SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Over at MSFN Forums, user 'harkaz' has described a simple 3-step method of applying newer Microsoft updates to Windows XP operating systems.
He says: "The constraints are entirely artificial. Porting is easy as 1-2-3 ... So Windows XP can have semi-official support until 2019!"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
How to Apply MS Updates to Windows XP until 2019
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 53 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
You will never know hunger.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Preston on Sunday May 18 2014, @01:29AM
There are a few things wrong with these ideas. First of all, open sourcing the product is out of the question. A lot of the source is probably still used in current generation products. Also, third parties may own some of the source and Microsoft May be prohibited from redistributing it; this was an issue with Windows CE.
A hardware upgrade may not seem like a large amount of money when you're thinking of your personal budget and your personal computer, but when you're looking at a corporation, you can easily be looking at a multi million dollar project to replace the workstations. Software in use by the organization may be custom built and only work for XP. The cost of upgrading then raises by an order of magnitude. You also can't just swap out all the old computers for new ones. They need to be tested in their respective environments. All this for what? To replace a system that works? One whose original investment is just now starting to make a return?
Firewall the machines and stop web browsing. I won't even get into the cost of supporting an XP VM vs a Win8 one.
Microsoft should focus on the embedded and enterprise market more. It is going to eat itself alive while everyone migrates to Linux.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tathra on Sunday May 18 2014, @01:57AM
most businesses have a valid reason to stick with XP, that i understand. the "cost" statement was referring to all the home users sticking with XP whose reasons basically boil down to, "i dont want to upgrade".
i did consider the possibility that some of the code might still be used in current versions, but thought when windows 9 came out, which may be out by the time their contractually-obligated support for XP ends, that there would be enough versions in between that nothing currently useful could be gleaned from XP's code, or that there would have been enough changes to the code that they could release enough of it for a community to maintain it without releasing anything critical to the current version. naive perhaps, but with the nearly-inevitable linux migration, unless they decide to support XP forever, finding a way to do it might be their best option.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ls671 on Sunday May 18 2014, @02:05AM
"most businesses have a valid reason to stick with XP"
Businesses that insist on sticking to XP will be able to get patches from MS. It will just cost them extra money and it tends to be very expensive. This is business as usual.
I have only seen that happening with government agencies so far, maybe some "businesses" do it too but I have never heard of it.
Everything I write is lies, including this sentence.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday May 18 2014, @02:57AM
> I have only seen that happening with government agencies so far, maybe some
> "businesses" do it too but I have never heard of it.
Banks with outdated ATM machines [reuters.com]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday May 18 2014, @03:41PM
Also, quite a few credit card readers in stores.
Impeach Donald Palpatine and his sidekick Elon Vader
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday May 18 2014, @03:37PM
the "cost" statement was referring to all the home users sticking with XP whose reasons basically boil down to, "i dont want to upgrade".
Wrong. The "cost" statement was referring to all the home users sticking with XP whose reasons basically boil down to, "I can't afford to upgrade". There are fifty MILLION poverty-stricken people in the US alone, and none of them can afford a new computer nor can install an operating system.
Impeach Donald Palpatine and his sidekick Elon Vader
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 18 2014, @06:56PM
none of them can afford a new computer
No need to buy anything.
With the correct OS, you're good until your hardware completely quits working.
A proper OS will come with all the apps you need and can be had for $0 and updated eternally for $0. [google.com]
nor can install an operating system
3 year old installing Ubuntu [google.com]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday May 18 2014, @11:26PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Sunday May 18 2014, @04:30AM
You addressed the enterprise market, but you could also throw in small business as the biggest one.
At the small scale (1-5 employees) could easily be $500-$750 a station if you are going on the lower power end of the market. Completely ignoring software requirements and vendor lock-in you need to hire IT if you want to upgrade old hardware. Most people don't have the skill sets to do what is required in business to not lose data, maintain uptime with no surprises, etc. Granted, there are some small businesses run by stupid people that will try, but those tend to not deliberate so much about budget and would have upgraded by now to Win7 anyways.
Past that when you get to between 10-50 it could represent too risky of an investment of capital, and most smart business owners would look at the interest rates for loans or what a place like Dell or CDW would charge per month on a dollar buy lease. Maybe getting all new hardware is just too difficult at the moment. Even with IT, or a competent CTO, they are going to say that it will cost a couple hundred a machine in the form of licensing and hours spent by staff performing upgrades.
Given the economy and what may be perceived as a helpless battle WRT to security, I don't know what Microsoft was thinking on this. They can't possibly believe that this is going to force anyone to stop using it, especially with the vendor lock-in and the software restricted crowd. My buddy has to use XP since he can't afford a multi-thousand dollar software upgrade for his CNC control software.
On the one hand it does increase the overall state of security since Win7 has to be better than XP in some regard. While on the other the only thing it saves them is the budget they spend supporting it while putting a lot of disadvantaged businesses at risk that all have sensitive business data. This does not create goodwill in their market.
Until the economy is better Microsoft should be supporting XP, or I don't know, maybe offer some sort of financing program and incentives to help do it. Sell some hardware packages and upgrade services. They need money to support divisions operating at a loss, and God knows Bing, IE, and Win8 aren't going to help them.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday May 18 2014, @10:46PM
Third party license restrictions makes sense, but what does it matter if portions of the code are being used in the current version? I doubt anyone will use that to make a Win8 clone.