how long are microsoft going to keep updating XP for?

isofa

Marty_J wrote: »

It's ridiculous though.

Surely they have to stop using XP eventually?

Or in 10 years, is the world still going to be powered by a 20 year old OS?

I agree, but if there is no commercial reason, what's the point? If they all run ok, are on secure network segments and have support in house, there is little commercial reason. Some large old (ancient) systems are still running in COBOL (I kid you not, I have a friend working at a big company supporting a change over at the moment!).

Companies only upgrade if they are forced, or there is a good business case to saving money, and in this climate, moving thousands of users to a new OS, new version of Office (my biggest client has just moved from Office 2000 to 2003, and that was a 6 month project), let alone the server change over required, just isn't viable or desirable.

Nearly all currently released apps run on XP, and that's what counts. There was a massive shift from OS 9 to OS X because developers started developing OS X only software, and even though Classic support was available, it coaxed users onto the new OS with new apps. And of course, the old OS 9 only Internet Apps like Netscape and the dire IE weren't updated.

kwikbreaks

Marty_J wrote: »

I can still remember installing Windows 95.

I think it came on approximately 500 floppy disks.

It was 17 ( I thought but t'internet says 13)
They also supplied it on CD.

isofa

kwikbreaks wrote: »

It was 17.
They also supplied it on CD.

I still have the 30 odd floppies for Office 4.2 somewhere...

Marty_J

isofa wrote: »

I agree, but if there is no commercial reason, what's the point? If they all run ok, are on secure network segments and have support in house, there is little commercial reason. Some large old (ancient) systems are still running in COBOL (I kid you not, I have a friend working at a big company supporting a change over at the moment!).

Isn't COBOL about half a century old?!?

Companies only upgrade if they are forced, or there is a good business case to saving money, and in this climate, moving thousands of users to a new OS, new version of Office (my biggest client has just moved from Office 2000 to 2003, and that was a 6 month project), let alone the server change over required, just isn't viable or desirable.

Nearly all currently released apps run on XP, and that's what counts. There was a massive shift from OS 9 to OS X because developers started developing OS X only software, and even though Classic support was available, it coaxed users onto the new OS with new apps. And of course, the old OS 9 only Internet Apps like Netscape and the dire IE weren't updated.

Well that explains why businesses are so resistant to change, but what about home users?

Are there Windows 7 only apps that will coax people over?

Apple have a real uphill battle convincing people to switch operating systems when Microsoft can't even do it!

Wack

Marty_J wrote: »

It's ridiculous though.

Surely they have to stop using XP eventually?

Or in 10 years, is the world still going to be powered by a 20 year old OS?

Is there an XP mode in windows 7? Surely that would mean support for the lifetime of Windows 7...

kwikbreaks

I think I finally consigned all my floppy disk to the bin when I moved house last time (or maybe when I got around to unpacking the boxes)

I think I know why I thought 17 floppies (above) It was stuff that came with a machine (A Toshiba Libretto I think) so there were probably driver disks and maybe some other software.

kwikbreaks

Marty_J wrote: »

Isn't COBOL about half a century old?!?

Spot on.
The reason it is still around is because there is a huge investment in programs written it it that are still running. Somewhere in the bowels of almost every corporate there is an ancient mainframe churning through all the core business functions. There still will be long after the latest glitzy product has long become obsolete.

isofa

Marty_J wrote: »

Isn't COBOL about half a century old?!?

I know, I had to dig out some notes from Uni years ago to pass to him, it's hideous!
Still good money! There are plenty of massive companies running some very old legacy stuff, whereas others move more quickly with the times. If it's not broken then don't fix it I guess. If it does some standard churning back office stuff, which doesn't require anything other than reconciliation and other standard features, why spend thousands redeveloping? New is not always best...

Marty_J wrote: »

Are there Windows 7 only apps that will coax people over?

I suspect in the next 12 months there will be. FileMaker is usually one of these, I don't think v10 will run on XP (not "officially" anyway), so v11 next year will maybe Vista/Win7 only. They do use a lot of OS hooks like the internal web-browsing etc.

The new version of Office 14 (2010) Technical Preview runs on XP SP3 (I think it's in the requirements sheet, but don't have it to hand) as is likely the public beta due soon. Just goes to show that there isn't a huge gulf between XP SP3 and Windows 7.

Adobe are dropping support for PPC Macs, so perhaps they'll embrace a new OS too, but if the underlying code is still compat with older OSes, people will still use them.

Wack wrote: »

Is there an XP mode in windows 7? Surely that would mean support for the lifetime of Windows 7...

There is, however it's a ticking time-bomb there in the form of a support nightmare: it's really just XP in a virtual space, but with all sorts of hooks into the host OS, so they'll have to keep supporting XP with patches, otherwise letting the XP compat. mode run on Win 7 will just be an open door to hackers.

Leopard

Wack wrote: »

I want one of those

I've still got one of those!

Well, one of these, anyway.

It's twenty years old and it runs Word 5 and Excel 4 quite happily.

They cost £ thousands when they were new.

(I bought mine for £25, some years ago complete with keyboard and mouse.)

And, so far as I am aware, you can still download its Operating system free, from Apple.

isofa

Leopard wrote: »

I've still got one of those!

Well, one of these, anyway.

It's twenty years old and it runs Word 5 and Excel 4 quite happily.

They cost £ thousands when they were new.

(I bought mine for £25, some years ago complete with keyboard and mouse.)

And, so far as I am aware, you can still download its Operating system free, from Apple.

I've got one of those too! And a Mac Plus in the loft... Both still work fine (the Plus is a bit old as has to boot from floppies, so when they degrade it'll die sadly). The SE/30 is a pretty neat package, Word 5 flies along. I think it has PageMaker 4.2 installed too. I put my first ever commercial designs together as a 6th former (for paying clients) on an SE/30! Maybe one day it'll be worth a fortune

You can download all of Apple's older OSes including System 6, 7 and 7.5 here (legally from Apple): http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/Older_System/