Analysts say: Keep XP to 2009

Microsoft should keep Windows XP on the market until at least 2009, two major research firms are suggesting. Sales of the operating system, which was launched in 2001, are currently set to end on June 30th of this year, according to InfoWorld; this in turn is actually an extension, as Microsoft originally set a deadline for December 31st, 2007. Neither date would have been enough, says Richard Jones, a VP with the Burton Group. "A good rule of thumb in any OS transition is that you have to have the original and new products available for at least two years to handle customer needs," he comments. XP's replacement, Windows Vista, debuted only in January of last year. Jones argues that Microsoft's transition schedule has been overly aggressive, mainly as a result of having to delay the release of Vista in the first place. "Microsoft is up against a rock, with Vista coming out seven years after XP's release. But it's their fault it took seven years, not my fault," he complains, suggesting that customers should not be made to suffer for corporate timetables.

A research VP with Gartner, Michael Silver, echoes these views. "It would be wise for XP to be available until the end of 2008," he says. The real issue however is said to be the time needed for third-party applications to release for Vista, among these homegrown ones and replacements for products from defunct companies.

Though it has yet to make a decision, Microsoft says that it may be willing to extend XP sales, based on feedback from partners and the public at large. A research VP at IDC, Al Gillen, notes that past deadline extensions have included Windows 2000 and NT Workstation. He recommends against online petitions though, proposing instead that customers should harangue Microsoft through its official channels, such as its feedback website.

Personally, I think Microsoft should keep XP in the loop until 3/4 of PC users are using Vista. AFAIK, Windows 2000 was only cut off a little while ago, with Windows 98, now a decade old. XP is 7, so its gonna last a long time, especially considering the way people pretty much hate Vista.

Please vote on the poll, I'm curious as to what people think about this.

I personally believe that Microsoft should keep XP in the loop until 3/4 of PC users are on Vista.

#490833

I used XP for 6 years and would never even think of going back to it from Vista.

So no, I wouldn't care if it XP shutdown tomorrow.

#490838

I disagree, **** vista.

#490843

XP service pack3 will be out in a bit. I think I'll stay.

#490845

vista is just fine. nothing horribly wrong with it. nothing compelling about it, either. it's just fine.

#490846

i think microsoft shld not keep win xp out(though in poll i voted to keep it),cuz of the awsome "rumour so to say..." that vista sucks,personally i have no problem with vista apart from the fact that the version that they give with most new system does not utilize the dual processor(tested on my frnds toshiba..),and you shld buy better"more expensive"version for enjoying you own hardware...?("stroke of genius here by microsoft to rob ppl"..btw)so why i think they shld pull off xp is that ,as vista will be only thing available and new system coming with shittiest vista,more and more ppl will change to other os based pc's..namely OSX

i know i have moved on and i hope everyone can realize how microsoft is limitng options for consumers,and finally give microsoft a run for there money ..

#490849

out with the old, in with the new; less attention on xp means more on vista which could help make vista more xp'ish as many have complained about ..how contradicting..

#490853

XP in my opinion... like shmengie said, nothing wrong with Vista, nothing compelling about it either.

I'm just hoping that with Win7 microsoft will re-run the success of XP.

oh.. and since this is primarily about Vista and XP, I would also hope for clean-and-oh-so-old-how-osx-is-better-argument free discussion... but then I just hope!

#490854

I voted to keep XP, because some computers might have hardware problems with it, but i wouldn't mind if XP ended in a few months because there aren't that many problems with vista, in fact I had to upgrade to vista from XP because my svchost.exe was taking up 100% cpu and I found a fix which killed my internet connection.

#490860

I'd say no because by the end of 2008 will have been two years since Vista's launch. XP's still going to be supported to 2014 either way but, why buy an outdated OS.

Most of the serious *****ing has been by people who barely are able to turn on a computer.

What they should do is drop they're Vista prices.

#490865

Most people, including myself, stuck with XP on their machines (even those, like mine, that came with Vista) because of problems that came with it.

When connecting my iPod 9 times out of ten, I got a stop error. A lot of my peripherals were not compatible with Vista.

There are also the advantages of XP. Faster, better performance overall, snappiness...

#490868

Most people, including myself, stuck with XP on their machines (even those, like mine, that came with Vista) because of problems that came with it.

When connecting my iPod 9 times out of ten, I got a stop error. A lot of my peripherals were not compatible with Vista.

There are also the advantages of XP. Faster, better performance overall, snappiness...

I never have any problems with my iPod's connection, or any other USB plugins for that matter. P:

I've also heard alot of lies about certain programs not working at all with Vista, and I downloaded these programs just to see for myself. They ran perfectly fine. (ex: Game Maker 5, DesktopX, Finderbar, neXplorer, some games, RPG Toolkit, RPG Maker XP, Y'z Shadow, GIMP, GIMPshop, and the list goes on and on...)

I disagree, **** vista.

Quite an intelligent statement there. Have you ever actually used it or are you going by what forum-trolls say?

#490886

I just prefer to wait until more skinning apps and hacks can work with Vista before I upgrade. I like this too much to not be able to do everything I'm so used to doing.

#490889

I just prefer to wait until more skinning apps and hacks can work with Vista before I upgrade. I like this too much to not be able to do everything I'm so used to doing.

Hardly a legitimate reason for M$ to keep XP around.

Time to pull the plug on it.

Vista works great and will run any XP app in compatibilty mode.

I have yet to find a business app that won't run on Vista Enterprise.

#490890

Hardly a legitimate reason for M$ to keep XP around.

Time to pull the plug on it.

Vista works great and will run any XP app in compatibility mode.

I have yet to find a business app that won't run on Vista Enterprise.

Nobody said for MS to keep it around. I said ME. And I don't give a crap about business apps, I said skinning apps. Personally I don't need any updates right now.

#490891

Actually I wouldn't mind if XP was around and maintained for another seven, 17 or 70 years,

its kinda sad that things you have known for good or bad won't be available lifelong.

If obsolete MS Software was open sourced, it would be around for ever and ever.

A group of dedicated enthusiasts would keep Visual Basic 6 alive for ever, same with XP.

Unattended software kinda deteriorates over time until its withered into uselessness.

Almost all commercial software dies too early for bogus, snake-oily marchitectural reasons.

It is always easier to start coding from scratch than fixing and maintaining; in the case of XP,

an evolutionary step would have been user-friendlier than a recode from scratch with all the implications

we are encountering now. These issues will eventually get fixed and Vista will be as dead as XP in another

5-7 years from now. Sounds stupid? You bet it is.

Seeing this as a developer, I witness MS introducing new technologies and abandoning established tech in a pace

that makes it impossible to keep up with it. Purely brilliant things skyrocket only to burn up for display and

transform to ashes as quickly as fireworks. Somethings has gotten eerily wrong in Microsoftland and it is going

to stink soon. Of rotten fish.

#491774

Admit it people.. XP is faster than vista.. on any given computer.

So i think XP should be kept. Well what i personally think is that Microsoft's fans would go for Vista when XP is closed to the market. But some of them who do not like to buy their OS (Some Vista versions being costly). They would pirate either of the OSs.

For not-so-big fan of Mic's, people will surely move to other OSs. Considering my example: Mac.

Thats why i voted for XP to stay..

#491779

A lot of Computers are gona die with XP due to hardware, In my case i have both installed on my hard drive and i pretty much use XP, I can run all my main graphic programs without the need of having more ram, Plus i like my pc skinned completly.

#491782

I think it might be to Microsoft's advantage to adopt a more Apple-like development cycle for Windows.

With Vista, any machine prior to XP (1GHz or less) machine support should be dropped. Software support should have been capped at Windows 2000. Windows would be more stable if it didn't try to support everything from 3.1 to the present. Let 3.1, 95, 98, 98SE, & ME go. If you've still got a machine that old, you deserve the problems you have trying to run stuff on it.

#491860

Let 3.1, 95, 98, 98SE, & ME go. If you've still got a machine that old, you deserve the problems you have trying to run stuff on it.

My grandparents run 2 computers in their house, both gateways running on slowwww DSL. One is running 98SE and the other is running ME. Both run great, actually, and their good for what they use them for.

#491863

I say keep XP because it's lighter more compatible operating system for business work. Do businesses really need the windows aero theme? I don't think so, corporate-based computers should be lean, mean, and fast.

#491874

I say keep XP because it's lighter more compatible operating system for business work. Do businesses really need the windows aero theme? I don't think so, corporate-based computers should be lean, mean, and fast.

That may be true, but you can always turn off the aero theme which would make vista faster.

#491875

Microsoft is not going to listen to analysts, and should not. You never admit your product is not good enough and that what you had before was better, but you may concede that your product is not good enough and that what will come after will be much better.

Love XP, can't stand Vista from a technical and user point of view, so I'm going to stick with the former for as long as possible. I'm not an OSX person, but I'm on the borderline, undecided on switching definitely to Linux (no, not ubuntu and friendly distibutions - old-style linux).

Still, Windows 2k/XP feels better to me, so I'm sticking with it. I skipped a generation before (95/98/ME) so I suppose I can skip another without problems. If Windows 7 learns from the errors of Vista (invasive filtering, useless features, generic bloat, bad user interaction patterns), we can hope for a good OS, otherwise Linux is there, waiting and smiling.

I agree with Daz above, Windows is a good system for business work, and there it should try to succeed again. Trendy kids can go mac (*), but a person sitting in a office for hours doesn't want animations and glitter: they want to get their work done as fast as possible, without anything in the way, without having to do something twice. Speed and stability, two things that Vista, in an office environment, SP1 or not SP1, doesn't seem to be delievering. If then you can run "RPG Maker" on it, that won't change the market

(*) whops, flamebait, sorry, but sounds good, don't mind it

edit:

That may be true, but you can always turn off the aero theme which would make vista faster.

#491877

it should be one more option like "throw it away and forget windows as a black stripe in your life".

#491884

See you have two sides of he argument here.

IF MS would drop all the backward compatibility for older hardware and drop app support for Win 3.x/9.x compatibility (like Apple does with each new release of OS X. Remember OS9 and Classic support... bye bye), Vista would be a lean mean machine.

But all the business folks would have a fit because the simple fact is, they don't like to upgrade ALL of their legacy applications to meet the new OS requirements. It costs money to update EVERYTHING.

This is the main reason OS X will never be widely used in a traditional business environment. Apple drops support for older apps and hardware like most people change their socks.

It would be cost prohibitive to maintain a current OS and keeping every app you have updated to meet that requirement.

XP is stable, but it's OLD and outdated. It needs to go.

Vista runs XP apps just fine, so there is no LOGICAL reason to keep it around.

One thing that bugs me about Vista is the crap load of versions MS released.

Make two or even three like XP. But 5 versions is ridiculous.

Business and Home Basic are worthless.

That's my .02

#491886