting them.
If someone wants to stay with XP, Microsoft aren’t going to be able to force them to change any time soon.
If you are ok with older software, then they probably will not be able to force you to switch. I use Win2K to run some games, too. But, make no mistake, there will be games that run in Vista only, sooner or later.
But, Microsoft doesn’t intend to have customers that are satisfied with their current OS. They want them to live in expectation that next one will be perfect for them. That is the marketing strategy. I respect Microsoft, but that is not good enough for me. That’s why I use FreeBSD for all serious work.
I’d like to give up Windows completely, and buy gaming console for fun, but I need to run MS SQL server.
“My experience that is on recent PC you have to run two generations old Windows OS”
Your experiences must be with Pentium 3s and older then, as I’ve never witnessed anything like that
“I bet a whole lot of people would be willing to pay for extended support for XP.”
——–
Well, they don’t have to because Microsoft is supporting XP through 2014. What is it you guys want in an SP3 anyway? You’re getting the monthly security updates even without SP3.
It’s hard enough to say that a third service pack for XP is needed.
In my opinion, two service packs should be more than enough, but hey, it’s microsoft!
(it’s like bananas, maturing at the customer =P)
yes, but when you ripen a banana at home, they are far far far more tasty compared to when they are first bought.
Same as Windows
Same as Ubuntu
Personally I prefer greenish bananas: more tangy, and less grainy texture. I heard they can be a bit bad for you when underripe, though.
… what else could we expect? Windows XP SP3 isn’t likely to generate any revenue, while people switching to Vista certainly will. It makes perfect sense to folks at Redmond to try to do anything to discourage people from using an older version of their OS and switch to the newer one instead.
And as for not supporting Windows XP customers… Who needs to worry about that when you more or less control the OS market?
Edited 2007-04-07 21:43
I submitted the news as a warning but it SHOULD NOT be taken too seriously. Paul is a half-reliable source of info!
“…but it SHOULD NOT be taken too seriously…”
I agree…Windows 2000 had service packs shipping well into the XP release cycle. Microsoft will not (I daresay cannot) leave their corporate customers high and dry. At the very least they’ll have to ship something to make XP play nice with Vista Server whenever it ships.
We’ll get at least one more SP for Windows XP, and if you’re on XP x64 expect service packs for at least another 3 years given that they will fall in line with Windows 2003 SP releases.
Thurott…what has happened to this guy? I used to respect (and actually look forward to reading) his columns. Lately he’s jumped off and on the crazy train a few times too many.
[q]I agree…Windows 2000 had service packs shipping well into the XP release cycle. Microsoft will not (I daresay cannot) leave their corporate customers high and dry. At the very least they’ll have to ship something to make XP play nice with Vista Server whenever it ships.[q]
Lets acknowledge the fact, however, this isn’t the first time Microsoft has done it; they first canceled NT 4 Service Pack 7 after having promised it, and put it into development for several months.
Then they canceled Service Pack 5 for Windows 2000, making up a cock and ball story about customs demands and so forth – when in reality, they just couldn’t be bothered.
Now onto Service Pack 3 for Windows XP – anyone surprised now, after a legacy of canceling two previous service packs as a motivation tool for customers?
But what I do find it funny are the numbers who stick with Windows; it seems that the Windows world seem to suffer from the equivalent of ‘battered wife syndrome’ where they do everything possible to justify their bad treatment by Microsoft – they see the door, they can leave any time they want, but they seemed to have pulled into a trap they can’t escape from.
Good analysis!
I can’t mod you up more
Edited 2007-04-08 10:45
But what I do find it funny are the numbers who stick with Windows; it seems that the Windows world seem to suffer from the equivalent of ‘battered wife syndrome’ where they do everything possible to justify their bad treatment by Microsoft – they see the door, they can leave any time they want, but they seemed to have pulled into a trap they can’t escape from.
Amein to that!
I agree, I can’t believe he is presenting this as a fact. This is nothing but FUD.
Um, he clearly says it isn’t fact:
“Um, he clearly says it isn’t fact:
“…but it SHOULD NOT be taken too seriously…”
Who says that, Thurrott? I think you need to go back and read it again because nowhere on that page does he say any such thing. The person who submitted this article said that.
Edited 2007-04-08 01:14
Nvidia not updating the XP driver for 5 months, nForce drivers are old and the nForce sound/network driver in Vista is 2 years old.
I do wonder if XP does need another service pack because to me there is something not right about this and Vista SP1 coming up. To me OS X and Linux never looked better right now, Windows seems to have flat tires with service packs to help pump them up.
A lot of people would say that the Linux alternatives cannot even start the engine.
A lot of people would say that nVIDIA and ATi/AMD are marketing products that don’t work as advertised for a large percentage of the their users, and that the major OEMs don’t seem to be doing much about it.
My respect for this guy has just dropped a ton. This is not a story, Microsoft absolutely did not say anything about dropping SP3. Posting speculation and wild guesses as facts is pretty irresponsible when so many people are used to going to you for solid information. I suggest he stick to the facts from now on, or at least label his opinions as being such.
2:1 on they will make it a pay for SP3 to lure people over to the next shot of the needle.
MS never charges for service packs, why would they start now? I’ll take your bet
Thehotfix.net has an sp3 that has been out for ages
I’m hardly Microsoft’s biggest fan, but with the latest service packs both 2K and XP are pretty mature and stable operating systems. Even if there aren’t any more full service packs for XP, as long as essential security fixes keep on coming, I don’t really see the problem.
What are the big issues that need fixing, or additions that are required, to make another service pack essential?
It wouldn’t surprise me if MS did quickly drop XP, I’m sure they’re extremely keen for everyone to switch to Vista ASAP, but I can’t see that changing the mind of anyone who’s decided not to upgrade.
In my opinion yes, because look at how many updates you have to download and install every to you install XP. With a service pack every single one of those could be slipstreamed into the installation CD and you’d be up to date right from the start. I know there are third party integrators but I don’t like those, they tend to screw things up.
In my opinion yes, because look at how many updates you have to download and install every to you install XP. With a service pack every single one of those could be slipstreamed into the installation CD and you’d be up to date right from the start. I know there are third party integrators but I don’t like those, they tend to screw things up.
Well, what about the patches that are released after SP3, assuming they release it? You’re still going to have the same issue. If you want an ‘all-in-one’ rollup kind of thing, download AutoPatcher. I’ve been using it without any problems.
BTW: For the individuals who have chimed in to let us know you’re running Linux, nobody give’s a rat’s ass. Take your trolling asses to Slashdot.
Well, what about the patches that are released after SP3, assuming they release it?
Well they would certainly be more manageable then what we have right now, which is three years worth of patches. As far as autopatcher I would much rather have an official tested service pack. Microsoft should be the one supporting their product, not third parties.
Edited 2007-04-08 00:49
BTW: For the individuals who have chimed in to let us know you’re running Linux, nobody give’s a rat’s ass. Take your trolling asses to Slashdot.
Reading through your previous posts, I think you should join them
nlite
I too, starting about 5 years ago, started a transition to Linux and am now completely moved over. It’s a product that was easy to understand, and now easier to maintain that Windows. My son still uses an XP installation for some gaming. They can forget XP as far as I’m concerned and concentrate on Vista which I’ll never have. ReactOS looks interesting, but it will be a long time before that is a usable platform.
Anyway, adios, Microsoft, it was a pain having you…
Would some of you be here except for not using M/S Windows and supported products?
Maybe for many of us, this is a grand “I told you so” which they’ve been warning about since Windows Vista was announced – but hey, we’ve got arm chair computer experts here who claim that ‘Microsoft would never do that! they would never abandon their user base’.
Please, Microsoft is a business, they have no loyalty to their customers, and neither should their customers to a particular company – the day you start thinking you can have some sort of ‘personal relationship’ with an organisation, you’ve simply lost the plot.
The most important comment I’ve read in years. Right on, man.
Now if only we could mod you up more…
Many people use both XP and Linux. So lots of MS XP users can follow and debate the products. Besides OS News are not Linux only but all OS incl. MS.
You have to admit, the “echo chamber effect” is pretty funny. It’s like clockwork: OSAlert posts a story about a Microsoft product, and the usual suspects feel compelled hop into the comments and pat themselves on the back for not using said Microsoft product.
– atleast they should ship a Linux 2.6 kernel with all the bug fixes.
Some years ago, when I was using RH, they were used to release patches also for their older versions (sincerly, don’t know now).
Then fedoralegacy shipped patches for many years after rh dropped support for rh9, as it’s open sources.
And you can always move to fedora (centos, opensuse, *buntu, …) at 0 bucks.
Edited 2007-04-07 23:18
No need for RedHat 9.0 use Fedora Core it is stable and solid.
As far as Windows Vista goes what is so impressive about the desktop gui it is same rehash with ‘prompt boxes’ that cause the screen to dim and a box has to be checked to proceed to change desktop screen resolution to anything. The most important part is to be sure you have a GOOD computer mouse you will be clicking it ALL the time!
So you’re saying Vista is the Dungeon Master of the 21st century?
(To explain this reference, a friend of mine went through two different mice playing that game. Literally the left mouse button would die from being clicked so many times. What a great game!)
The fact that Red Hat 9 was a subscription based distribution which gave you different periods of support depending on the version bought; me, I bought the one which included 60days of support and it set me back $30; if I wanted longer, it was just a matter of IIRC paying for a subscription package in either 1 year, 2 year or 3 three block.
As for Fedora, I don’t know what the original poster who started off the threading was trying to get at, but lets remember sugar buns, Fedora is *FREE* – there is no *upgrade treadmill* because you *never* bought Fedora in the first place! its like whining because Porsche gave you a free car, then whining that they won’t give you free vehicle maintenance and servicing!
Compile it yourself. You have access to the sources
Windows Vista is the last in this line up.
As for me I just configured my (work) laptop with Fedora Core 6 and I really like it. The desktop effects are very nice and X-windows is superior to the ‘gui’ in Windows Vista.
Having used Red Hat since 1999 (RedHat 6.0 Professional boxed set) I installed it and this Linux distro as many others has matured into a STABLE, fully functional desktop OS for ALL uses.
The only time I will actually use Vista will be the Business version when they roll it out at work most likely next year. However it will be wiped out and Fedora Core installed just like my present (work) laptop…..
Source?
“What the heck, you will gettin vista with your new comp when you buy it. XP will become a memory just as Win98.”
If I bought a new computer, it would be formatted and have a fresh install of XP going on it. You can hardly compare XP to 98.
Edited 2007-04-07 23:37
You can compare Vista to the mess that was Windows ME, though….
“As for me I just configured my (work) laptop with Fedora Core 6 and I really like it. The desktop effects are very nice and X-windows is superior to the ‘gui’ in Windows Vista.”
Mod me down for this, but dude…I don’t even think the most rabid, zealous, over-the-top MS hating spit in BillG’s food Linux fan would agree with that assessment. XWindows ain’t even close to Aero bud.
You are comparing apples to oranges again.
XWindows is not comparable to Aero, it is not supposed to be.
XWindows is comparable to the stock interface in Windows.
Beryl on the other hand is more than comparable to Aero.
Raver31, XWindows doesn’t have a GUI, so you can’t really compare it to the stock interface of Windows either.
Actually it does. X.org comes with a server, a WM and a GUI toolkit (rather simple none the less but the equivalent of stock win32 GUI-api).
Sure it does. Ever used xedit or xterm? They use the standard X GUI toolkit.
Why do people always try to plug Linux and MacOS in these threads?
Like some guy said above, you cannot compare Windows with Linux. Some people are fine with Linux but that’s not the majority.
Windows Vista SP0 is a failure. Why? Because it was NOT ready for release (not because it’s bad).
From a technological point of view, Vista is great (minus UAC). .NET 3.0 is a BIG thing. Look at WPF. It’s BIG. With Visual Studio Orcas coming, I think Microsoft is in very good shape.
You won’t find that kind of new stuff on other platforms. On Linux, you don’t even have a decent IDE to write non-corporate applications (using Eclipse in a non-corporate environnement is dumb). You don’t even have good (read “new generation”) APIs to write full featured applications (I mean, without doing it all by hand).
I’m not saying that X is bad, that GTK is bad or that QT is bad, no, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that these things are old stuff. We moved on.
Still, Windows Vista SP0 is a failure. But hey, that’s not the first mistake from Microsoft. I’m sure the future will not let us down.
Dude that is bad whether you believe it or not. MS has you believing that an OS is fine if it crashes or doesn’t do what you need it to. You sit there and say well it’s not ready well guess what MS released it so they think it is therefore it stinks because it doesn’t work.
I don’t think your points are fair on either side. For one, Windows Vista was ready to be released. Using my pretty much all-intel laptop, the final release has been quite stable so far and it handles some things faster than XP. Sure, drivers aren’t fully there, but they weren’t going to be until the OS was out. Microsoft has to essentially force the IHVs forward or they won’t do it on their own. NVidia’s not going to be looking too good financially if their Vista drivers don’t improve post haste.
On your linux comments: I haven’t done much linux coding myself, but I’ve seen the tools and technologies on the QT side, and there’s nothing primitive about them. GTK is supposed to be a big mess, though I have no basis to confirm it, but QT has had a good environment for quite some time. The fact is, in the Windows world any “real” applications that are not relatively simple LOB tools are written “by hand” as well. People don’t use the VS GUI designers to make high performance “heavy-weight” applications like Office, Acrobat, or even Paint.NET. VS is great for writing these heavier applications, but only because of intellisense and the general quality of its editor.
Edited 2007-04-08 01:26
I am a developer, and never heard of a cathegory called “non-corporate” applications. There is very loosley defined cathegory of “enterprise” applications, and that definition does not include technology or API used to create them. Please don’t make comments on something you don’t understand.
You probably mean something like games and multimedia. Yes, OSX an Windows are better choice for that type of applications.
Like some guy said above, you cannot compare Windows with Linux. Some people are fine with Linux but that’s not the majority.
Windows Vista SP0 is a failure. Why? Because it was NOT ready for release (not because it’s bad).
Ah, my favourite Windows fanboi tactic: “Windows is crap because it’s not ready, and Linux is crap because it’s crap”.
If it hasn’t been ready for 24 years, why should I believe it will EVER be?
I happen to develop for .NET on both Windows and Linux. I find it odd that you now talk about how Linux is not ready for the “non-Enterprise.” Eclipse can be used in a corporate or non-corporate environment. BTW if I am not mistaken you mean .NET 3.5? .NET 3.0 is released, but without an appropriate IDE it is pretty much buggered. And with Orcas distributed is .NET 3.5, but C# 3.0.
Equating good with new is also a bad idea. If you want to talk about new API’s then you by comparing WPF you are in fact talking about old API’s since WPF is like XUL, and XUL has been around for ages. For the other stuff like Web Services, and Communications .NET 3.5 is pretty darn complicated and I question if it is better.
Ok so if I program C# and .NET why am I dissing it? Because I write Ajax front ends with ASP.NET back ends using REST and sometimes SOAP. Wonderful architecture and it works extremely well.
BTW I also don’t agree that Vista is a failure. Vista is a fine piece of software that nobody needs. XPSP2 is about what most people need, and that is the problem that Microsoft is facing.
Microsoft always ships a final service pack to slow the previous Windows version down so much that the next version starts to look attractive. Vista needs to stabilize and then they will take some of the Vista code that will “run” but more slowly on XP and then release the “termination” service pack for XP.
Microsoft always ships a final service pack to slow the previous Windows version down so much that the next version starts to look attractive.
No they don’t, that’s just silly.
Microsoft has been known to do silly things. Like tying the webbrowser deep within its system. Nooo, Microsoft wouldn’t do that, That’s just silly… but they did it anyway.
Whatever, like SP4 for Win2k was like that, or NT sp6. Your whole statement is garbage, just like Thurrot’s blog entry
If one was running NT4 SP6 and happened to reinstall NT4 with no service packs, the performance difference was incredible. The minimum (official Microsoft, i.e. memory, CPU) requirements for the OS actually grew during the SP process. The same holds for Windows 2000 SP0 vs SP4. Obviously you didn’t notice the gradual performance slide installing SP1-SP4, you probably “added memory, faster processor, etc.” to compensate. I realized I was throwing away a machine (512M, Pentium I) that had actually been “fast” when Win2K was first installed on it and seemed like a dog with Win 2K SP3, XP, etc.
An install of Win 3.1 on current hardware takes less than 20 _seconds_, to give you some idea how bloated Windows has become.
and to give you some idea how many features Windows has added.
First off, I wonder if a complete service pack is necessary for Windows XP. I have SP2 and have had no problems at all.
Second, I was entirely satisfied with the “kiss-off” that Microsoft gave Windows 98SE, a free CD with all of the available security patches and program updates. Maybe MS will do the same for XP?
Third, is it possible to have even a single Windows news item without 30 or so people posting irrelevent “I use Linux” comments?
-Bob
It’s called Vista.
Seriously Microsoft should have a SP3 for XP. It doesn’t have to be a major update. It could simply be a roll-up of updates post SP2.
In reality I don’t expect any company to keep supporting old software, but XP is going to need at least a few more years of support before Microsoft drops all updates. I think that should include at least SP3 and maybe even SP4.
My first post!
Since that’s goofiness is out of the way, there is something that I want to address. It seems that Thurrott is being somewhat misquoted, so let me post the ACTUAL comments by him, emphasis added:
“And although I’m ranting a bit, let’s dredge up Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), which was delayed from 2005 to 2006 to 2007 and now to 2008. If you were looking for any glimpse into the mind of Microsoft, this is it: I think that the company has completely abandoned XP, and doesn’t plan on shipping XP SP3. My guess is that Microsoft will do what it did with the final Windows 2000 service pack: Claim years later that XP SP3 isn’t necessary and just ship a final security patch rollup. Even if XP SP3 is shipped in 2008, it’s the worst kiss-off to any Microsoft product I’ve ever seen, and you’d think the company would show a little more respect to its best-selling OS of all time. But the reality is that Microsoft is looking ahead to new revenue and not behind to money that’s already in the bank. And although hundreds of millions of people will be running XP for years to come–despite Microsoft’s best efforts to sell them a newer Windows version–the company has absolutely no plans to actually support those customers, which goes against Microsoft’s publicly stated life cycle support plans. And it really freaks me out. It should freak you out as well.”
Not to stick up too much for him, but I think that the complete text shows he was reporting this as his OPINION and not fact.
Edited 2007-04-08 03:46
“Even if XP SP3 is shipped in 2008, it’s the worst kiss-off to any Microsoft product I’ve ever seen, and you’d think the company would show a little more respect to its best-selling OS of all time.”
I don’t understand this statement by Thurott. Even if there is an SP3, he’s still pissed? What does he want, exactly, support into imperpetuity?
Earliear, he said:
let’s dredge up Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), which was delayed from 2005 to 2006 to 2007 and now to 2008.
I’m guessing, put in that context, that he would have preferred that SP3 had been released when it was first promised.
“What does he want, exactly,”
Readers.
I have been carefully watching the windows line since 95.
95,98,Me all are crashable buy software before being broke by a virus or any virulent agent.
Windows 2000 to Windows XP-SP1 fixed alot of crashability that was experienced on multiple systems due to faulty software (specially device drivers, services). and now come the time to get equal annoyance between crashability and vulnerability, Until SP2 for XP came with its firewall (firewall.cpl) which led to a new age of a previously ignored annoyances namely Crashability of OS or Buggy, Huge code that never trimmed or largely cleaned.
Vista is now available, but what they did with it is just add more features and some new millions of codes to correct previous problems that was difficult to fix without breaking compatibility, so they took windows server 2003 core and built on top of it vista; but this is remotely a successful solution for an OS that has still bugs dating back to 98. Microsoft should have rewritten vista completely from scratch while patching XP with real big component (like windows firewall in SP2), and releasing those big patches as SP3 (hardened firewall, outpound protection eg), SP4(with antivirus software), SP5(Internet Explorer 7 with antiSpyware), SP6(application healing)….etc.
So, MS didn’t jump when It was able to jump and now it has to survive with an OS that is so difficult to code, manage and test ( as they say).
I noticed last month that a system had usb chipset malfuntioned on the motherboard , which led to system freeze, and I wondered why MS with all of its resources are not looking for their OS to make it more resistent to such a failure without trashing our login session?! When will it be the time to start caring?!!
To give you the benefit of the doubt, I’m going to allow two options:
1. You left out some important details to explain that statement (that’s the benefit of the doubt).
2. You don’t understand what you’re talking about, and you have this notion that the OS provider is supposed to or even CAN make an OS not vulnerable to faulty hardware.
Well, I don’t know enough to comment on #1, but if it was indeed faulty hardware, why do you think Microsoft is responsible to keep the OS from coughing up hairballs in that case? That’s entirely up to the individual driver and designer of the hardware to be responsible for making sure that errors are handled correctly at the individual driver level: they’re the only ones capable of knowing enough details to have a chance of fixing that. If you look inside the guts of a lot of driver code (say, RealTek NIC drivers are likely to have some of these things) you’ll notice all sorts of hacks that are explained as workarounds for hardware quirks.
I have news for you: many years ago I had a motherboard that started dying, and BeOS started flaking out BEFORE Windows 98 had a problem, and it soon got to the point where I couldn’t boot into BeOS due to the problem. What was a certain sign that something was horribly wrong with the hardware (which Windows 98 and the drivers worked around well enough to not make it fatal immediately) I finally got a NMI BIOS error screen that popped up and claimed I had a memory parity error. What was so odd about that? I didn’t have any parity/ECC memory installed on that system at all, so logical deduction is that the APIC (Advanced Peripheral Interrupt Controller) was dying on me, which made sense, that BeOS running on a dual p3 system would push it much harder than Windows 98 that only used one processor.
Any OS expects a driver to deal with all interrupts and hardware malfunctions and report things back correctly to the OS using a predefined contract. When hardware/drivers don’t abide by that contract, all bets are off as to what will happen. This is NOT merely something specific to Windows: this is true for ALL OS’s. Chances are that system wouldn’t function any more reliably with any other OS if the hardware is dying or seriously malfunctioning like that, given in equally-competent driver. Place blame where blame is due, and don’t pick a scapegoat.
It’s funny to see all the Linux trolls come out and bash Microsoft as if they actually dropped support.
Unlike most hobbyist Linux distributions, Microsoft has a committed support lifecycle available for anyone to see.
Windows XP will be mainstream supported until 2009 and will be ‘extended supported’ (eg: they will provide security updates and whats not) until 2014.
So please Linux users, keep those ‘Haha they dropped support for XP i told you so’ to yourself and first learn how the MS lifecycle works, then if you want to comment on how MS will stop supporting a 13 year old operating system (XP will be 13 years old in 2014), go ahead.
Sure, they might have decided to not release a service pack, but that’s about it.
Edited 2007-04-08 07:49
“Unlike most hobbyist Linux distributions, Microsoft has a committed support lifecycle available for anyone to see.”
No really??? I multi-billion multinational corporation has better support than a hobbyist non-profit project run by a handfull of people on nickel and dimes? Fo’ real?
Seriously, I wouldn’t expect anything less.
Of course, you shouldnt compare MS to those but to the likes of Novell and RedHat.
XP is not abandoned, all the “SP3 patches” are out there, after all. Only they are not packed together. If you buy XP today, you get it with SP2 included, downloading the rest of the patches isn’t that bad. And for this “abandonned” product, I only downloaded a fresh patch this week – how can that be..? The patches rolled up would be a bit more convenient, but only a bit. I got no idea whether the extra effort is even necessary.
If you want to, get an offline update package. I know MS recently killed off enthusiast/3rd party packagers, but there is a very trustwothy one out there by German IT publisher Heise.
Their tool pulls all the patches for the MS OSes of your choice directly off the MS server, either in English or German and you can burn them to CD – that is way better than a plain SP.
You have all patches for all MS OS on one CD – a great source.
http://www.heise.de/ct/ftp/projekte/offlineupdate/
The only thing I would like to see in a real SP3 is DX10 for XP, but it won’t happen.
Edit: in case you couldn’t spot it, there is an English description to it here:
http://www.heise-security.co.uk/articles/80682
probably more interesting for most of you
Edited 2007-04-08 08:29
The only thing I would like to see in a real SP3 is DX10 for XP, but it won’t happen.
AFAIK it isn’t possible, they use completely different display driver architectures. Vista uses WDDM which DX10 is built around.
Thanks for that link, very nice program.
Edited 2007-04-08 08:14
You may think so and you are entitled to your opinion.
I disagree but then again I’m not a Windows user (anymore). I always create integrated iso-images containing Windows and the most up to date service pack.
Using these leads to more stable system whose installation can be completed in less time. For this reason alone SP3 would be a welcome release if only as a huge time-saver.
If I was Microsoft I would be very ashamed to deliver this kind of service to my customers. But then again do they or their customers care?
Edited 2007-04-09 21:01
as long as Cygwin/Mingw/Java supply updates. I rely rely on Cygwin on my Win laptop. No MS products here except OS.
that's not true, my home system is W2k and I get updates all the time. MS hasn't abondoned W2k not to speak of XP.
Only security fixes. Win2K is not receiving any new functionality or updated apps.
Microsoft has for all purposes abandoned Win2K. It it hadn’t abandoned Win2K they would’ve released IE7 for Win2K (it wouldn’t be much a problem to do so – Win2K is pretty much 100% compatible with XP – applications that won’t install under Win2K has the Installer to deliberately fail on Win2K systems).
XP has API-level features that Win2k lacks. You have no guarantee that applications will always work the same between the two.
But you’re right, the installers are deliberately set to ask for XP. Why? Because the applications haven’t been tested on Win2k, and Windows is not some hobbyist product which can be cobbled together (Enterprise Linux software has similar versioning requirements). If it’s not tested, things are likely to go wrong and it’s going to piss customers off. Microsoft already has a huge testing matrix for most of their products, so it’s not worth anyone’s time and money to test for Win2k, which has a comparatively small marketshare. If you’re a business that’s running Win2k, then you’re probably happy to keep your old system going securely without messing with feature upgrades and new software.
For a fun experiment, try to replace “Windows” with “Linux” and “Linux” with “Windows” in an MS-bashing post. Example: “Windows never worked – glad I’m back to Linux”
And Presto! A +5, insightful post turns instantly into a -5 trollish post.
Where do the balanced, objective tech geeks hang out? I know they don’t hang out around here.
Using both Windows and Linux on their own merits and shortcomings
Funny, I thought I was the only person to have noticed that!
For a while, it was Ars Technica. I think they still have a balance of insightful people, as long as you don’t focus too much on the troll threads in BattleFront..
After reading through 112 comments, I actually forgot what the original article was about hehe.
Its an interesting topic though, I definitely hope XP will be supported for at least the same length of time say Windows 2000 was.
I had to think twice before writing something about the SP3 situation. Is an SP *just* a bunch of updates? Or does it add new features (or perhaps both)? In the case of updates, I’m sure it wouldnt be hard for MS to code a program which automatically bundles and installs all the non-HW specific updates since SP2. I think ‘Autopatcher’ basically does this, so that option for updates is already out there (though it may need some MS branding if people will trust it fully).
If we assume an SP to include new features (such as security centre in SP2 etc), do we know for a fact MS promised to deliver these kinds of changes when the OS came out? Don’t get me wrong, new features are great, but if I’m not expecting them, I’m not too fussed if none turn up.
In terms of security and stability though, I’d definitely want MS to continue to work on this. If the changes require a new SP its up to MS if they want to go ahead with that.
I love the double standards regarding Microsoft and Apple.
Regardless of whether they’re will be an SP3, Microsoft announced that they will be supporting XP through 2014.
So, Microsoft gets blasted for supporting XP thru 2014, that’s 13 years, because of a (possible) lack of an SP3 release. On the other hand, Apple, everyone’s darling, has a policy whereby they only support their two most recent 0.1 OSX releases, which effectively means that they support any one 0.1 release for only 2 to 3 years (during which time they release nine 0.01 mini-SPs, if you will), then users are required to pay for the next 0.1 release if they want continued support (security updates and bug fixes). And yet Apple gets no wrath at all.
Microsoft: 13 years of support for XP = horrible.
Apple: 2-3 years of support for OSX Jaguar (for example) = just fine and dandy.
I’m not blasting Apple, BTW. I’m just pointing out the double-standards deployed by critics. Generally, Microsoft supports its OSes far longer than anyone else and it’s not even remotely close.
…huge. They need to pacify the masses and release XP SP3, if not for a show of “good faith”. Also, MS needs to stop believing it’s own hype and realize that the “lumbering albatross”, that is Vista, will not be adopted on the corporate level for years. I don’t care what service pack they think the masses are waiting for.
After reading that blog, it sounds like Thurrot’s share of the MS kool-aid must be running out. If I didn’t know better, I was expecting him to start singing the praises of Ubuntu, or Gentoo, or something.
…huge. They need to pacify the masses and release XP SP3, if not for a show of “good faith”.
Why? XP already *owns* the desktop market and, over the next few years, Vista will replace it. It’s not like people have a *choice* when it comes to getting an OS with the machine that they purchase, right?
I only use windows to game. Linux is the OS I use to do non gaming stuff in. Why can’t MS make a good secure stable OS?