12.17.09
Microsoft Starts Neglecting Windows XP as Supported Platform
Summary: The status of Windows XP as a platform Microsoft cares about is waning
Microsoft already neglects Windows XP when it comes to security. Maybe they are running out of developers who are familiar with the code or maybe they just can’t be bothered obeying their promises of long-term support. Based on the following new story, Microsoft is starting to neglect non-Vista (including Vista 7) versions of Windows, perhaps pushing for unnecessary "upgrades" that way.
Microsoft explains why the upcoming Office 2010 will not support Windows XP 64-bit nor Windows Server 2003.
Gone so soon. 64-bit is still not a priority at Microsoft, either. Existing users of XP are advised to try GNU/Linux, which would not require new hardware. █
“Microsoft, like much of the IT industry, was caught off-guard by the rapid rise of the netbook category, but moved quickly to offer a netbook-specific version of XP Home to stem the tide of Linux on netbooks.”
–CRN
NotZed said,
December 17, 2009 at 11:58 pm
64-bit Microsoft Windows XP was never particularly well supported – thats what I was using in my last job. Horridly unstable piece of shit – but perhaps that is just the Microsoft Windows way, I’d never used it much before.
AMD64 support isn’t terribly important for most desktop users – it just adds a huge mess of compatibility crap, and uses more disk and memory. So for the extra hassle you don’t seem to get any benefit. Went back to 32-bit on all my machines because it just didn’t seem worth it. For OS authors the architecture is somewhat simpler and cleaner than x86, but there aren’t enough extra registers or anything useful to make it that much benefit for applications, after taking into account the much increased code size.
Yuhong Bao said,
December 18, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Note that it is limited to x64 versions of Windows XP (which were BTW actually based on the Windows Server 2003 codebase), which were never supported very well anyway.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
December 19th, 2009 at 3:49 am
Yes, I’ve made that explicit.