XP - One Year To Go

XP now has less then one year to go. . .

The count down has begun, and the end is April 8, 2014 for XP and Office 2003.

 

[legacy7955]

The main reason XP had such a long life was because of its corporate penetration. When Microsoft announced that it was dropping support for XP a few years ago, it caused a mighty backlash from the corporate world, so Microsoft gave XP a life extension to allow time for corporations to transition to Windows 7. Consumer concerns didn't enter into this decision.

Actually I was thinking more about the enterprise "consumer" but still MS could have just said
"finito" years ago and enterprise would have had to upgrade to Vista or 7.

 

[Ray8]

Actually I was thinking more about the enterprise "consumer" but still MS could have just said
"finito" years ago and enterprise would have had to upgrade to Vista or 7.

That's not so easy to do. XP has been so deeply embedded into enterprises, with associated programs hanging off it, that it simply could not be switched off. The testing etc and often rebuilding of other systems can be a massive task taking years to do before the final version can be rolled out. Some legacy systems may still have to run on XP, even if other systems have transitioned to Windows 7.

 

[pcRat]

So if I try to install XP again on one of my notebooks after 8 Apr 2014, it won't install?

On another note, why does the US use month/day/year instead of day/month/year?

If I say May 11, 2013 I write it as 5/1/2013
If I say 11 May 2013 I write it as 11/5/2013 unless directed otherwise.

The only reason I can think of for d/m/y is for accounting. Primarily collections.

What's your take on it Ray9?

 

[Ray8]

It seems that the US is the only country that uses the month/day/year format, everyone else uses either day/month/year or year/month/day. I can see the logic in the latter two, but none in the former.

 

[McRuff]

It seems that the US is the only country that uses the month/day/year format, everyone else uses either day/month/year or year/month/day. I can see the logic in the latter two, but none in the former.

No intended disrespect to our friends from the US but it is not just the date. Found this somewhere on the Web.

 

[DavidY]

No intended disrespect to our friends from the US but it is not just the date. Found this somewhere on the Web.

In the UK we still have a strange mix of systems.

If you're in the market for a new car, the economy will be almost certainly quoted in miles per gallon.

But once you've bought your car, if you go to buy some diesel or petrol (gasoline) for it, it will be sold in litres, not gallons. This makes no sense!

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
I suppose in the UK the mentality goes -- I've paid my Road Tax to use the WHOLE ROAD -- so why should I be restricted to using only HALF of it while driving - often seems like that when I'm unfortunate enough to have to use that country's vastly congested motorway system where every driver seems to think that they OWN the middle lane of a 3 lane highway whatever the state of traffic or however fast or slow they are driving.

However - if they want to restart the economy over there really quickly just initiate a program of switching to driving on the same side of the road as almost the rest of the planet does -- think of the small businesses / engineering / sign writers etc etc who would be employed for YEARS in preparing for the changeover -- I'll bet they'd switch to having the HIGHEST growth rate in the WORLD for YEARS and the lowest unemployment too. Cheaper than paying Billions to despicable Banks who are still re-possessing people's homes at an alarming rate and then flogging them off CHEAP to their buddies.

As far as the US is concerned there is often a "Not invented here-- so I don't want to use" mentality -- remember things like Incompatible Mobile phone systems, etc and particularly the NTSC TV system --I still remember those men with Green / purplish faces etc on the screens -- the system was popularly known as Never The Same Colour !!.

However attitudes are gradually changing although traces of their mentality still exist -- such as UTC instead of GMT and in a lot of Movies where "History" is often re-written for domestic cinema audience consumption.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[XweAponX]

The main reason XP had such a long life was because of its corporate penetration. When Microsoft announced that it was dropping support for XP a few years ago, it caused a mighty backlash from the corporate world, so Microsoft gave XP a life extension to allow time for corporations to transition to Windows 7. Consumer concerns didn't enter into this decision.

It's a level deeper than that though, it's on the Blu Collar level as well. The next time you go get your wheels aligned or your smog done - Check out the computers - They be Windows 95, 98, 2000 and XP. You will NOT see Vista, 7 or 8. Most Smog machines are windows 95! They have to be a certain way because the the requirements for the state, Vista and 7 would make such systems hard pressed to fulfill the requirements for Data and Hardware.

 

[cluberti]

As to the date format, it was the standard in England when this continent was being colonized

That's news to me. Learn something everyday.

It is what it is - the US has a lot of weirdness that tracks back to colonization and the revolution. My favorite are my brit colleagues who make light of the way we deal with these sorts of things, completely ignorant of the fact we do these things precisely because we were an English colony, and for a goodly amount of time at that. In fact, it's been argued in the past that some of our more major regional language accents used here in the US have some basis in the language and accents used during the time of colonization and where people emigrated here from - it may even have an impact on the accents of the English language in places in Canadian regions too (David Hackett Fischer wrote a very interesting and large book on the subject). Mixed with the German and Dutch emigres at that time, you get what people might call "American English" and it's accents. It's a theory that's sort of impossible to prove, but it does seem quite reasonable. From what dialecticians have said, the vast majority of accent differences exist on the eastern half of the US, and specifically along the eastern coast and great lakes regions - those regions originally inhabited and colonized by immigrants to the US during our infancy as a colony and later, as a country. Again, it's something that would be incredibly difficult to prove factually (as it happened centuries ago, and records and documentation during those times would be inaccurate at best due to the reasons people emigrated in the first place. However, if true it would be yet another interesting vestige of colonial times, I suppose, in the Americas.

 

[XweAponX]

Looking at the diagram Metric seems to make a lot of sense. So, what happened back in the 70's when the US was suppose to start moving everything over to it? Corporations and republicans HOWLED and prevented it. Because Jesus doesn't approve I guess.

 

[startas]

Well, thats merica for you

 

[XweAponX]

That's why I hate foogin Dark-Ages ReligioRepukicans. My DAD was a real Republican, he was proud of it, I was proud of him, he would have hated what that party has become. One thing he used to be adamant about was the complete separation of Crutch and State.

 

[cluberti]

I think a lot of the pushback historically has been that it will cost money. Corporations in this country (not all, but most) like to privatize their profits but socialize their risk. As long as the people of this country keep electing politicians that continue to allow it, we'll continue to have the problem. I'm interested to see what happens here as more and more people are continuously unemployed, and corporations try to work people harder and harder for stagnant or falling pay. Again, it's not everywhere yet, but if things don't improve we may have another labor movement here in the US in 20-30 years, maybe even sooner.

 

[lehnerus2000]

Agreed

Corporations in this country (not all, but most) like to privatize their profits but socialize their risk.

Nice. :thumb:
Not only in the US.

I read a comment that went something like this:

"One thing that Free Market businessmen hate, is having to compete in the Free Market."
​

 

[XweAponX]

...privatize their profits but socialize their risk

Un other words, the risk is all on US, and WE hafta pay for it when the ba$spaghetti$ go BROKE

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there.
Exploitation is nothing new.

It's been happening ever since Humans walked on this planet -- one can argue even if you believe in the Book of Genesis in the Bible that Eve was exploited by Adam after the "Serpent" had done its business and the rest of us have been paying the price ever since.

Europe ---Late 19th early 20th cent Children working 12 - 14 hours a day in Coalmines / up Chimneys etc etc --- appalling standards of housing and diet around 1880's-1920's when "The establishment" should have known better, Absolutely POINTLESS loss of life in WWI (not WW II BTW) when 100,000's of young men died needlessly in places like The Battle of the Somme -- and to protect WHAT -- at WW I time the Germans weren't exactly a threat -- except though to "The Nobility" and established classes of France, GB, Russia etc . Even with a tiny bit of Air reconnaissance - there were a few available aircraft at the time even in 1916 the whole needless slaughter in the trenches in the Somme could have been avoided - but the pig headedness and ignorance of the Officers at that time who were chosen not on ability but Heredity / social status just exacerbated the whole pointless exercise.

The only thing you can say about WW I is that the politicians were even MORE HOPELESS which led eventually to WW II which also might never of happened if WW I had not taken place or been resolved quickly at the outset.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme

It's amazing the hypocrisy that exists now about "Ethical production" and the bleatings in the papers about the state of Factories in Bangladesh etc -- if there hadn't have been an accident nobody would have given a rats toss about it and Armani and stores like "The GAP" etc would be raking in the profits even faster than they do now.

Anyway enough of those politics -- there are other Forums for that.

Back to the point -- XP isn't going away any time soon whatever the support level will be -- in any case even when support does finally die away there are always some hobbyists around who'll probably get some pleasure making XP continue to work properly.

It's already done in the Mainframe environment where you can run the old MVS/370 mainframe OS on your laptop if you want to -- complete with TSO (the old Time Sharing Option) sessions and emulate the 4 colour 3270 terminals !!!.

(Screenshot enc -- uses the FREE Hercules 370 / 390 emulator and the public domain parts of IBM's MVS 3.8G OS !!!).

It runs jobs / prints etc etc. Compiles FORTRAN / COBOL / PLI etc. !!!

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Ray8]

I can't see that XP would stop working for some reason. If it's used in dedicated devices that are not superseded and not used for general computing and internet access (or without controls), then I can't see why it can't go on for as long as required.

 

[Mookalookabutu]

Iceland make-a good country for kicking bank-a-man out, and it make-a model for rest of world, but that still doesn't make-a oil to be a fossil fuel. The Earth make-a all by itself!!!

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
Banks are a sore point here -- we all make mistakes --but what I fail to understand is why haven't the citizens of Holland and England who live in those cities where the officials played "Casino" with the tax payers money arrested those people who should be serving serious JAIL TIME -- not the job of a Local authority to play "Stock market investments" -- its ONLY function is to provide the services for people in its judicial area -- doesn't need to MAKE money (or more importantly LOSE it) by playing the Markets.

Anybody with a bit of "nouse" would have seen that a small country of 300,000 people wouldn't be able to sustain a run on those Banks if they got into problems -- there isn't that much "exportable" material that could have supported a large run on the Banks which is what happened when the whole financial edifice came crashing down.

My experience though with businesses in the UK is that the bigger screwup you cause the bigger REWARD / Pension you get to walk away with. Holland treats "Failures" a bit differently -- not sure in the US - probably a bit of both - some get "Pink Slips" while others get their snouts in a very big trough. (Love to be a Football manager of an English Prem team say like Chelsea FC -- get fired after say 1 week and then get 15 million GBP pot to walk away with !!).

There's nothing wrong in USING resources --even (or perhaps especially) things like OIL -- it's how we retrieve it and whether we exploit other people in doing it. Business isn't EVIL by itself but it's how we use it --similarly Guns / Cars etc don't kill people -- it's PEOPLE using those devices.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Ray8]

Iceland make-a good country for kicking bank-a-man out, and it make-a model for rest of world, but that still doesn't make-a oil to be a fossil fuel. The Earth make-a all by itself!!!

Interesting grammar from a New Yorker.