Submitted by Microsoft last week said that it is pushing back the next major service pack for Windows XP until the first half of 2008. The news came just ahead of reports that Vista’s RTM is being pushed back once again, from late October to early November, complicating matters for PC makers. The latest delay has some wondering whether the upgrade will ever see the light of day. “The fear is Service Pack 3 will just get killed off,” said Jeff Centimano, an IT consultant at Levi, Ray & Shoup.
Leaving customers to fend for themselves? Surely you jest. Is anyone REALLY surprised by this move? When Windows NT was around, Microsoft produced 6 service packs (a promised seventh never materialized.) For Windows 2000, there were 4 (a promised fifth never materialized.) Now, we’re at Windows XP with two service packs. Obviously the third promised one won’t materialize.
When Windows NT was around, Microsoft produced 6 service packs (a promised seventh never materialized.) For Windows 2000, there were 4 (a promised fifth never materialized.) Now, we’re at Windows XP with two service packs
I think with NT 4 it took them 6 service packs to get it stable…then they were afraid to mess with it. Therefore the cancelation of SP7.
There is still lots of life left in XP, we will see at least one more service pack.
hehe. pretty much, sp6 on nt4 is rock stable. anything before that wasnt…
To achieve the best possible result one has to use both, and since in this case the carrot (Vista’s new features) is not that enticing, a stick (diminishing support for XP) needs to be introduced to help the process.
Sure I’ll be the first to agree that a service pack would be required if something other than the culmination of past security patches was included. If one does materialize, I’d like to see an improved firewall (outbound traffic) as a minimum. Otherwise, it’ll provide little outside of my security patch slipstreamed build.
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3223
“Mainstream support will end two years after the next version of this product is released. Extended support will end five years after mainstream support ends.”
2 more years of non-security updates after Vista is released.
5 more years of security updates after Vista is released.
With a low Vista buy rate, im sure they will cut back support for Windows XP. They will want people to move to Vista asap. Also why there isnt going to be DX10 for XP.
Side note.
Speaking of Bugs, Features, Changes…
I think most open source projects(bigger ones) fix and update their projects more then what MS does for the whole OS.
http://amarok.kde.org/content/view/84/66/
Does MS even do that much work for Windows XP in a year?
Look at even a bigger package like KDE, MS doesn’t even come close.
Sorry for my little rant.
With a low Vista buy rate, im sure they will cut back support for Windows XP.
OSS Fantasy #1.
Reality: Support for XP is superb for businesses, and will be great for Vista, leading to an even more miniscule market share for OSS.
Edited 2006-10-31 02:00
“Support for XP is superb for businesses”
Is it?
“and will be great for Vista”
Contradiction.
If businesses are enamoured by XP SP3, then Vista will be left on the shelves … unless Microsoft can somehow stimulate a huge growth in new PC sales and customers are forced to get the PC with Vista. If that happens then “Support for XP” will be irrelevant.
“leading to an even more miniscule market share for OSS.”
OSS doesn’t have “market share” because it is zero cost … it therefore doesn’t show up in sales figures.
Some reading for you that I’m sure you will enjoy: http://www.openaddict.com/page.php?18
If businesses are enamoured by XP SP3, then Vista will be left on the shelves
No. Businesses will buy Vista licenses (or get Vista via their Enterprise agreements.
Some businesses will roll out Vista right away.
Most will use their downgrade rights to keep loading XP on the current set of PC’s until the next official “refresh” a normal, large business goes through. And that refresh will be Vista.
Many will start to evaluate the new Softgrid SA benefit if they are SA customers. If Softgrid makes application rollout as easy as it appears, Vista will be rolled out even quicker than XP in businesses.
OSS doesn’t have “market share”
Correct. About .4% last time I checked. Thats not really a “market share”. Its more like pity.
The numbers you came with from IDC showed 2.4% in 2004 – the desktop alone.
Linux Servers in 2004 was approx. 26% according to your numbers.
That isn’t the issue; the issue which is in question is the fact that Microsoft is under no obligation to provide service pack updates; now sure, we could excuse the NT 4.0, thats all good, by Windows 2000? sorry, I’m looking into the tea leaves and it is obvious this is what Microsoft has inmind.
When in doubt, stop providing service packs, and force an upgrade onto people; I don’t expect my softwrae to be supported for ever indefinately, but I do expect them to continue providing service packs and updates right up to the final day, the final hour of support.
Microsoft need to also start putting dates on their service packs; stop the ‘when it is ready’ and say, “service pack, every 6months”, and stick to it; if it doesn’t make that service pack, then release it the following months in the form of a quickfix, and merge it into the following service pack – that’ll stop feature creep and ensures that service packs are delivered right up till the final days.
MSFT also claims no responsibility for what the software does and you are claiming they dont have to support it.
Laws need to be made against this. If this were a car, they could make lethal design flaws, be under no obligation to fix it, and say you can’t even sell the car to a third party and say you cannot obtain new parts to fix the car.
This is a criminal mafia ring on a large scale, and the government needs to setup in and say, if you dont do rollups/SPs every 3-4 months, you cannot enforce the EULA and you cannot retain the copyright to the code.
This company has huge revenues and huge cash reserves. This company also has a huge effect on businesses losing huge sums of money to spyware, flaws in the software, viruses/trojans/scumware/malware the exploit gaping holes in the OS.
The Multics model was stripped of security to make Unix (simpler root/not-root system vs. rings). Unix was simple enough to reasonably secure.
Now we have nearly everyone running as root with Windows because the OS is barely useable without admin rights. And we have gaping holes in the OS that are regularly exploited. And we have a byzantine hard to use largely untested security model. This software is a dangerous threat to business and security the world over and they make little/no effort to bolster the security of the product by making out of the box systems to secure with regular service packs.
Criminal and shameless. If they want the EULA to be enforceable, THEY need to be accountable. Period. Every other industry has this but software, the special exemption needs to stop.
Laws need to be made against this. If this were a car, they could make lethal design flaws, be under no obligation to fix it, and say you can’t even sell the car to a third party and say you cannot obtain new parts to fix the car.
In New Zealand, it is already covered under the Consumers Guarantee Act – If the US fails to have that sort of provisions in their consumer legislation, it has to do more with the fact that the US government is in the pocket of big busines, than anything to do with ‘not possible’.
A1: +$299.00
A2: -6 months.
All software that is no longer supported via regular service packs/rollups should lose the copyright.
Period. I’m tired of people having to pay to upgrade to get bug fixes which, at some level, even effect national security.
Abandon the product, abandon the copyright.
Yes.
You Lunix users would love that, wouldn’t you? Here you have a shitty, half-baked counterfeit UNIX (made with real bits of stolen source code) and you can’t find anyone who’ll take it, even for free. Time to make a shitty, half-baked counterfeit Windows!
Centos is hardly shitty half baked. Its a carbon copy of Redhat Enterprise Linux.
As to windows being copied freely being shitty and half baked, well, with all the open gaping security holes and lack of patches that effect reliability, it being shitty and half baked is exactly how the world got it from MSFT.
Roll out the petition! I’ll be in the line to sign it too.
Anyway, I don’t think Windows XP could be named “abandonware” as Vista can be seen as updated version of it.
I think Vista is a totally new product – I think we need to set up oversight on these companies and see if enough changes have taken place to qualify as a new product or a scam to get people to pay for bugfixes.
With directx 10, a new media player, a new Aero UI and a new media player amongst other things, I think MSFT has a new product and not a hussied up XP.
I still rabidly support the abandoning of copyright for large scale software products which could have an impact on national security. Heck, the US government is effected by MSFT’s horrible lack of support.
With behaviour like that microsoft is showing that it is desperate, and have to get new customers like that. It is a shame that any modern operating system would have very much needed Service packes every FEW YEARS!! hello! it is WAY to slow!!.. not to mention how responsive MS is in bringing new OS out… i guess MS is showing its age, and screaming about it….Maybe this system worked out for them in the past decade or so, but i dont think they could do it anymore….. well, give them a few more years, and then install some free and up2date OS…… blah!
I was a card-carrying MCSE with lots of certs. When NT 4.0 SP7 was deferred, I defected. I cannot trust a company that forces changes on admins. The untimely death of NT 4.0 proved MSFT untrustworthy.
Now Windows Defender is Windows XP SP2/Windows 2003 SP1 ONLY. A big FU to all Windows 2000 users.
The person at MSFT responsible for these decisions should be jailed forever for threatening national security.
There are still live NT 4.0 boxes out there – with gaping holes – and MSFT wants those holes to exist to get people to buy upgrades.
Criminal.
I wouldn’t even mind if nominal fees were charged for service packs.
Use it or lose it MSFT. NT 4.0 not being service packed means that people should be allowed to freely copy and redistribute it.
There were more SP’s for NT 4.0, win2k etc because of the patch delivery system.
We are all now connected to fast internet connections with a steady stream of updates being applied to workstations and servers, the need for SP’s becomes less and less irelvent.
In the Days of NT 4.0 having to download a 100MB file to update the workstations was a big deal, and so was downloading that 100MB across many small patches. SP’s were released on CD to help but the internet didn’t have the speed.
All Service Pack 3 will be is a collection of security patches etc.. no new functionaility. In fact WinXP SP2 was the first time i had seen new functionaility from a SP.
SP3 for NT4 also gave extra functionality.
NT SP4 introduced new functionality for NTFS and the security subsystem to allow it to talk to Windows 2000 NTFS disks and 2000 domains.
Win2k SP2 introduced the Set Program access and defaults, which allows a user to change thier default browser, email program, etc.
SP1 for XP brought USB 2.0 functionality
Solaris is rebuilt every 3-4 months. Its not that hard, its called being professional.
Mad at sun, dont want to pay for solaris? Oh wait, its free, and free to download and legacy copies of the OS are able to be had as well.
2008? Is this some kind of joke on MS’ side? Considering that there are over 50 updates released after SP2 what the heck is MS waiting for. Oh and killing off XP when Vista is still 1/2 year away for the consumers is not really an option so stop the speculations. Only if MS is delaying SP3 this could only mean that there is still a lot of coding for Vista left to do and they are pulling every resource available in order to release Vista only “slightly” behind schedule. Plus considering MS’ track record in OS releases I’d expect SP1 for Vista to show up within an year of the official release.
Oh and killing off XP …
Providing non-security updates for 2 more years and security updates for 5 more years is not killing off XP.
Windows 2000 is still around without a new SP as long as security updates keep showing up.
Microsoft support for their operating systems is way better than anyone else.
I will use Windows 2003 Enterprise VLK as a workstation until the bitter end.
It seems MSFT messes with the server OSen less.
It’s called Vista, in case no one’s heard of it.
It’s called Vista, in case no one’s heard of it.
Thats ignorant. And untrue.
…and blatant sarcasm….get over it.
One of the elephants in the room is that Microsoft has been allowed to become an effective monopoly and now has the problem of meeting the growth expectations of the stock market.
Can a corporation serve two masters? (Making best quality product and delivering stock growth). Is it really trying to?
Frankly the yelps of the anti-virus industry (amongst others) suggest that Microsoft stock growth will come from broadening its effective monopoly.
Do service packs really help MSFT meet its key goals?