I will not blame MS from moving on. If people don't want to upgrade, that's their problem. I am a little concerned, however, that so many POS systems still use XP. I just saw one yesterday at the hardware store I went to. When will they upgrade?
I don't know how much this will hurt MS with its core users. XP is largely kept alive by users in the East, not the West, and by businesses. The businesses will either pay for additional security or upgrade, and many of the users in Eastern countries don't pay for XP as it is, so what exactly is MS risking here?
MS needs to move on. There is no money in continuing to support a 13-year-old OS. You could argue that MS should make available paid support and security updates, but even OSes like Redhat aren't kept going for 13 years. I just don't get the outrage here.
Things like POS terminals and ATMs usually use Windows XP Embedded (if they're on XP at all). XP Embedded is still under support until July 12, 2016.
However, even if these systems are, for whatever reason, running a consumer version of XP which is slated to end extended support on April 8, 2014, they are most likely not connected to the internet and therefore safe from external threats.
That's just the best case scenario anyway. As we saw with the Target breach, they obviously did not have the required network segmentation in place. Any PCI compliant company is going to have their POS terminals running on an isolated network. This is hardly a reason to justify not upgrading though.
> I just saw one yesterday at the hardware store I went to. When will they upgrade?
When the cost of staying is greater than the cost of moving. For many embedded scenarios, the cost of staying is generally small (just occasional maintenance) and the cost of moving is huge (probably a whole new set of hardware).
"I don't know how much this will hurt MS with its core users"
It will hurt everyone with an Internet connection.
MS has filled the World with machines which are full of security holes and which only they can patch, and they've made a mint doing it. I would say it's their responsibility (ethically, not legally) to patch those machines until they stop being a massive threat to the stability of the Internet. I realise that this wont happen though.
I totally agree with you. At some point, it is no longer Microsoft's problem. (Heck, just look at how long OS/2 held on in POS systems after being taken off the market.)
> If people don't want to upgrade, that's their problem.
But running a company is not about doing the right thing, and Microsoft is not in a good diplomatic position to force an update on people after Vista and Windows 8 have been publicity disasters. I won't blame MS whatever they do, but if I were them, I would try to fix the Windows 8 mess first before risking negative headlines.
The PC industry would sell a ton more computers if Microsoft solved the upgrade problem. Why do you keep a computer for 5 years? Only because it hurts too much to upgrade, and no way is this solely about the cost.
XP was able to upgrade to Vista, but nobody did.
XP could not upgrade to Windows 7, so nobody did. Microsoft advertises third-party migration tools, rather than owning this problem and building out of it. They've had years to get it right.
And yes, the cost in reality is not just an OS upgrade. It's sometimes a new machine, and also $300 for Office and peripherals without updated drivers.
But it is mostly convenience: preserving apps, preferences, and licenses is important to regular people. It also isn't that hard, because they did the work for migrating XP to 32-bit Vista.
I've been consistently amazed that my Mac has updated from version to version perfectly, even 32-to-64. Windows has been a disaster every time.
Preserve people's state, preserve their data, and they will buy your software.
> I've been consistently amazed that my Mac has updated from version to version perfectly, even 32-to-64. Windows has been a disaster every time.
Don't forget the whole PowerPC -> Intel thing too.
I started on Mac OS X 10.2 on a G3 iBook, made my way up to a PowerBook, then an Intel MacBook Pro follwed by another Intel MacBook Pro. There were a handful of programs that didn't get updated to support Intel along the way, but the only one that I actually miss is Quicken. I wish Apple hadn't dropped Rosetta, but I suspect that they needed to in order to force software makers to move forward. Intuit didn't, and a few other companies opted to force a paid upgrade to get a version that works on Intel.
By and large, my programs and data have survived being migrated through four computers, seven major OS versions, a major architecture change, and the move from a 32-bit OS to a 64-bit OS. That's pretty cool.
I'm still looking for a Quicken-like program that works for me, but I have a feeling I'll end up either making my own or using Excel.
Another reason for people keeping their computer & OS for five or more years is that it might have just worked for them. So there was no pressing need to upgrade.
...the same Mac that, the year Windows XP was released, switched from OS9 to OSX, a completely different BSD/NeXTStep based operating system that eventually forced users to completely upgrade every single application they ran once they moved to Leopard about seven years ago? That one?
The article hints at a big reason for retiring XP support, but doesn't get right at it:
"After April [2014], when we release monthly security updates for supported versions of Windows, attackers will try and reverse engineer them to identify any vulnerabilities that also exist in Windows XP," said Tim Rains, director of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group. "If they succeed, attackers will have the capability to develop exploit code to take advantage of them."
Right now, the cadence of security updates to Vista/7/8/Windows Server 2003/Windows Server 2008/Windows Server 2012 is tied to how quickly those updates can be backported and tested for Windows XP, because as soon as those patches are released for any Windows operating system, attackers can use them to create exploits for those vulnerabilities and backport those exploits to XP (which they can do faster and with fewer resources than Microsoft can backport patches, because exploits have a much smaller test suite to ensure they don't break systems, ie they don't have such a test suite at all).
Continuing to support XP degrades the ability to support newer operating systems that haven't gotten an extension on their end of life, and at this point it's pretty clear that people still using XP aren't taking advantage of postponing its EOL to do anything but keep using XP. Something's got to give.
I call bs. I'm certain there will be a large scale problem with XP. However, that won't run in the reputation of MS, but rather the company still using it.
Right? I don't get the mindset of Microsoft having to support an antiquated product line over a decade past its expiration date because a few business IT customers are incompetent at writing client software and keeping their systems up to date. It's not like all of this is coming out from nowhere.
There's some conjecture — well-founded, I assume — that a trove of zero-day exploit have been saved up for years in anticipation of the day Microsoft retires XP. Considering its install base in government, military and business institutions, the day that XP gets retired there will be a flood of attacks using these exploits. So we'll either face a sustained onslaught of cyberterrorism and/or cyber-counterterrorism (the NSA's interest in zero-days is well-known) or Microsoft will have to reverse its policy. Should be interesting in either case.
I hear the frustration and "just move on" attitude among the crowd here. But I'm in a position of supporting over 100k PCs, about 20% of which are on XP.
I place blame squarely on Microsoft here. This a problem of their making, and they are dumping customers out in the cold at a time where it is really dumb for them to do so.
First, consider the train wreck that has been Microsoft's strategy over the last decade. Many of my customers were well funded and eager to keep modern equipment out in the field. Problem is, the internet happened, and Microsoft decided at one point to stop developing IE and party like it was 1989 with client/server apps. So when Vista came around, we couldn't upgrade because IE6 wouldn't run in a supported configuration. Microsoft's bungling of 64-bit support even breaks older printers!
Then the financial crisis came around, followed by the iPad revolution. That dried up budgets (my PC replacement budget dropped 85%) and drove early adopter users to tablets.
Microsoft followed up with lots of fail: IE version weirdness, divergence from the old polices re: app compatibility, etc. We have a couple of small legacy apps written for windows 3.1.1 that work great on Windows 7, but MANY applications written for XP don't work due to a myriad of reasons. It's a real problem, and my employer has invested 3 years and millions of dollars to resolve.
And guess what? We are for the first time at a crossroads where we have choices re:end user computing. And in many cases, we're choosing non-Microsoft platforms, since we need to rewrite apps anyway. I can deliver and run an iPad for mobile users for 1/3-1/2 the cost of a laptop -- and the users LOVE them. We'll be buying thousands of iPads and galaxy tabs!
So I hope Microsoft saves a lot of money by cutting off XP. They will certainly see a lot less revenue from us in the future.
A long time ago some crazy open source guys said stuff like "Be wary of building your entire infrastructure on Microsofts solutions". You shouldn't have given them so much money back then!
The chickens have finally come home to roost it seems.
Your problems are not Microsofts fault. Your problems are that your business did not have any foresight. At the time computers were changing drastically every few years, and yet you thought you'd be able to run them and the software on them forever. You bought crappy printers with no demands that the manufactures support future operating systems on them. Your businesses problems are they gave the CEO's 50 million dollar golden parachutes and did not keep infrastructure up to date. Your businesses problems are bad software design paradigms.
I'm not sure if being cut off from patches means a lot to people. Most XP users I know use a third-party browser and a third-party internet security suite. They're probably even happy to never see the stupid force-reboot dialog again. But the issue is that they pose a risk to everyone else too (botnet infections etc.)
Even then, there's still Android 2.x, currently 1/4 of the Android population. Though it's a safe bet that WinXP will be the more tenacious of the two.
How exactly? They've already kept it for 13 years. What's the argument for not continuing to fix its bugs for another 5 years, from a security point of view, and not a "Microsoft's profits" point of view? It's not about keeping selling it, but about supporting the people who already use it.
More like companies still running XP risk security reputation. How long should MS be expected to support that OS? They've already postponed the retirement at least once to give people more time to upgrade.
Or people who are poor and don't want to upgrade to a new OS or buy a computer that will support one. Or old people who have only just got used to using the XP computer that someone gave them for free as a hand-me-down (or up).
On an individual basis, it doesn't make sense for a single user to upgrade until the point that the old computer needs totally replaced. The cost of upgrading is higher then the value of the computer.
In business the cost of the applications and data is many hundreds if not thousands of times more expensive then the computer systems.
A recent example of my own is a vet clinic with a older digital x-ray machine. I asked what it would take to upgrade the machine to Windows 7. Around $50,000 was there answer. They had to replace all the hardware and software. There was no 'upgrade' path.
I wonder how much Apple's decision to make OS X upgrades free will put additional pressure on Microsoft. I consider OS X less enterprise ready, but Apple has made huge strides there. Apple clearly has less interest in keeping OSes updated long term (10.6 is being EOL soon), but the free upgrades solve part of that issue.
So, will companies be willing to trade Apple's lack of commitment to maintaining a version of the OS long term like MS for free upgrades? Keep in mind that OS X upgrades tend to work fairly smoothly, and some of the OS upgrade issues that Windows faces have not impacted OS X.
Add in the increasing pressure from Linux distros that work well for specific uses, and MS is in a bind with trying to sell expensive OS upgrades. I wonder if this will cause MS to move more into the hardware business, where you can make money off of the whole package.
Of course, if you really like Windows, maybe you'll need to pay for the OS more than once a decade.
I doubt people would really blame getting hit by security flaws exploits on Microsoft. Many people are already getting hit by malwares, and they couldn't tell the difference between a malware that they installed themselves and one that exploited a security flaw.
You're kidding. Microsoft has always been blamed for Windows being an insecure operating system that "gets viruses". The fact that there's a multi-billion dollar anti-virus industry for Windows, because people pay for it because they know they are vulnerable on Windows, should confirm that.
It has to happen sometime, so I won't quibble about now versus two years from now or whatever. I appreciate that web developers are happy about the end of Ie8 support.
However, the various SMBs with which I'm familiar seem unlikely to replace their dusty collections of antique XP boxes with brand-new 8.1s. I predict they'll buy used win7 machines where they must for BSS compatibility, but in general will move to chromebooks and web apps. I don't know that Ms could have stopped this transition, but they may have hastened it with actions like this. Then again, how much money did they ever really make from a business running 15 XP boxes in 2014?
The company could bolster its position by revealing the percentage of PCs running XP that access Windows Update, a telemetric mark it has declined to disclose, to show how prevalent XP really is, rather than make the media and customers rely on estimates from the likes of Net Applications.
Why is this metric secret? Do Ms want to conceal this from competitors, blackhats, consumers, or some other party?
If it were that simple, it would have happened already.
There are still a lot of businesses that, unfortunately, depend very heavily on Windows XP for their ongoing operation. The cost associated with switching may far, far exceed any benefit it could bring.
We aren't talking about a couple of Ruby on Rails developers sitting in a cafe using MacBooks. We're talking about global organizations with tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of computers. We're talking about applications that will only run properly on Windows XP. We're talking about astronomical costs that will bring only comparatively minor gain. That's the kind of situation that does not lead to change.
[+] [-] pwthornton|12 years ago|reply
I don't know how much this will hurt MS with its core users. XP is largely kept alive by users in the East, not the West, and by businesses. The businesses will either pay for additional security or upgrade, and many of the users in Eastern countries don't pay for XP as it is, so what exactly is MS risking here?
MS needs to move on. There is no money in continuing to support a 13-year-old OS. You could argue that MS should make available paid support and security updates, but even OSes like Redhat aren't kept going for 13 years. I just don't get the outrage here.
[+] [-] RKearney|12 years ago|reply
However, even if these systems are, for whatever reason, running a consumer version of XP which is slated to end extended support on April 8, 2014, they are most likely not connected to the internet and therefore safe from external threats.
That's just the best case scenario anyway. As we saw with the Target breach, they obviously did not have the required network segmentation in place. Any PCI compliant company is going to have their POS terminals running on an isolated network. This is hardly a reason to justify not upgrading though.
[+] [-] Shish2k|12 years ago|reply
When the cost of staying is greater than the cost of moving. For many embedded scenarios, the cost of staying is generally small (just occasional maintenance) and the cost of moving is huge (probably a whole new set of hardware).
[+] [-] mike-cardwell|12 years ago|reply
It will hurt everyone with an Internet connection.
MS has filled the World with machines which are full of security holes and which only they can patch, and they've made a mint doing it. I would say it's their responsibility (ethically, not legally) to patch those machines until they stop being a massive threat to the stability of the Internet. I realise that this wont happen though.
[+] [-] RexRollman|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gurkendoktor|12 years ago|reply
But running a company is not about doing the right thing, and Microsoft is not in a good diplomatic position to force an update on people after Vista and Windows 8 have been publicity disasters. I won't blame MS whatever they do, but if I were them, I would try to fix the Windows 8 mess first before risking negative headlines.
[+] [-] cwyers|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] herf|12 years ago|reply
XP was able to upgrade to Vista, but nobody did.
XP could not upgrade to Windows 7, so nobody did. Microsoft advertises third-party migration tools, rather than owning this problem and building out of it. They've had years to get it right.
And yes, the cost in reality is not just an OS upgrade. It's sometimes a new machine, and also $300 for Office and peripherals without updated drivers.
But it is mostly convenience: preserving apps, preferences, and licenses is important to regular people. It also isn't that hard, because they did the work for migrating XP to 32-bit Vista.
I've been consistently amazed that my Mac has updated from version to version perfectly, even 32-to-64. Windows has been a disaster every time.
Preserve people's state, preserve their data, and they will buy your software.
[+] [-] Mister_Snuggles|12 years ago|reply
Don't forget the whole PowerPC -> Intel thing too.
I started on Mac OS X 10.2 on a G3 iBook, made my way up to a PowerBook, then an Intel MacBook Pro follwed by another Intel MacBook Pro. There were a handful of programs that didn't get updated to support Intel along the way, but the only one that I actually miss is Quicken. I wish Apple hadn't dropped Rosetta, but I suspect that they needed to in order to force software makers to move forward. Intuit didn't, and a few other companies opted to force a paid upgrade to get a version that works on Intel.
By and large, my programs and data have survived being migrated through four computers, seven major OS versions, a major architecture change, and the move from a 32-bit OS to a 64-bit OS. That's pretty cool.
I'm still looking for a Quicken-like program that works for me, but I have a feeling I'll end up either making my own or using Excel.
[+] [-] clarry|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cwyers|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GFK_of_xmaspast|12 years ago|reply
If you stayed on 10.5 too long, there was no way to go to 10.8 without serious hijinx.
[+] [-] cwyers|12 years ago|reply
"After April [2014], when we release monthly security updates for supported versions of Windows, attackers will try and reverse engineer them to identify any vulnerabilities that also exist in Windows XP," said Tim Rains, director of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group. "If they succeed, attackers will have the capability to develop exploit code to take advantage of them."
Right now, the cadence of security updates to Vista/7/8/Windows Server 2003/Windows Server 2008/Windows Server 2012 is tied to how quickly those updates can be backported and tested for Windows XP, because as soon as those patches are released for any Windows operating system, attackers can use them to create exploits for those vulnerabilities and backport those exploits to XP (which they can do faster and with fewer resources than Microsoft can backport patches, because exploits have a much smaller test suite to ensure they don't break systems, ie they don't have such a test suite at all).
Continuing to support XP degrades the ability to support newer operating systems that haven't gotten an extension on their end of life, and at this point it's pretty clear that people still using XP aren't taking advantage of postponing its EOL to do anything but keep using XP. Something's got to give.
[+] [-] zapman449|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AldousHaxley|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heydenberk|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shish2k|12 years ago|reply
... or the people who are still using XP could upgrade?
(Also I want a pony)
[+] [-] Spooky23|12 years ago|reply
I place blame squarely on Microsoft here. This a problem of their making, and they are dumping customers out in the cold at a time where it is really dumb for them to do so.
First, consider the train wreck that has been Microsoft's strategy over the last decade. Many of my customers were well funded and eager to keep modern equipment out in the field. Problem is, the internet happened, and Microsoft decided at one point to stop developing IE and party like it was 1989 with client/server apps. So when Vista came around, we couldn't upgrade because IE6 wouldn't run in a supported configuration. Microsoft's bungling of 64-bit support even breaks older printers!
Then the financial crisis came around, followed by the iPad revolution. That dried up budgets (my PC replacement budget dropped 85%) and drove early adopter users to tablets.
Microsoft followed up with lots of fail: IE version weirdness, divergence from the old polices re: app compatibility, etc. We have a couple of small legacy apps written for windows 3.1.1 that work great on Windows 7, but MANY applications written for XP don't work due to a myriad of reasons. It's a real problem, and my employer has invested 3 years and millions of dollars to resolve.
And guess what? We are for the first time at a crossroads where we have choices re:end user computing. And in many cases, we're choosing non-Microsoft platforms, since we need to rewrite apps anyway. I can deliver and run an iPad for mobile users for 1/3-1/2 the cost of a laptop -- and the users LOVE them. We'll be buying thousands of iPads and galaxy tabs!
So I hope Microsoft saves a lot of money by cutting off XP. They will certainly see a lot less revenue from us in the future.
[+] [-] pixl97|12 years ago|reply
The chickens have finally come home to roost it seems.
Your problems are not Microsofts fault. Your problems are that your business did not have any foresight. At the time computers were changing drastically every few years, and yet you thought you'd be able to run them and the software on them forever. You bought crappy printers with no demands that the manufactures support future operating systems on them. Your businesses problems are they gave the CEO's 50 million dollar golden parachutes and did not keep infrastructure up to date. Your businesses problems are bad software design paradigms.
[+] [-] ceejayoz|12 years ago|reply
Anyone who hasn't updated yet isn't going to update until they get cut off from patches. Time to do so.
[+] [-] gurkendoktor|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] badsock|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zigurd|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devx|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mburst|12 years ago|reply
In any case XP is way past it's lifetime. I can only imagine how the developers must feel working on a code base that is 13 years old.
[+] [-] servowire|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] furtivefelon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justinreeves|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|12 years ago|reply
Because that is the only rational reason to not upgrade, right?
[+] [-] jiggy2011|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pixl97|12 years ago|reply
In business the cost of the applications and data is many hundreds if not thousands of times more expensive then the computer systems.
A recent example of my own is a vet clinic with a older digital x-ray machine. I asked what it would take to upgrade the machine to Windows 7. Around $50,000 was there answer. They had to replace all the hardware and software. There was no 'upgrade' path.
[+] [-] patja|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pwthornton|12 years ago|reply
So, will companies be willing to trade Apple's lack of commitment to maintaining a version of the OS long term like MS for free upgrades? Keep in mind that OS X upgrades tend to work fairly smoothly, and some of the OS upgrade issues that Windows faces have not impacted OS X.
Add in the increasing pressure from Linux distros that work well for specific uses, and MS is in a bind with trying to sell expensive OS upgrades. I wonder if this will cause MS to move more into the hardware business, where you can make money off of the whole package.
Of course, if you really like Windows, maybe you'll need to pay for the OS more than once a decade.
[+] [-] norswap|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devx|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jessaustin|12 years ago|reply
However, the various SMBs with which I'm familiar seem unlikely to replace their dusty collections of antique XP boxes with brand-new 8.1s. I predict they'll buy used win7 machines where they must for BSS compatibility, but in general will move to chromebooks and web apps. I don't know that Ms could have stopped this transition, but they may have hastened it with actions like this. Then again, how much money did they ever really make from a business running 15 XP boxes in 2014?
[+] [-] jessaustin|12 years ago|reply
Why is this metric secret? Do Ms want to conceal this from competitors, blackhats, consumers, or some other party?
[+] [-] kelvin0|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] keithpeter|12 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.pcworld.com/article/2103680/chinas-windows-xp-use...
[+] [-] justincormack|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] badman_ting|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Pacabel|12 years ago|reply
There are still a lot of businesses that, unfortunately, depend very heavily on Windows XP for their ongoing operation. The cost associated with switching may far, far exceed any benefit it could bring.
We aren't talking about a couple of Ruby on Rails developers sitting in a cafe using MacBooks. We're talking about global organizations with tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of computers. We're talking about applications that will only run properly on Windows XP. We're talking about astronomical costs that will bring only comparatively minor gain. That's the kind of situation that does not lead to change.
[+] [-] gmuslera|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ceejayoz|12 years ago|reply