Microsoft to End Support For Windows 2000, XP

[TexUs]

[H] is screwing up again.

I typed a nice response but I'm not going to again. I'll summarize:
1) Hardly defeated. If you put all your apps, docs, and data in that menu: it'd be a mess (like you'd have to do to rival instant-search)
2) In the time you move your hand to the mouse, I could've launched any one of those from the keyboard
3) Jump lists still exist if you still want some antiqudated technology.

 

[Azhar]

I like how people say "easily accessible" menu structure of XP is more efficient. More efficient than what? Is it really hard to move your mouse a hair's width to the left or right?

Protip: Win7 has QuickLaunch also. It also has Pin to Taskbar and Pin to Start Menu for accessing frequently used programs. In addition to those 3 ways, there's also instant search in the Start Menu.

Another protip: Aero offloads GUI to the GPU so your processor doesn't have to do it. To say the old GUI is faster is just silly. Faster if you're using a Geforce 5600 or a Rage Pro maybe, but not on modern GPU - even the Intel GMA GPU.

 

[heatlesssun]

While that's true, I don't think the whole touchscreen/tablet thing has taken off.
Tablets are big and bulky, and usually suck on battery life. Just a fact of life right now. The HP Slate might change all that though.

I also don't think there's MILLIONS of tablets out there... I could be wrong. But I've never actually seen someone using one in the wild.

I think touch screen computing has "potential" but only limited potential.
If you think about it, from an input standpoint, it sucks. On devices you can work with one hand (phones) that's one thing. But from a business/getting-stuff-done perspective, touch screens aren't that appealing.
Sure, they are more natural to browse around. But typing? Forget it. Even if you used a keyboard along with the screen, where do you situate it? The screen be above the keyboard? I don't want to hold my hands in the air and reach out to touch-control something. I have to move my hands a couple inches off the keyboard for a mouse: much more efficient.
That's just why I think,even though Apple is "oooo Touch Screens!!", for the masses, I don't think they'll take off. I have yet to see a productive touch screen setup.

Kiosks, terminals, etc they're great. But we've been using them there successfully for ages.

Tablet PCs are eight years old now and HP, Toshiba, Fujitsu and others have been selling them since day one, there HAVE to be millions of them by now, at least pen enabled only convertible ones. You probably seen them and didn’t notice because they were in laptop mode.

Your point about touch screen keyboards is valid but I think that you’re making the classic mistake of looking at a touchscreen keyboards and pens as replacement input methods instead of auxiliary ones. There are times when I just like to sit back and write out emails with a pen or touch screen in a positions that simply don’t work well using a keyboard and mouse and checking emails in the morning in Outlook before getting out of bed by simply flicking through them works a heck of a lot better than traditional methods.

And then there are just things that one can do with a pen that cannot be achieved by any other method like drawing or non–textual note taking. But heck when you need a keyboard and mouse just convert the sucker and play your favorite game or bang out that code or email.

But the point is that no other platform does all this stuff and a lot of is new to Windows 7.

P.S. In Windows 7 and prior versions as well you can move the touch screen keyboard anywhere or dock it at the top or bottom. Very flexible.

 

[XamediX]

The coverage here of the article is a bit misleading. Microsoft is NOT ending "extended support" of Windows XP completely. They are ending Extended Support for Windows 2000 and Windows XP Service Pack 2 on July 13th. Windows XP Service Pack 3, the current service pack, will continue to be covered under Extended Support through August 4, 2014.

Extended Support is the type of support XP has been on for a while already. It means you continue to get Security Updates, but no functionality hotfixes or patches.

Thank you, at first i was like hold up, didnt they say XP users were good till 2014? But yea, you need to be on SP# by this time.

Vista was a horrible OS. Calling it a great OS is like calling Windows Millennium Edition a great OS. Even Microsoft knows it was horrible, that's why they renamed Vista to Windows 7.

I was gonna say something, but everyone else beat me to it. Nice try there guerrilla marketer.

You win the award for most ignorant thing I've read today.

LMAO, Stop stealing my thoughts!

 

[niconx]

Can you make 7 look like this if not better? (in concern to streamlining, necessities, logic, and flow)

How is this?

 

[jubbie]

How is this?

<pic>

Is that with default or do you have to install some program to achieve it?

To defend XP, theres no way Win 7 can be installed under 1GB. Issue is that there are still quite a lot of ancient PCs around everywhere. Not to say that they should stay that way (who wouldnt like a new PC?) but I'd be interested to know how old peoples PCs are and the OS that they are running. Wouldnt be surprised that everything over 3-4 years old would be still running some form of XP.

 

[heatlesssun]

To defend XP, theres no way Win 7 can be installed under 1GB.

Not true. 7 will run decently on systems with 512MB. I've upgraded a couple of older laptops with only 512MB to 7 and they were able to run Office 2007 and web browse decently.

 

[Wascrash]

Not true. 7 will run decently on systems with 512MB. I've upgraded a couple of older laptops with only 512MB to 7 and they were able to run Office 2007 and web browse decently.

Think he was referring to 1GB of physical hard drive space... Not sure. Any i liked xp.Still do. Im useing vista now and never had a problem. All my folding machines run xp and are up for months at a time usually intill a storm comes to shut down the power. Sometimes 6 months +. Not to say i dont check on them every couple weeks but they all seem to do fine. My vista machine is my main gameing pc and it seems fine. Never had a problem with vista yet. I have tried win 7 when it was beta for several months and it is really nice but not enough to make me want to go out and buy it yet. Seemed like a vista update to me more than anything.

 

[ICOM]

...Vista was a great OS but it performed poorly on netbooks./QUOTE]

Man...let it go. Vista was a turd. For God's sake let it go.

 

[niconx]

Is that with default or do you have to install some program to achieve it?

The top Computer window is default windows explorer with the navigation bar and details pane view turned off. The taskbar is set to use small icons. The popup start menu in that last screenshot was achieved through a $20 skinable program called CSMenu. There is another skinnable program called Classic Shell which is freeware that does a great job of giving you a classic start menu as well.

http://www.csmenu.com/
http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/ (Source available too yay!)


Here is my minimal scheme with Classic shell:

 

[Wascrash]

...Vista was a great OS but it performed poorly on netbooks./QUOTE]

Man...let it go. Vista was a turd. For God's sake let it go.

Vista was only a turd on turd machines. WTF you all try to install it on? Really.I have upgraded several times but even when i first installed it it was great. I myself never had problems getting drivers but i think alot did and that was the only bad thing i can think of for some was the lack of driver support. Took awhile to get support from alot of companys. My system now hovers around 900 mb memory use. Win7 beta was around 700-750 on this same machine.

 

[Cerulean]

The top Computer window is default windows explorer with the navigation bar and details pane view turned off. The taskbar is set to use small icons. The popup start menu in that last screenshot was achieved through a $20 skinable program called CSMenu. There is another skinnable program called Classic Shell which is freeware that does a great job of giving you a classic start menu as well.

http://www.csmenu.com/
http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/ (Source available too yay!)


Here is my minimal scheme with Classic shell:

Still doesn't solve the Explorer crap. My complaints are at halt if I figure out a way to clone my streamlining. It would be nice if someone made a complete shell/explorer.exe substitute that uses the Windows XP UI over Vista/7 UI.

Also, I use Windows 7 and Server 2008 (dual-boot) on a machine dedicated as a server.

 

[Jarod888]

I just downloaded and installed classic shell, and it is awesome! I just don't understand why ms wouldn't include something like this in win7.

 

[jubbie]

Not true. 7 will run decently on systems with 512MB. I've upgraded a couple of older laptops with only 512MB to 7 and they were able to run Office 2007 and web browse decently.

I did meant hard drive space. Not that storage space cost a lot these days but you'd be surprised to see people with 40GB hard disks around. I understand that this is an enthusiast site but lets not forget that there are still people out there with less than stellar machines.

I did have my doubts on minimum memory needed for 7 but thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Azhar]

Vista was only a turd on turd machines. WTF you all try to install it on? Really.I have upgraded several times but even when i first installed it it was great. I myself never had problems getting drivers but i think alot did and that was the only bad thing i can think of for some was the lack of driver support. Took awhile to get support from alot of companys. My system now hovers around 900 mb memory use. Win7 beta was around 700-750 on this same machine.

You'll never convince them. Some people would rather repeat what the media tells them than find out themselves.




Yes, yes ok, so they say they've tried it - for all of an hour doubtlessly.

 

[heatlesssun]

I did meant hard drive space. Not that storage space cost a lot these days but you'd be surprised to see people with 40GB hard disks around. I understand that this is an enthusiast site but lets not forget that there are still people out there with less than stellar machines.

I did have my doubts on minimum memory needed for 7 but thanks for clearing that up.

My bad. I put 7 on a 512 MB RAM 20 GB laptop and it worked better than I thought. I've not seen a drive smaller than 20 GB in some time on a functioning in service unit.

 

[untrueparadox]

holy shit. were gonna be on windows xp for 13 years. i think thats the longest lasting os microsoft ever put out.

 

[jubbie]

My bad. I put 7 on a 512 MB RAM 20 GB laptop and it worked better than I thought. I've not seen a drive smaller than 20 GB in some time on a functioning in service unit.

No worries. 512 RAM and 20GB hdd's are rather rare, but I've seen grandma's box thats functioning with a 750Mhz P3
Was quite a monster in those days with a Voodoo 3.

holy shit. were gonna be on windows xp for 13 years. i think thats the longest lasting os microsoft ever put out.

What about MS DOS? Isnt that still lingering around somewhere?

 

[Dion]

holy shit. were gonna be on windows xp for 13 years. i think thats the longest lasting os microsoft ever put out.

XP is probably the best OS they ever made. Why fix whats not broken?

Don't get me wrong I like some of Win7/Vista's new stuff. But they made somethings worse too.

I'd gladly pay for a XP Second Edition before ever touching vista/7. But sadly.. That will never happen.

 

[Deleted member 89137]

This is horse shit. I just bought my netbook in fucking november and it had xp installed on it. So what they are saying is they will not be patching future security holes?

 

[Sly]

While that's true, I don't think the whole touchscreen/tablet thing has taken off.
Tablets are big and bulky, and usually suck on battery life. Just a fact of life right now. The HP Slate might change all that though.

I also don't think there's MILLIONS of tablets out there... I could be wrong. But I've never actually seen someone using one in the wild.

I think touch screen computing has "potential" but only limited potential.
If you think about it, from an input standpoint, it sucks. On devices you can work with one hand (phones) that's one thing. But from a business/getting-stuff-done perspective, touch screens aren't that appealing.
Sure, they are more natural to browse around. But typing? Forget it. Even if you used a keyboard along with the screen, where do you situate it? The screen be above the keyboard? I don't want to hold my hands in the air and reach out to touch-control something. I have to move my hands a couple inches off the keyboard for a mouse: much more efficient.
That's just why I think,even though Apple is "oooo Touch Screens!!", for the masses, I don't think they'll take off. I have yet to see a productive touch screen setup.

Kiosks, terminals, etc they're great. But we've been using them there successfully for ages.

I haven't actually seen a pure tablet (Screen only, about the size of a textbook.) but laptops that have a tablet mode are more common than you might think, a small slice of the laptop population, but not that rare. When you go out and see someone with a laptop, try to see if it's got one hinge or two.

A $500.00 netbook a couple of years ago would just get you basic features. A $500.00 netbook now will get you either a tablet netbook (S10-3T), or a dualcore (1201N/U230). Hopefully, we'll soon have both.

Regarding the keyboard. Well, my sister's Pavillion has a tablet mode, but she uses the keyboard mode a lot more than the touchscreen Do computers really have to have the keyboard removed to be classified a tablet?

 

[Jarod888]

What about MS DOS? Isnt that still lingering around somewhere?

Yes. I still use it on my usb ghost boot disk for work.
I downloaded DOS off technet a few days ago. You never know when you might need it.

 

[XamediX]

This is horse shit. I just bought my netbook in fucking november and it had xp installed on it. So what they are saying is they will not be patching future security holes?

RTFA or RTFTplz.... They are specifically talking about SP2. As long as you update to SP3 you'll be fine with your poor OS choice.

XP is probably the best OS they ever made. Why fix whats not broken? Don't get me wrong I like some of Win7/Vista's new stuff. But they made somethings worse too. I'd gladly pay for a XP Second Edition before ever touching vista/7. But sadly.. That will never happen.

I sir, feel sorry for your computing experience. You might be better off with an OSX based computer.


The major thing that alot of people cant seem to come to grasp is that you cannot and should not try to mimic your exact UI experience that you enjoyed for so long on XP. I had to change a few ways of how I do things but in the end I have a better experience with Win7.Not to mention my PC runs smoother, and I love the window management especially since I have dual lcds.

The biggest thing with XP is the transition period. XP allowed alot of companies to get lazy and keep outdated applications running with no upgrade plans. My old job still has apps running on IE6 for christ-sakes. Win7 is the kick in the ass for all you elephants afraid of change.

 

[heatlesssun]

I haven't actually seen a pure tablet (Screen only, about the size of a textbook.) but laptops that have a tablet mode are more common than you might think, a small slice of the laptop population, but not that rare. When you go out and see someone with a laptop, try to see if it's got one hinge or two.

A $500.00 netbook a couple of years ago would just get you basic features. A $500.00 netbook now will get you either a tablet netbook (S10-3T), or a dualcore (1201N/U230). Hopefully, we'll soon have both.

Regarding the keyboard. Well, my sister's Pavillion has a tablet mode, but she uses the keyboard mode a lot more than the touchscreen Do computers really have to have the keyboard removed to be classified a tablet?

Very astute observations, especially about the hinge! It's a dead giveaway that a machine is a convertible tablet PC and if you know to look for it you might be surprised by just how many convertible tablets are out there, especially your sisters Pavilion. HP sold a TON on those in retail, I know a lot of people with those tx1xxx/tx2xxx Pavilions. In fact my sister-in-law had one and she was literally shocked when I took her tx2500, flipped the screen over and started writing on it. She didn't even know that it could that. Not that she'd use it much but the fact didn't even know the device did that realy floored me.

Not only that people who have never tried the digital ink technology think that its a gimmick, they have no idea just how freaking good the hand writing recognition is and what's really interesting is just how much Microsoft has improved that technology as niche as it might from XP to Vista to 7. This technology and the touch enhancements are really some of the best work Microsoft has ever done and it is a huge part of what Windows 7 is all about. They even added a ink equation editor in 7, which while not nearly as good as the text based recognizer beats the HELL out of a keyboard for mathematical notation, especially once its trained. It's almost a crime what Microsoft hasn't pushed this technology harder especially considering just how much they must have invested in it. It simply doesn't exist on any other platform at this level.

As for your question, the short answer is no. Now for something REALLY boring to explain. The term "tablet" is a reference to the pen tablets made by Wacom starting in the early 1980's. If there's a company that a monopoly it is Wacom, they really own then pen digitizer market, There's one or two other players but Wacom is the gold standard for pen digitizer technology. You can buy Wacom tablets for PCs and Macs in any office supply store these days. So "tablet" really is a reference to a human-machine interface. The term "slate" refers to a computer form factor that's screen only, no keyboard. So you can have a slate tablet and that would basically be an screen only device, no keyboard that uses an electromagnetic resonance pen. You could also have a touch screen slate like the iPad. Or you could have a convertible clamshell/slate touch screen tablet like a tm2, which is what most people would just call a convertible tablet. Or you could have a touch screen tablet slate like devices sold by Motion Computing.

I'm just a huge fan of this technology and it took a gigantic leap with Windows 7 and current Intel CPUs can now run these devices with decent thermals and battery life and that's been a real problem for these devices. Unlike conventional laptops you hold these things like an iPad and lots of heat and fan noise KILLS the experience and usability.

But yeah, this stuff is the future of Windows, it really has to be. Microsoft needs innovative tech to combat the web and the cloud and they have a really large portfolio of really slick stuff that's actually practical like their simultaneous pen and touch interface. That stuff really is amazing. If they'd just push this stuff more, it really is hard to understand what Microsoft is thinking. They have a toy box full of fun toys but don't seem to want to share.

 

[Dion]

I sir, feel sorry for your computing experience. You might be better off with an OSX based computer.

The major thing that alot of people cant seem to come to grasp is that you cannot and should not try to mimic your exact UI experience that you enjoyed for so long on XP. I had to change a few ways of how I do things but in the end I have a better experience with Win7.Not to mention my PC runs smoother, and I love the window management especially since I have dual lcds.

The biggest thing with XP is the transition period. XP allowed alot of companies to get lazy and keep outdated applications running with no upgrade plans. My old job still has apps running on IE6 for christ-sakes. Win7 is the kick in the ass for all you elephants afraid of change.

First of all i'm on Win7 so don't act like you know my computing experience. Second. Xp does something better then 7.. While 7 does somethings better then XP. Thats why I said id take a XP second edition which would basiclly be the best of 7 and XP in one. And stop using personal experiences to justify facts. All the OS's are good.. But none are perfect. And as for the thing you said about using Outdated problems. You act like Win7 doesn't do that either. There is no need to upgrade to something unless you have a legit reason too.. It creates a lot of work. esp for people who dont know PC's.

 

[evanisthecoastie]

I cant believe how many people still think vista was as bad as steve jobs made it out to be. Advertising does brainwash!

hope i didnt hurt too many peoples feelings with that.

I swear most of the original 'problems' with vista were during its beta phase, and all the shit stuck even after the fixes.

I stuck with xp for a long time until i got tired of the errors/BSOD's that were so common with it, upgraded to vista 64, and was never happier. Just recently upgraded to 7 and its taking me a little to get used to it, but thats because im still used to the antiquated way of browsing around xp/vistas file structuring. 7 so far has been the most pleasureable expierience with an OS I have ever had.

 

[heatlesssun]

Second. Xp does something better then 7.. While 7 does somethings better then XP. Thats why I said id take a XP second edition which would basiclly be the best of 7 and XP in one.

Regardless of how good XP is or isn't (it was fine in its day but that's long gone now) it's simply old and outdated. XP obviously won't receive any new features and the much of the interesting and higher-end third party stuff simply doesn't work.

No multi-monitor gaming. No standalone CableCard support. No touch support. More and more apps that simply don't work or work to their full potential in XP. And beyond the UI and legacy support, what does XP do that 7 can't and perhaps better?

If you like XP you like XP but if you take all the new stuff in 7 and can adapt to the UI changes and can get all your apps working (I took care of that when I when I went to Vista, I ditched or upgraded everything that I needed to work in Vista) the loss versus the gain is minor.

I understand that if one hasn't done the leg work to past XP legacy issues that there's work involved but within the next couple of years if you want to stay on the Windows desktop platform that work is going to have to be done. Windows 8 beta is only about 18 months out.

 

[ICOM]

RTFA or RTFTplz.... They are specifically talking about SP2. As long as you update to SP3 you'll be fine with your poor OS choice.



I sir, feel sorry for your computing experience. You might be better off with an OSX based computer.


The major thing that alot of people cant seem to come to grasp is that you cannot and should not try to mimic your exact UI experience that you enjoyed for so long on XP. I had to change a few ways of how I do things but in the end I have a better experience with Win7.Not to mention my PC runs smoother, and I love the window management especially since I have dual lcds.

The biggest thing with XP is the transition period. XP allowed alot of companies to get lazy and keep outdated applications running with no upgrade plans. My old job still has apps running on IE6 for christ-sakes. Win7 is the kick in the ass for all you elephants afraid of change.

The only issue I have about moving from XP-64 is that I really don't care about the majority of the features in W7. There is no "computing experience" outside of the applications (games) that I run on the OS. I just don't give a shyt about OS's as long as they work and my apps launch.

 

[Azhar]

The only issue I have about moving from XP-64 is that I really don't care about the majority of the features in W7. There is no "computing experience" outside of the applications (games) that I run on the OS. I just don't give a shyt about OS's as long as they work and my apps launch.

And I bet thousands of more apps suddenly worked now that you're out of the poorly supported XP-64 and using what everybody else is using and coding for.

 

[TexUs]

You probably seen them and didn’t notice because they were in laptop mode.

So then, what's the point?

The top Computer window is default windows explorer with the navigation bar and details pane view turned off. The taskbar is set to use small icons. The popup start menu in that last screenshot was achieved through a $20 skinable program called CSMenu. There is another skinnable program called Classic Shell which is freeware that does a great job of giving you a classic start menu as well.

http://www.csmenu.com/
http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/ (Source available too yay!)

Goodbye GPU offloading.
You effectively add more load to your CPU by doing that. You aren't making it more efficient from a resource standpoint.

I just downloaded and installed classic shell, and it is awesome! I just don't understand why ms wouldn't include something like this in win7.

I bet you'd be one of the first people to complain how bloated Windows was then

XP is probably the best OS they ever made. Why fix whats not broken?

Because XP WAS broken. SP2 was meant to be a whole new OS.

The only issue I have about moving from XP-64 is that I really don't care about the majority of the features in W7. There is no "computing experience" outside of the applications (games) that I run on the OS. I just don't give a shyt about OS's as long as they work and my apps launch.

Windows 7 64 bit support > XP 64 bit support