Have one person create patches for XP at limited cost or piss off tons of xp users with more alternative options out there than ever before?

the "business perspective" is "upgrades are more profitable than perpetual updates."

That's the same thinking that gave us "subscription-based software" as Adobe adopted in whole. They screwed over their hobbyist base in favor of the corporate base that would just say "Okay!" and write off that monthly or annual cost as a business expense.

And so I bought a copy of Corel Painter 2015 instead. At least they understand they're funded by both professional and amateur artists.

And switch to a competitor.

I don't think it will be enough people switching to cause a big enough dent in their sales.

When Office 2010 was released and there was next to no documentation on how to navigate with the new ribbon bar, I was informed by people in the know that it's because MS relies on their own paid-training programs to get businesses up and running on new software packages like that. Your average Home Edition user doesn't have either $500-$1000 laying around or the full weekend available to take the information-intense training just to learn the damn thing.

And MS doesn't care because businesses do have that kind of funding and time for their employees. MS helped make the system like this, but I have to think that all businesses helped, too, and maybe even the IRS, due to how software expenses can be written off.

The consumer-end just isn't profitable enough compared to the business side of work-software.

On their profit margin. This is just foolish on their part.

such as with regards to quarter profits. But MS does seem to be better at looking further down the road than the next quarter, and that's where they don't care as much about losing a few consumer-end customers on the question of keeping XP up-to-date.

I haven't worked on an XP-based machine in an office for years. Ever since Win7 came out, that's been the new industry standard. Businesses did balk at switching to Win8, and rightly so. MS straightened up and took notice when their business customers refused to upgrade to that train-wreck.

The other major competitors aren't meaningful competition in a workplace sense; not many companies are going to be willing to shell out the extra expense to switch their offices to Macs, and next to none are going to be insane enough drop Linux variants on an employee base which almost certainly has never heard of it.

Their lock here is pretty absolute, and they know it, hence ceasing updates for XP and pushing for a faster upgrade cycle otherwise.

Microsoft sees this as another money-making opportunity. It's no wonder the company is running itself into the ground.

Nobody is supporting an OS that old. Apple doesn't still support Snow Leopard, Ubuntu doesn't still support version 10.

Microsoft announced end of life years in advance.

It is foolish to piss off so many people, and for that matter companies as well.

xp is my fave even though I haven't used it for at least 6 yrs. It's still on my old laptop.

nt

Firefox here.

Look into getting an embedded version of the product. MS is still releasing patches on embedded versions of XP until 2016 on some (standard) and 2017 on others (Pro). As well as their POSReady (built on the XP platform), support does not end until 2019.

appear as WEPOS to Microsoft's update servers.

I have a machine that I simply must have XP running on. It runs old 16 bit electronics testing software, several older 32bit VST's that won't work with JBridge wrapping, and some software that will communicate with hardware samplers I still own that are themselves over 30 years old.

I now get all security updates for WEPOS. I just read the bulletins to find out which are really necessary and go from there. I got the IE updates that way, not that I use IE but instead IceDragon.

Microsoft is really sticking it to senior citizens, the disabled, and the poor by doing this.

Many cannot afford to upgrade their machines to run a new OS.


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Windows was supposed to have been running in protected mode for 15 years or more. Having waited and waited for that, only to find backdoor gate calls exist to provide speed and downlevel application support, just introduces numerous virus risks to the system. I'm tired of having to run multiple anti-virus products to cover all of the holes in their OS. They shoould have fixed this years ago, when they said they would... pre-NT.


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In light of that, all new machines in my entire extended family should be pulled from Microsoft in the next two years, as devices fail, as systems are upgraded,... NO MICROSOFT. In my recent future, the XP home base machine will be upgraded to a Mini Mac. My kids are already moving to Non-Windows systems. But, this means you can't run Ubuntu, since that runs on the Microsoft Azure layer (and sends some of your data to the cloud) to be mined.

If Linux, it needs to be GNU based. Anything other Linux, such as SUSE, is NSA exposed.

I use Debian.

I won't use Microsoft products unless someone is paying me to. I liked Gnome 2, and the Mate desktop is working well for me. On lower powered computers, the sort that are considered doorstops in the Microsoft world, the LXDE desktop is a good one.

1) Your actual hardware warranty expired 13 years ago on a toaster.

2) If your toaster breaks, you can fix it yourself, if you have the knowledge. (Plus one for Open Source software there!)

3) If after 14 years, your toaster became a major safety hazard, you better believe its manufacturer would have a plan to have it fixed even if by outside repairman. After all, unlike software companies, the company that makes your toaster would actually be liable for potential harms it might cause.

And if you want to complain about a company not providing support, go check your router. It almost certainly has not had a firmware update in years. Last year a major vulnerability was found that impacts several hundred million routers.

And yes, vulnerability patches were made available for it. It is a Cisco/Linksys.

Microsoft did a great job supporting legacy win32 until Windows 8 and Metro which bombed. Windows 10 returns to its roots.

It would cost more and take more time than buying a new toaster.
Like buying a new computer after 14 years.
They are very affordable.
Companies don't need to support things in perpetuity.

Should you see outrage here, please point it out. Otherwise, your petulance is irrelevant.

Why? I don't get it.

The lightweight distros are good for older machines when upgrading to a newer version of Windows isn't realistic...

Microsoft cannot be expected to support an outdated and obsolete OS forever.

and I love it. I think it's much more user friendly than Microsoft. It doesn't require anti-virus software and best of all, it's free. If ever a major problem should arise, I can just download it again from the web ... for free.

XP is 12 years old and very obsolete. If you own a business and cannot afford to upgrade to Win 7 then you have more problems than the lack of XP updates.

1- It's ALWAYS patched up to date
2- I'm running Windows 10
3- I'm very careful which sites I go to
4- I NEVER use it for my banking website
5- I'm very careful what I download
6- I very rarely get malware or viruses (last time because of a silly download)
7- The first sign of anything weird, I run a malware scan manually and a virus scan
with TWO or THREE different programs. It almost always comes back empty.

Am I recommending that anyone else run IE ? No, of course not.

If you're really worried about security with IE, you can go into the settings and manually turn off anything even the slightest bit risky. Browsing the net then becomes a royal pain in the ass, but hey, you're pretty much 100% safe.

Microsoft needs to completely disentangle IE from the OS. That's the big problem with IE.

If you're really concerned about security, you run Linux. Period. Linux has been known to get a few viruses, but on the whole Linux is free from attack. If Linux ever becomes the dominant default operating system for consumers (up from around 5%), then the hackers and criminals will target it. The Linux community will then stay super busy patching holes. With Linux, you also have to type in your password manually for every significant operation.

tl,dr: Don't run IE like me, but it's not uber-sucky like IE6.

Best damn OS Microsoft has ever produced!