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[DeathDude]

From what I understand and have heard up to this point, all that will happen in 2008 is that Microsoft will stop selling Windows XP itself and selling it to retailors, XP support will still last April 8, 2014.

Especially since Service Pack 3 for XP, is almost nearing readiness.

[Geezer]

Deathdude is correct.

Taken from Wikipedia ...

Support for Windows XP without a service pack (RTM) ended on September 30, 2004 and support for Windows XP Service Pack 1 and 1a ended on October 10, 2006.

Mainstream support for Windows XP Service Pack 2 will end on April 14, 2009, four years after its general availability. As per Microsoft's posted timetable, the company will stop licensing Windows XP to OEMs and terminate retail sales of the operating system June 30, 2008, 17 months after the release of Windows Vista.

On April 14, 2009, Windows XP will begin its "Extended Support" period that will last for 5 years until April 8, 2014.

[dosraider]

I'm getting a 'déja vue' feeling here.
We've been through this when MSDos -> W95
Again when W95 -> W98
Then once again when W98 -> early NT ones ( STILL have nightmares about those early NT ones !)
Then we saw all this over and over when W98 -> XP (Remember the XP is shit posts?)
Now it's about XP -> Vista
And soon in the same nuthouse Vista -> whatever follows.

Booooooooooooooring.

[_r.u.s.s.]

well the oldervesions at least didn't make a homecall each 15 minutes and you didn't need to click yes on 40 "are you sure" messageboxes on everything

[Doubler]

When XP came out I would've laughed out loud at anyone suggesting one day there would be a forum thread called 'save XP' :cheesy:

Vista is just another step in the ongoing process of making Windows more friendly to global business interests while re-affirming the MS 'monopoly', at the expense of the user. Although you can't really say it's 'worse' per sé. It adds new things, it's just arguable that it offsets the price and how the users are further limited. The same with most of it's predecessors.

That's not saying it's right in any way, and that I don't applaud anyone trying to stop this trend.

[Quintopotere]

Originally Posted by Doubler

When XP came out I would've laughed out loud at anyone suggesting one day there would be a forum thread called 'save XP' :cheesy:

Vista is just another step

I think that's more like the step between windows 3.11 and win95... give me back win 3.11!!!! Or better, give me back the DOS!!!

Many ones said "there is a plenty of time before DOS will be not supported..." or something like that. But now I'm here crying for that software milestone... and you all are in an abandonware site downloading DOS emulator and games, think about it!

Ok, you all said very right things and probably a better petition should be "Dear software house, develope software for win XP and NOT for Vista!"

However, take this topic with a bit more spirit! Come on!

[gregor]

i think Vista will be OK once the iron out the bugs and remove the unnecessary protections....

it's same with all new products. remember the Mercedes A recalls cause they fell over if you made a turn too fast??!

[red_avatar]

Originally Posted by _r.u.s.s.

well the oldervesions at least didn't make a homecall each 15 minutes and you didn't need to click yes on 40 "are you sure" messageboxes on everything

You do realise that the "are you sure" thing can be switched off in 5 seconds?

And what the hell are you talking about, home calls?

[_r.u.s.s.]

Originally Posted by red_avatar

You do realise that the "are you sure" thing can be switched off in 5 seconds?

And what the hell are you talking about, home calls?

i have only tried vista on new notebook before switching back to xp, but if you tell me how to for future i will be glad. and yes, homecalling, it calls it's home

[Japo]

Quinto,

The good news is that, of course, you already have command line in Windows if you like, but I bet you prefer the GUI. The bad news is that DOS compatibility is still a no-no because Windows 5.x (2000/XP) is 32-bit (also there's XP 64-bit), whereas DOS (and Windows 3.x and lower) was 16-bit (too limited) and it didn't use the same APIs. No matter its name, even if it was called DOS the current MS OS wouldn't be backwards compatible, virtualization technology would still be necessary. And there are virtualization solutions available, like Virtual PC which MS provides for free afer all, or DOSBox for DOS (even XP 32-bit built-in ntvdm.exe, but this is useful only for console programs).

Also Quinto, you can be in control with Windows just like you were with DOS. The problem is that, even though it's easier to just use Windows than DOS, it's actually harder to be a power user of Windows than DOS, simply because Windows is plain more complicated and powerful. But you can configure whatever you want, if you want to learn about Windows just like you did about DOS, you can start here or in Google.

Originally Posted by _r.u.s.s.

i have only tried vista on new notebook before switching back to xp, but if you tell me how to for future i will be glad. and yes, homecalling, it calls it's home

I have XP and I've seen it call home (saw it in my firewall's log then I checked the remote IP and it belonged to Microsoft). So it would seem this is not only about Vista, XP also does it. I wouldn't be too tinfoil-hat paranoid about all the urban legends romaing the Web as to the evil purposes of these calls. I wouldn't be concerned about them and besides, if you're really concerned get an outbound firewall and block them.

Anyway If you don't trust Microsoft and think they feed your personal data to the ESA and the Skull&Bones, then by all means you shouldn't use any MS program let alone Windows. The important point here is that once you've installed an operating system in your computer, you've already trusted it with everything, even if you think you're in control you're only as far as the OS lets you (but it is its job to let you, unless there's some hidden agenda, and unless so many people I don't think so). These calls home are done in the open, Windows could very easily do them without your being able to know or block them, just like malicious rootkits do.

Vista is nothing special, just the next version of Windows, it provides new multimedia capabilities (not only for its own silly eye candy which you can disable, but most important for use by third-party programs), and it improves security which was a great complaint against Windows specially from Mac and Linux users. The next Windows version after Vista is already in development.