Will Micro$oft really do this?

I heard that once XP is not supported that Micro$oft could turn off the Activation servers. Is this really true? About a year ago i tried registering Windows 98 and it went thru. Last week i tried registering again just to see what would happen. I got a message that said the servers were bust or something. But anyway why would they turn off the Activation servers?

 

There is a limit to when further activations will be given out. Keep in mind that Windows XP has received a reprieve. Which last we heard will take it out another year or two. Usually the clock starts ticking from that point on. It's going to be a while before activations are fully cut off for Windows XP.

Keep in mind their are ways around activation.

 

Are you really going to want to use XP in 2009 or 2010?

I hate Vista as much as the next guy, but I'm quite sure I'll give in by then.

Microsoft will work out Vista's kinks before they kill XP. Or Linux will be my friend.

 

+1 to XP.

I'll still be using XP. Mostly because my company will still be also

The activation servers will still be up then.Don't e believe everything you hear on the internet.

 

If they turn off the activation servers they are effectively stealing. I hope they don't do it, because there will probably be a HUGE public backlash.

 

i'll probably still be using it with my home desktop unit

i have friends who still work in windows 2000. their newly updated laptops contain xp. they'll probably still be on the xp platform in 2015

 

XP Corporate, which most big companies use, doesn't need activation. Neither do these keys when reinstalling OEM on authorized computers.

 

Windows 7 will be out around then. I will go from XP to Windows 7. Vista = Windows ME.

 

Answer: yes, and even more so after April of 2012, when security support for _Vista stops - security support for XP doesn't stop until 2 years later, by which time Microsoft should have managed to get most of the really bad kinks out of Windows 7 (or whatever they call it by then). Why even think about _Vista since there's better odds that we'll be able to move smoothly from XP to Win7 than that we'll be able to move smoothly from _Vista to Win7?

 

vista is definitely fixable. it is slow and has weird issues, but it isn't beyond redemption. given 2 years of hard work, it could become OK.

i remember similar complaints about XP back in the day. now XP is the be all end all for microsoft. eventually vista MIGHT become usable. OR windows 7 will be out by then.

 

No you don't. Some of the complaints are the same, sure, and those can get fixed. Others are completely different, and unfixable because some things are broken by design. Microsoft has chosen to implement some things that, in many people's eyes, is a step back from XP. They're not going to suddenly change that.

Huh? What are you talking about? Vista will be supported quite a bit longer than XP.

 

How does it verify that it is actually OEM?

 

Security updates continue into the Extended Support phase, which has not even been set yet for Vista.

 

Today in my college library comp..i was using XP SP1 ... it sucked..
So no wonder Vista Beta (original Vista) was also bugful

 

This makes no sense at all.

??The next operating system is gonna be MORE like XP than Vista?? Are you serious??

For one, the device driver layer is going to improve on Vista's model and NOT on XPs model.

Two, the service layer will definitely NOT move from Vista BACK to XP.

The deployment layer will definitely NOT move from Vista BACK to XP's model. If that happens, I'll shoot myself.

Windows 7 will just be Vista 2.0.

 

Why couldn't they give users a choice? Where users could change the style to Classic or XP or Vista? Classic and XP will change everything and make it look like XP when i say everything i mean everything. It could be done i know and it would take alot but the user should get a choice. The GUI change is what i really hate. I knew where everything is that i need. When i got my laptop the box had on it Windows XP Media Center. I thought WOW there is still an XP Model so i got it. The Acer box was inside that box and the Acer box had Windows Vista Home Premium. So i was fooled but anyway i was able to get XP Professional sp2 so i did and it runs a whole lot better. I got a Anytime Upgrade Disk i could do a clean install of Vista and it would probaly run better without all of Acer's bloatware.

 

I just hope MS answers my prayers and releases Windows 7 as a modular OS. You buy modules you need. The whole OS mentality needs a back to the future approach the way MS-DOS did things. If you wanted Windows you installed it on top of MS-DOS.

What we have today is a one size fits all operating system. I'm a gamer and I want a OS that's stripped of all the crap I will never use. I know wishful thinking.

 

Through WGA, the same way Corporate is treated, I presume. When I used the XP Pro key on my Thinkpad R51 OS reinstall, it never asked to be authorized.

 

and Vista is XP -1.0

lol

 

You can switch back to the Classic interface. it's under system properties. They kept it specificly for the Win2K users out there.

You can go back to the old Start menu also. Personally, the UI is an improvement since I use the Start Search and quicklaunch for everything. I prefer hotkeys myself.

If server 2008 is any indicator, then Win7 will be modular. I personally think it(Edit:bringing a modular OS to the consumer market) is a bad idea. Average consumers get confused with too many choices. Windows should move back to two editions. Home and business.

Power users will figure things out no matter the challenges.

Notice Vista was moving in that direction.

 

With all due respect to the collective intelligence of this thread, and this forum generally, allow me to introduce Microsoft's Lifecycle Support Policy for Windows_Vista:

View attachment 18364

To summarize, for all Home editions of _Vista, support ends on April 10th, 2012, and, more importantly, support for _Vista SP1 ends on the earlier of (i) two years after the release of the next service pack, or (ii) the end of the product's support lifecycle. Now, I'm happy to yield if someone can present proof that the term "product" in that clause means the service pack itself, and not the underlying, original operating system; however, until such time, the better reading is that support for WinVSP1 as applied to all _Vista home editions will end no later than April 10, 2012, which is the date on which the support lifecycle for all _Vista Home editions - which I take to be the underlying "product" referred to in the clause regarding support for service packs - ends.

However, under Microsoft's Lifecycle Support Policy for Windows_XP, all versions of WinXP, both Home and Professional, have extended support through April 8th, 2014, which is the drop-dead date for support of WinXP and all service packs thereto.

As such, _Vista home will be worm-food for two years from a security perspective before WinXP goes to that great hdd in the sky.

Now, to round out the earlier thought. Microsoft has "promised" to release Win7 in 2010 - not that anyone really believes them. That most likely means that we'll see Win7 sometime in 2012 (yeah, I'm a cynic where Microsoft is concerned, so sue me), and quite possibly a little later than that.

In other words, we'll get Win7 in its initial RTM form (which is more or less a glorified beta version) just as, or just after, _Vista Home becomes worm-food, but at least one to two years before WinXP becomes worm-food. That means that, for those on _Vista, they'll have to face the risk of either jumping onto Win7 immediately, before any of the inevitable bugs have begun to wash out through real-world use, or having to deal with having inadequate security for up to a year before they can jump onto the inevitably buggy initial RTM of Win7.

By contrast, someone using WinXP will, at most, be forced with the need to jump to a buggy initial RTM only if Microsoft is truly behind schedule and cannot release Win7 until after 4/08/2014 - 4 years behind schedule - and in the most likely scenario - a two-year delay resulting in release in 2012 - still have two years of supported security in which to wait while the worst of the bugs in the initial RTM of Win7 are worked out through real-world use, and won't have to shift to Win7 in all probability until SP1 for Win7 is released.

Now, you tell me, which is the preferable course to follow? Even worse, in terms of the development support OEMs and third parties will give to _Vista, which route do you think the big computer buyers/lessees - medium to large businesses - are more likely to follow? Keep in mind, business users generate more revenue for MS than consumers do, and their needs and wants will generally dictate the general course of development and improvement of a Microsoft OS.

By 2015 I am willing to put good $$ on the proposition that _Vista will be seen in retrospect as having been merely a very unpleasant interlude between WinXP and Win7 for those who were forced by their need for a new computer to purchase one with an OEM version of _Vista installed. In other words, _Vista will suffer precisely the same ignominious treatment suffered by WinME. For those who stay on WinXP, it'll be merely a bump in the road we pass over on the transition from WinXP to Win7.

 

Sigh. The "product" is refering to the Service pack. Microsoft will provide free support to its business users for up to five years after the second service pack i believe. I look this up later.

Security hotfixes are not a part of this. Microsoft will continue to provide security fixes for as long as it wants to PAST the extended support phase.

Again I'll look this up when I have time.

Never mind. Google hit on the first page, heh. Here are explanations to Microsoft's support phases. It really has nothing much to for the consumer market, since the OEM provides support for Windows at the sonsumer level. The only real support Microsoft provides to the consumer is through the form of patches and updates.

http://blogs.technet.com/lifecycle/...port-for-business-and-developer-products.aspx

Edit: For people who hate to read http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?LN=en-us&x=12&y=14
security update? F-ing checkmark.

 

Actually, no. From the link provided by yourself, it shows Extended Support for Vista ending 04/11/2017. XP will have already hit EOL 3 years earlier.

If you reference the Lifecycle Policy F.A.Q., it shows that security fixes continue thru the Extended Support phase.

http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy

 

surfasb,
yes you can switch to classic. They should have added a XP style that changed it all like the clacssic. I mean put everything like it is in XP and earlier from System Properties to Display Properties. Because Vista Classic its not really classic.

 

That would just make Vista more bloated and thus feed the criticism.

Microsoft will support XP for a long time. Heck, I know companies now that still use Windows 98.

 

Ha ha i still use Windows 98 on one of my desktops. Aucually 2 XPS T450 and XPS T500. And speaking of 98 a few weeks ago i walk into a goodwill store and see a box that a cd-rom drive came out of. I look in the box guess what? A Windows 98SE OEM Book bootdisk all wrapped and never opened the price was $7.50 i purchased it. Now i aucually got 3 98 SE disk one got cracked one is 98SE with PLUS! Very rare. I could have sold it on ebay but i opened it.

 

I love how Windows 7 is automatically perfect because a no-gui HTTP server only uses 40MB of RAM.

I doubt they will turn it off soon. The support in until what? 2011?

 

That would be _Vista business editions, I believe, not _Vista home editions, which expire in April of 2012, and don't get extended support (the "extended support" option is, if memory serves, why, e.g., XP Pro is about $100 more than XP Home).

 

FAR from the truth. I seriously laugh out loud everytime I hear this nonsense.

 

Careful what you wish for; you might get it.

 

I believe it has just not been updated as yet to reflect the other versions (as no extended date was given for any Vista product the first time I checked). Windows XP Home & Pro 32-bit have the same EOL. As such, Home Basic/Premium should be the same as Business.

If you are going by cost, notice that Vista Ultimate was also listed as "Not Applicable" under Extended Support, and it costs more than Business.

Basically, you only get security updates in the extended phase. Reliability and compatibility updates generally cease, unless they specifically address a security issue.

 

This thread is essentially useless... Microsoft has already announced that whenever they decide to cut off the activation servers for any product they will release an update removing the activation bits from the OS.

Also, waiting for Windows 7 is essentially a silly idea. It will be built on Windows Vista so if you don't like the changes to Windows with Vista you might as well move to another platform...

 

Wow, this was something I was not aware of.

 

Unfortunately, Home and Business editions are normally not the same with MS. I'm sure you recall that Mainstream support on XP Home was originally supposed to end on 12/31/2006, which meant that:

Windows XP Home: obsolete sooner than you expect, by Ken Fisher, posted on Ars Technica 01/03/2006

And I'm sure you also remember that Microsoft ultimately caved in and, just nine days after the report above, Ken Fisher was able to report:

Microsoft quietly extends XP Home support, by Ken Fisher, posted on Ars Technica 01/12/2006

Thus, the reason that XP Home and XP Pro currently get the benefit of extended support which, as you rightly point out, includes the all-important security updates, is because Microsoft was so late in delivering _Vista that, had they stuck to their standard policy and not given XP Home any extended support, every XP Home user would have been dead in the water come 01/01/2007 when they no longer had any security update support.

Thus, the chart posted reflects reality, and not a failure to update. As of April 2012, _Vista Home will be R.I.P. - as dead as XP Home would have been on 01/01/2007 had Microsoft not had one of it's extremely rare moments of lucid sanity and given XP Home extended support. And, if history is any guide, it's very unlikely that Microsoft will give extended support to _Vista Home unless they're going to be at least 2 years overdue past the announced release date for Win7 - in other words, _Vista Home is unlikely to get any sort of a reprieve unless the RTM date for Win7 is also no earlier than about April of 2012 (at which point I think that the whole issue may become somewhat irrelevant, because I think that another abject failure to deliver on time such as ocurred with _Vista will almost certainly cause an enormous number of current business Windows users to migrate over to some sort of business-oriented linux variant, at which point we may all realize that right now, today, we're all witnessing the crest of Microsoft's own lifecycle as a predominant player in the OS/software industry).

 

Who's "waiting?" The choice is very simple, and, for once, not so totally under the control of Microsoft; namely, I can continue to comfortably run on a reasonably battle-hardened OS - WinXP - for the next 6 years, until April 2014, and know that, while I might not get all the bells and whistles, or be able to play the latest and greatest game release for 2013, I will have security support up until April 2014, by which time Microsoft had better put out a qualitatively superior OS and not some warmed-over regurgitation of _Vista, or else I'm going to simply take an evening or two and move, lock, stock, and barrel, over to a linux variant which, by the year 2014, will almost certainly be on par with Windows in the ease-of-use and hardware-compatibility areas (the only real weaknesses of current linux variants, given that otherwise linux is already a better OS than Windows in many ways).

The bottom line: I don't give a fig about Win7, and I don't have anything invested in it, financially, technically, or emotionally; for one of the first times in a long, long time, Windows users are going to find themselves in the position of being able to crack the whip over B.G.'s head instead of it being the other way around. Once my security support runs out in 2014, I will move to Win7 if, and only if, it is in every way a qualitatively superior product compared to all the other OSes then available and, quite frankly, since linux variants seem to breed like rabbits, so long as a little creative destruction comes along to weed out the weakest, and strengthen the best, I'd put my money on linux were I a betting man.

 

wow so you are going to wait for W7? u know xp sucked ----s when it first cam eout. in a few years, vista SP2 or 3 will comeout and then W7 will come and everyone will be going " oh man not the load of crap , im staying with vista!!" im saying this and this WILL happen when W7 comeout.

 

With the information you have added, the thing I find most odd with the current lifecycle policy is the application of updates to the Business versions after Home Basic/Premium support ceases. It stands to reason that a majority of such updates could be installed and work on Home Basic/Premium since technically they are nearly the same as Business (with the exception of some backup apps and advanced networking).

Since MS has to continue researching and deploying hotfixes for Vista Business anyway, why not extend availability of the updates across the Vista platform?

 

No, I'm not. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear enough - with XP, as it stands today - what it was like when it debuted is irrelevant - I have a generally decent OS that lets me do most of what I want and on which I can generally rely, and which does what it does with a better cost/benefit ratio than is available with _Vista. Further, I have the "comfort," if you will, of that OS and its continued security support until 2014, so there is no pressure on me to jump ship to _Vista just 'cause M$ wants me to. That 6-year window of "comfort" gives me the freedom to evaluate every available option with a jaundiced eye and weigh each one in terms of what it can do for me, and to decide whether or not to switch solely on my own terms. That freedom is something M$ attempted to foreclose on when it at first refused to extend the life of XP, thereby attempting to coerce me to move to an OS that did less for me (and, to date, still does) than XP.

So, with this unaccustomed freedom, I have the wonderful ability to just sit tight and see what develops. If M$ manages to turn _Vista around and improve it to the point where it's cost/benefit ratio exceeds that of XP - both evaluated at the same point in time, which is an important point given that, once XP enters extended support, it will no longer be updated for non-security issues, meaning that I will slowly lose some of the functionality I value in XP and that goes into XP's cost/benefit ratio - then, and only then, will I add _Vista back into the matrix of potential future OSes. In the meantime, however, both XP and _Vista must also compete against the wealth of linux offerings that are coming out of the woodwork.

Ultimately, at some point in the next few years, XP will inevitably deteriorate to the point where I feel the need to move to a new OS to take advantage of new functionality not available on XP. At that point, I'll go with whatever OS presents, in my personal calculation, the best cost/benefit ratio - that could be _Vista, will more likely be a linux variant (although probably one that hasn't made a big splash yet), and possibly, if nothing else turns my head, Win7.

The point of the focus on Win7 is that, being charitable creatures, we tend to give M$ the benefit of the doubt despite its past performance, and, given that even M$ appears to have implicitly conceded the lame-duck nature of _Vista - as evidenced by the announcement of an RTM date, however unreliable, for Win7, and the fact that M$ just dropped its asking price for _Vista ultimate by $40, to the point where XP-Pro now costs about $80 more than _Vista Ultimate - we're all giving M$ one last chance to get it right with Win7 - get it right in the way that M$ promised, but did not deliver, with _Vista. However, if M$ fails on that (again), then, as far as I'm concerned, M$ will have relegated itself to the dust-bin of history and, no later than April of 2014, I will no longer run an M$ OS on my computer.

So, to reiterate what I said earlier - I don't give a hoot about Win7, that's M$'s concern, not mine. From my perspective, I'm in the catseat right now because I've got an OS I can generally count on for the next 6 years while I patiently evaluate all of the available options based solely on my own needs and wants, not on the basis of being panicked into jumping on M$ next offering, regardless of quality, because M$ is about to pull the carpet out from under my feet.

Basically, for the first time since the late 70's, we consumers can tell M$ "it's my way or the highway" instead of being told that by M$.

In short: either Win7 goes "my way" or M$ can hit the "highway."

I generally tend to agree with you; however, I think that this is largely driven by M$'s desire to simply be rid of consumer's nagging support questions after a date certain, given that consumers have paid less upfront for support (that extra $100 charged for XP Pro is basically prepaid support services). Also, and more charitably, there are some significant under-the-hood differences between home and business versions, largely in the category of security and networking, that M$ most likely doesn't want to be bothered dealing with after a particular point in time. For example, the fact that XP Home (and _Vista home) cannot join a domain but is relegated to that ersatz construct of the "workgroup." A workgroup is, essentially, a domain, but one in which the crucial security foundation of a domain has been undercut because a computer that joins a workgroup basically gets to log onto other systems in the workgroup automatically as guest without having to present credentials for authentication. It is therefore entirely possible that a security hotfix to correct some newly-discovered bug in the domain security could wreak havoc on the workgroup construct, causing home versions to lose whatever networking ability they've been left with under the workgroup construct.