[kjohn034]

wsmacl, on 14 April 2012 - 01:27 PM, said:

Great idea. But it'll never happen. MS is way too selfish. (although perhaps less so than Apple).
BTW - I am happily running XP and Office 2003. It works just fine thanks! More powerful than I need actually.

You do know that Microsoft is a company right?
And a company needs to make money to pay thousands of employees right?
And giving away a multi-million dollar piece of software to a bunch of cheap-asses doesn't pay the bills right?
I'm guessing you get a paycheck for whatever you do right?
Maybe your company should open-source you and how would you pay your bills then?
Maybe you are selfish for not open-sourcing yourself to the community?

Perhaps Microsoft should sell a maintenance agreement to those who wish to buy it...problem solved.

[kjohn034]

Mattvm8v, on 14 April 2012 - 09:00 PM, said:

There's already an open source alternative to Windows out. It's called ReactOS.

http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html

Looks really nice but it does say on the site that it's not ready for daily use yet.
I think the author is intending to ride on the huge coattails of Microsoft as most of the hard work is done.
And how selfish of them to not give it away...bad Microsoft.
Also, how many products do you know of that are supported free of charge for ten fricken years let alone more.
ReactOS still requires a great deal of very hard work and who wants to do hard work right? XP for free...yay.
Maybe the author could write articles for free for a while and see how that goes. I'm sure the mortgage company will understand.

[royserna03]

I think this article is great, but maybe instead of day dreaming about Microsof(t)s change, we the users should change. If we all used more open source software, it would end the the demand for expensive software that is really not that impressive compare to the open source counterpart. A good example of this is software like Microsof(t) Office and LibreOffice(which is a lot better than office, simpler and free).

[lenapter]

I still see some doctor's offices, and even EMERCENCY ROOMS in hospitals, still using XP-What happens to them.?-What happens to patients in life and death situations? GOOD GRIEF!!

[alpo41]

I live on SS and only get 1000.00 I cant spend on new computers I also am happily running XP and Office 2003. It works just fine thanks! More powerful than I need actually.

[MichaelRousseau]

mikeawbd, on 15 April 2012 - 07:51 AM, said:

MichaelRousseau, on 14 April 2012 - 07:28 PM, said:

mike6875, on 14 April 2012 - 04:36 PM, said:

My8 year old Dell 2400 cannot run Win7 I tried,but it runs XP great and I can't afford a new machine.So what are people like me supposed to do?

If it runs XP just great it will run Win8 even better. For what people payed for XP seriously expecting MS to support them forever is not logical. You can pay $20 000 on up to the sky is the limit for a new car. Yet a warranty will not last 10 years or more. Lucky if you get 3 years. So dropping a few hundred for a new OS to replace one that is over ten years old is not unreasonable. You can even partition your drive nad try out Win 8 CP fully supported with updates till early next year on your hardware before you buy it just to make sure it works well on your hardware. Try getting a car company to give you a new car for a year under full warranty for free to try for a year. Not going to happen.

Do you seriously believe that there won't be major driver and software issues jumping from XP to 8? I already have a few older games and software that I have trouble running on Windows 7.

I have already converted 2 XP, 1 Vista and 2 Win 7 over to Win 8 CP. Other then 1 XP not wanting to install a printer directly from a disk ,which was quickly remedied by installing through compatibility mode, I had zero issues. Much of Win 8s underlying OS came from Win7 which came from guess what, Win XP. Win8 uses less resources then XP. SO to answer your question I whole heartily believe there would be no major driver and software issues. As a matter of fact I am using Win 8 CP and before that Win 8 DP since their release. Win 8 CP had over a million downloads with in a few days of release.

[mseyf]

Anyone know how (of if) XP Windows Activation will work after support ends for XP in 2014? If you do a re-install after 2014 will you be able to activate your copy of Windows XP?

[visimp]

There is another comment lost in this. After 11 years, Microsoft has still not made XP secure. Do you really think any Windows in the near or distant future will be secure without weekly patches? This is a greater impediment to a new OS than the the learning curve etc. Totally remove those elements eg. ActiveX and dotnet tools which have lowered security in the computers. Perhaps if XP users wait a while, those who attack computers will move on the challenge of the new Windows and Apple OS's and leave XP alone. Just think a stable reliable OS and Office program which everyone has forgot to attack.

With regards to Office 2003, most Office users type a document which could be done on an old typewriter. Why spend $$$$ on a Office 2010, 2012, 20xx just to type the same thing.

I agree companies need money but how about creating something that is *** new ***, not a modified patch of the old system with a new paint job. There is the story that the original Windows Programmers of Windows 95 all left MS as millionaires and since then a room of 'programmers' play with the code until something happens. The exciting new feature is added and then the patches follow for years as the feature buggers up other components in the OS. Remember the security patch to Excel Macros that caused the Add/Remove window to open in Chinese font. This is a classic example of the real knowledge the current programmers have of the system they are working on.

PS. This is not an attack on MS or support for Apple, just a comment on the inefficiencies of major software houses to release new software for the sake of money. There is little or no appreciation of the user.

[boogerman41747]

As good an idea as this is ,I don't see Micro$oft going that way,preferring to force Windows 7 & 8 onto everyone.That attitude make Linux more & more attractive

[TheoWerewolf]

"as Peter Parker (AKA Spiderman) was told by his grandfather..."

Actually, it was his uncle, not his grandfather.

That aside, there are two basic reasons this will never happen.

First, a lot of WinXP is still in Win7. They rewrote a lot of stuff, but the core of Win7 is still WinNT, just as it is for WinXP. Open sourcing WinXP would mean open sourcing the core of WinVista and Win7 and very likely Win8.

Second, this would put Microsoft into the bizarre position of being in competition with a free version of itself. It would only be a matter of time before open source developers fill in the missing bits and bring WinXP at least visually up to sync with Win7 or Win8.

Microsoft would have to be insane to put itself into this situation. A better solution from their perspective would be to make WinXP free and charge for updates and support and even THAT doesn't make a lot of sense financially.

[campbell26446zgw]

mike6875, on 14 April 2012 - 04:36 PM, said:

My8 year old Dell 2400 cannot run Win7 I tried,but it runs XP great and I can't afford a new machine.So what are people like me supposed to do?

Why not try an open source Linux OS like Kubuntu. It should work happily on any machine that had XP.

[RBouvet]

mike6875, on 14 April 2012 - 04:36 PM, said:

My8 year old Dell 2400 cannot run Win7 I tried,but it runs XP great and I can't afford a new machine.So what are people like me supposed to do?

I agree with a few others here; try Linux and use Libre Office or Open Office.
There are several distributions (Distros) out there, currently I'm using Ubuntu 11 and Mint 12
and enjoy the freedom from the long chain of Windows/Office.

This post has been edited by RBouvet: 15 April 2012 - 01:23 PM

[mrdr]

Honestly, to support XP until 2014 is quite generous. Why doesn't Microsoft provide a service that customers can purchase for support from 2014 onwards for XP ?
Oh, well I guess the point is to sell as many new copies of the latest version of Windows and the big bucks that that provides to MS.

[BFNPCW]

I agree with Gibbs. He is not saying that Microsoft is obligated to support XP and other older software forever.

He is saying that if enough people are still using it (I use XP Pro as my OS and I love it) then why not just release it as Open Source?

Release the software and Source Code, and Gibbs is right, many people will start to work on solutions to keep it safe and useable.

Fred Langa proposed this years ago. He said that if a company has clearly made all the money from that version of their software, then why not release it to the public. His argument was not to make it open source, but to simply release it free for use. Those who NEED more power will buy the newer version, particularly if MS offers an attractive upgrade route from the older free released version.

Those who can not afford to buy the new OS or software version won't buy ANYWAY, so what is MS losing? Nothing. It is not like they are going to make one single more dollar on an old OS Or software platform in sales, and they certainly will NOT be getting any additional $ from those who do not have the money to BUY their NEW software, so how would it hurt them? It wouldn't.

Actually, it could help them a LOT, because it would allow those who do have a need to FIND an increased need for the goodies in their advanced software, and they would likely make sales that they would not have made otherwise, from those who DO upgrade.

It's a win win, in my view.

[shanedr]

Mark, what planet did you come from? Microsoft would have to be incredibly stupid to put a dependable OS into Open Source.

[skovner]

The problem is, there is certainly some code in even Windows 8 that is in Windows XP, and making that open source would reveal trade secrets in their current OS's. If security problems were found there, it would require Microsoft to fix them in their non-open source OS's, but WITHOUT using any of the fixes in open source - or they would cause problems for current OS licensing.
No, putting Windows XP open source would gain Microsoft nothing, yet open it up for problems.
From their viewpoint, it is an extremely dumb idea.
I use Linux on older hardware. Open Office is a lot like Office XP. Proprietary software is another problem, but if you have a business case for that software, and you can't afford an upgrade, see if there is some cheaper replacement.

[GonzaloVC]

I don't think we need an open source XP. If people want to use microsoft software with all their bugs, vulnerabilities and all, they have to pay.
The ones who want to use open source software already have many options: FreeBDS and others from its famiuly, GNU/Linux, and several others! (http://en.wikipedia....erating_systems)

[GetReal]

The premise of the article was probably not that MS owes anybody anything about Xp, and, probably 99.9% of Xp users appreciate the long support program MS has had - I know I do. Yet, I am nostalgic for Xp - it does currently and for the past decade one everything I expect or wanted from a computer, my investment in it has been realized, I already know how to use it, no new hardware required, the only drawdown to this proposal is future reliability. In conclusion, I believe if something is not broke then don't waste effort fix it - which MS likes to do on average about every 4 years (AKA: re-issue much of what is old with a new "face" on it and with high learning curve and high(er) hardware requirements. Though I do use Vista and Win-7 today, both do not improve my work flow or ease-of-use even slightly.

There are posts in this thread that state any computer that runs Xp will run Win-7, which might be true(?) but in my experience it certainly will not be as fast!

Anyway, let's do a comparison here; why are people investing thousands of dollars and many hundreds of hours work on an automobile that might be 75 years old, or even 25 years old, that might not even be safely drivable on roads?
Answer = because they like it!
So I see Xp as open-source in that context. Sure it might impact slightly on current sales of whatever new MS OS for a short time, but they (MS) don't need to support it with updates or drivers or anything else - the open source community will do all necessary support >> and because it IS open-source it will never compete with Win-7 or Win-8 because business and 99% of home users can't rely on it for long term >> just like many variants of Linux!

Clearly another article that the MS apologists neglected to read well and then think about >> before posting rebuttals!

[LiveBrianD]

BFNPCW, on 15 April 2012 - 02:43 PM, said:

I agree with Gibbs. He is not saying that Microsoft is obligated to support XP and other older software forever.

He is saying that if enough people are still using it (I use XP Pro as my OS and I love it) then why not just release it as Open Source?

Release the software and Source Code, and Gibbs is right, many people will start to work on solutions to keep it safe and useable.

Fred Langa proposed this years ago. He said that if a company has clearly made all the money from that version of their software, then why not release it to the public. His argument was not to make it open source, but to simply release it free for use. Those who NEED more power will buy the newer version, particularly if MS offers an attractive upgrade route from the older free released version.

Those who can not afford to buy the new OS or software version won't buy ANYWAY, so what is MS losing? Nothing. It is not like they are going to make one single more dollar on an old OS Or software platform in sales, and they certainly will NOT be getting any additional $ from those who do not have the money to BUY their NEW software, so how would it hurt them? It wouldn't.

Actually, it could help them a LOT, because it would allow those who do have a need to FIND an increased need for the goodies in their advanced software, and they would likely make sales that they would not have made otherwise, from those who DO upgrade.

It's a win win, in my view.

The only thing is that, if you offer the older version for free, some people will figure that there's no reason to buy Windows 7 (yes, I know that newer PCs come with win7, but perhaps for bootcamp or virtualization purposes...). Plus, people who don't really want to learn how to do things in Win7 will see no reason to stick with it, and thus will stick with an older, outdated OS. That said, I doubt that's much of an issue, and opensourcing the OS would certainly be cool.

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 15 April 2012 - 04:00 PM

[JTF243]

JoshMiller - you need to pull your head out of the sand (or wherever it is). If you believe that it only takes $350 every decade for people to keep current with technology, you are delusional.

It MIGHT cost that for the software, but when you have to upgrade your HARDWARE just to be able to run that new garbage (yes, I said GARBAGE) when our older systems (WP Pro w/AMD single core, 1 gig RAM, and Office 2000) are still fully functional, it is a WASTE OF MONEY to upgrade.

If you are a businessman as you imply, how in the world can your business survive if you squander company resources in such a wasteful manner?