Holdouts to Windows 7, 8.1, and 8.1 RT won't be able to ping Microsoft's own forums for tech support from the company anymore.
The Redmond software behemoth announced on Friday that, come next month, its staff will no longer be combing the official forums for 13 outdated products to offer support advice and assistance. Users will still be able to access the forums and get advice from each one, albeit without feedback from a Microsoft employee.
"There will be no proactive reviews, monitoring, answering or answer marking of questions," Microsoft said in announcing the move.
[...] Customers are still able to get paid support from Microsoft through to the end of the extended support periods.
In addition to the three outdated versions of Windows, Microsoft is pulling the plug on official forum support for the Office 2010 and 2013, IE 10, Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2, Surface RT and Surface 2, and Security Essentials. As with Windows 7 and 8.1, those products are all past their official support lifecycle as well.
(Score: 5, Touché) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:14PM (2 children)
So, nothing really changing there, then.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:26PM
Nothing of value was lost.
Microsoft's forums were never the principal source of trouble shooting anyway, there are a hundred other forums for more reliable information.
All 39 people running Windows 8.1 may be dismayed. But the truth is the free "upgrade" (cough) to Windows 10 works better on any hardware capable of running windows 8.1 than 8.1 itself.
Windows 7, on the other hand really was one of the best versions of windows (faint praise, I know) ever produced. But most of its foibles are well understood by now and adequately documented on the internet.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @09:47AM
In most cases it's some MVP or Microsoft partner who is not a Microsoft employee that makes a useful helpful comment. They're answering because they actually understood the question and they actually know about the topic (e.g. they actually use the stuff).
Since so many Microsoft employees were in a habit of posting even when they had nothing useful to add it will be a good thing once they all stop posting in those forums.
You're more likely to get useful stuff from Microsoft employees from their blogs (blogs.technet etc)- e.g. when they post stuff on topics that actually interest them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by AlwaysNever on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:42PM (4 children)
Microsoft is NOT your friend.
It's always a healthy thing to remind mortal users about this fact.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Wednesday June 13 2018, @08:03PM (1 child)
This. I can't even begin to count the number of times I have heard people confidently parrot that Microsoft will continue to patch/activate/not clobber products or some such after some level of support ends.
So far Microsoft has been relatively generous compared to some other companies, but unless you have a support contract in writing, there is ABSOLUTELY NO GUARANTEE and you should expect the worst.
Some of the older OSes like Windows XP or 98 have faired well because they were designed for use on computers not connected to the Internet. Supposedly XP can still be activated by phone.
I doubt Windows 7 will survive - even hitting F1 for a help topic will open a web browser and try to access some remote web page that won't be there in the future. Not to mention it constantly phones home to check your licensing status.
Not a chance for Windows 8 as all of those retarded webby Metro "apps" will break.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday June 14 2018, @07:30AM
When I got hit with the FTDI chip nuker through Microsoft Update, I took a much more proactive stance on making sure I was protected against system sabotage.
Things can work for years, then suddenly a middle-of-the-night stranger visits, then I discover things don't work right.
If you are on WIN7 and want to stay that way, use CloneZilla or something like it to get backups of your disk image while you still have a operable system.
If anything, should you get a backdoor visit, and discover you are trashed, you can get your system back, and sever connection to the net until someone finds out what they did and how to patch against it happening again.
It seems when one is a business-man, he has someone else to blame when things go south... he is very apt to use "business grade" software that fails in this manner.
My stance is different because I am the someone else that will be blamed.
I know the powers that be are trying everything they know to herd us all onto win10, and I have a nagging feeling that I am soon to be shown why. My own take is that our machines will start serving us interstitial ads that we can't turn off, as I am old enough to remember when FM radio had no ads, and TV had a brief ad maybe twice per 30-minute show ( see re-runs of the original black-and-white game shows of the 50's, where it takes 40 minutes to run the old 30 minute show. ).
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:43PM (1 child)
Yep fuck Linus in the ear for not supporting linux 2.6.30 anymore. How dare he not give support for that anymore!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 14 2018, @01:40AM
You should demand your money back!
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:35PM (3 children)
Every time someone posts anything to the Microsoft Support forums, some Indian guy named Rameesh Manmeat or some other very Indian-sounding name shows up with a Microsoft MVP badge and says "you need to try a 'clean boot'" and gives generic ass directions on how to make things even worse. They don't actually answer anything or attempt to give problem-specific responses 90% or more of the time. It is misleading trash at best and dangerous at worst. If they are support then the bridge they were holding up collapsed a long time ago.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:43PM (2 children)
It was the written version of Moss asking you if you had turned it off and on again.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @09:25PM (1 child)
More likely Roy than Moss. Moss was the hardware/coder geek of the pair. Roy tended to have more direct contact with the users.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday June 14 2018, @01:00AM
Yeah, lol, Moss was too busy trying to figure out what you did after you unplugged the soldering iron (or DID you unplug it??.....what's that emergency number again?????)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Informative) by requerdanos on Wednesday June 13 2018, @09:03PM (3 children)
Let's examine TFA and see whether this is true.
Oops, TL; DR. Okay, let's be lazy and just glance for 0.6 seconds at TFS and check for whether that's true...
So, a clickbait lie then. Got it.
They are no longer providing official support through their user forums, but are not pulling the plug on them.
For Microsoft haters, isn't that bad enough? That they are no longer providing current support for old but recent versions? Why do we need to lie and say they have pulled the plug on the forums themselves?
For those not ill-inclined towards Microsoft, why is that not just a "*shrug*"? Why trumpet that Microsoft is pulling the plug on something they aren't pulling the plug on?
I genuinely wonder this. It is a lie born of simple meaningless hyperbole? Artistic license to lie if something similar but different happened? El Reg headline writer just too dumb to breathe without being reminded?
Does anyone here know and simultaneously care to share?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday June 14 2018, @01:02AM
*snnrrrk..... What!? Sorry....you lost me at Microsoft. :)
Yeah... *shrug*
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @03:42AM (1 child)
I will accept nothing less than the complete and total bankruptcy of M$. Even then, I wouldn't trust it. Just like snake heads when separated from the body continue to lust for the flesh.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @04:02AM
Lust? Really? With what? They're tongue?
(Score: 2) by chewbacon on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:30PM
With black jack. And hookers.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 14 2018, @12:26PM
I came to say the same thing others have already said so well: nothing of value was lost. It has been more than 20 years since i used microsoft, but i never found anything useful on their forums. Even when i worked at companies with expensive support contracts, their "help" was always worse than useless.
For all the dimensions of FOSS, there is never a shortage of people who know what they're talking about.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @03:00PM
Best response I've read yet:
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2018/06/lol-github/ [jwz.org]