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Software Microsoft Extends Support For XP Home, Media Center Edition
Brandon Hill (Blog) - January 25, 2007 9:47 AM

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28 comment(s) - last by TomZ.. on Jan 26 at 5:23 PM

Support for Windows XP Home and Windows XP Media Center Edition will now mirror that of Windows XP Professional

With the consumer release of Windows Vista less than one week away, Microsoft has adjusted its Extended Support phase for the two consumer-level editions of Windows XP. Windows XP Home and Windows XP Media Center (MCE) will now have the same support policy as Windows XP Professional which is classified as an enterprise-level product.

Consumers will receive Mainstream support for Windows XP Home and Windows XP MCE until April of 2009. Mainstream support includes no-charge incident support, security updates, hotfixes and feature requests.

After April 2009, Windows XP Home and Windows XP MCE will enter what's called the Extended Support phase. During the Extended Support phase, customers are charged for incident support and non-security hotfixes. Customers also cannot file warranty claims, request design changes or request new features.

The Extended Support phase for Windows XP Home, MCE and Professional will end in April 2014. In the case of Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional, the operating system would have been supported by Microsoft for a total of 13 years.

For more information on Microsoft’s Mainstream and Extended Support phases, you can visit the Support Life Cycle FAQ.

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xp for sale?

By Lazarus Dark on 1/25/2007 10:56:35 AM , Rating: 2

Any idea how much longer they will sell new xp licenses(pro, mce, home)? I think I might buy one more for my new build, as I'm not too interested in vista. How long after xp was released did they still sell the previous version? I dont remember.

RE: xp for sale?

By VooDooAddict on 1/25/2007 11:00:33 AM , Rating: 2

Now is the perfect time to get an XP license as you can also get a Vista License for minimal cost with the included coupons.

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RE: xp for sale?

By Flunk on 1/25/2007 11:17:18 AM , Rating: 5

Since the license you get for Vista is an upgrade license you can't legally use both the XP and Vista licenses at once so it doesn't really matter if you buy XP now and get Vista or buy Vista later.

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RE: xp for sale?

By glennpratt on 1/25/2007 2:57:15 PM , Rating: 2

Right, but you could get your upgrade and hang onto it, then when your convinced Vista has stabilized, use the upgrade.

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RE: xp for sale?

By TomZ on 1/25/2007 3:02:01 PM , Rating: 2

Read the reviews on the 'net; Vista is stable now.

I've been running it since RTM w/o any problems. It is at least as reliable as XP, if not better. In my experience, it can self-diagnose configuration problems better than XP. For example, when I installed my Wifi, I couldn't initially connect, and Vista offered to diagnose the problem. I let it do that, and it discovered that the Wifi discovery service was not started. It then offered to fix the problem, which I accepted, and my Wifi network started working. Pretty cool, if you ask me. I don't know if I would have ever figured that problem out on my own.

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RE: xp for sale?

By Christopher1 on 1/25/2007 4:54:12 PM , Rating: 2

I've heard that as well, Vista is remarkebly stable even now. There are still a few problems with it, but these are mainly extremely minor ones.

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RE: xp for sale?

By nibennett on 1/25/2007 8:54:24 PM , Rating: 2

Vista is extremely stable. haven't had anyproblems with it other than finding drivers for a few things (8800 GTS) and whenever i use sleep mode it crashes when it reboots.

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RE: xp for sale?

By xphile on 1/26/2007 3:47:11 AM , Rating: 2

Which is exactly what all the main gripes have been. It generally is stable as one could hope for on release, but there are problems all round for both ATI and Nvidia with graphics drivers, particularly with Open GL.

And your crash is most likely also the video driver. It isnt the video chip makers fault exactly, it comes down to the driver requirements for polling the hardware and other certification requirements for Vista DRM. They are much tougher to meet than previous windows versions.

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RE: xp for sale?

By TomZ on 1/26/07, Rating: 0

RE: xp for sale?

By AMDfreak on 1/26/2007 1:00:33 AM , Rating: 2

If Vista is so stable, why have they announced a Service Pack before it even goes on sale?

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RE: xp for sale?

By fcx56 on 1/26/2007 1:26:36 AM , Rating: 2

Probably to try and get all those people who said they would "wait for Vista SP1 to upgrade"

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RE: xp for sale?

By crystal clear on 1/26/2007 5:01:20 AM , Rating: 2

"troublesome first impressions"
By crystal clear on 1/22/07, Rating: 3
By crystal clear on 1/22/2007 12:24:51 AM , Rating: 3

http://www.dailytech.com/Update+Consumer+Versions+...

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RE: xp for sale?

By TomZ on 1/26/2007 5:23:28 PM , Rating: 1

quote:
If Vista is so stable, why have they announced a Service Pack before it even goes on sale?

Service packs are not necessarily to address stability. The majority of patches now are security updates, and one purpose of a SP is to roll these updates into a single installation image to save post-install update time, i.e., to avoid having to apply lots of patches after the install.

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RE: xp for sale?

By crystal clear on 1/26/2007 4:56:27 AM , Rating: 1

Countdown to Windows Vista: The THG Rundown

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/23/countdown_t...

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RE: xp for sale?

By xphile on 1/26/2007 3:38:02 AM , Rating: 2

Actually it does matter, or it does the way I have worked it out for myself. XP will still be available AFTER Vista is released, but you will have to choose one or the other. If you buy XP today you get both operating systems. You are right that you can not use both at once, but at any time you can go back to XP if you decide you dont like Vista, or too many of your programs wont run, then move back to Vista as it matures.

I have just bought a Dell Inspiron here in New Zealand. It started as a Win XP Home system. The promotion gave free shipping and a free upgrade to Win XP Media Centre Edition 2005. For $11.25 NZ I upgraded that to Win XP. As the buyer of Win XP I am entitled under MS/Dell's Vista upgrade program to a free copy of Vista Business (ok $40 shipping & handling). In NZ a full retail copy of Vista Business is going to be $729.00, upgrade $499.00.

So this lets me try out Vista for very little compared to retail cost and if I really dont like it I dont have to use it and I can go back to XP, then back to Vista later if I choose. In 2 weeks time Id be stuck with just Vista if I chose it, AND from what I understand the laptop price could be higher as the new oem pricing kicks in - there will now be 4 Vista oem pricing brackets and not 2 as for XP.

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RE: xp for sale?

By xphile on 1/26/2007 1:01:57 PM , Rating: 2

Clarification here - when I say for $11.25 I upgraded to Win XP that should read Win XP Professional, which then allows the free upgrade to Vista Business.

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RE: xp for sale?

By darkpaw on 1/25/2007 2:57:28 PM , Rating: 2

Windows 2000 was still available for purchase for about four years after XP came out, so I would expect that you can still buy XP for 3-4 years more. Maybe not home/MCE since those are primarily targeted at OEMS anyways, but professionally will remain available for business users.

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RE: xp for sale?

By TomZ on 1/25/2007 3:09:18 PM , Rating: 2

Windows 2000 was available a little more than 2 years (OEM and Retail) after the release of Windows XP. But, Microsoft plans to only have XP (OEM and Retail) available for 1 year past the release of Vista.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default...

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RE: xp for sale?

By Christopher1 on 1/25/2007 4:55:06 PM , Rating: 2

Shoot, I'd better go out and buy my Windows XP backup disk then!

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Excellent

By mechBgon on 1/25/2007 10:42:38 AM , Rating: 2

That's good news.

RE: Excellent

By Obujuwami on 1/25/2007 11:40:25 AM , Rating: 2

But is it really so surprising that there needs to be an article about it?

Microsoft had said that they would support Windows 2000 and Server 2000 until 2012, which is a 12 year cycle. One would expect that Microsoft would also offer a similar support program for XP and Vista.

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RE: Excellent

By marvdmartian on 1/25/2007 11:49:05 AM , Rating: 1

The way I look at it, by the time XP support ends in 2014, Microsoft will have come out with the replacement for Vista.....which will mean that Vista will likely finally be a decent product to use!! ;)

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RE: Excellent

By crystal clear on 1/26/2007 5:26:23 AM , Rating: 2

Microsoft has planned a 'Vista R2', codenamed 'Fiji' which will be released some time in 2008. And after Fiji, there will be Windows 'Vienna'. Windows Fiji, will not be a totally different OS from Vista; but it will be an add-on. Whereas Vienna will be totally different from Vista."

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RE: Excellent

By mechBgon on 1/25/2007 9:42:41 PM , Rating: 2

This does represent a significant change in policy. Win2000 Professional and Server are both business OSes and they get a 5-year Extended Support phase in their lifecycle for that reason, as does WinXP Professional Edition. Up until now, Microsoft's been saying that home-user versions (98, ME, WinXP Home, WinXP MCE) do not get an Extended Support phase.

The fact that Microsoft is now granting Home and Media Center Editions an Extended Support phase is a change in their policy, and certainly newsworthy to me. The extended support is a responsible move, considering that WinXP Home and MCE will be in the hands of less-than-savvy users for years to come, representing a big security liability.

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not a Windows fan but ....

By mforce on 1/25/2007 11:29:01 AM , Rating: 2

I'm not a Windows fan and I like Linux more. But still I must admit , Windows XP is a damn good product. So good that I see little reason to switch to Vista. Sure it has problems but I don't think Vista will solve them. Also the low resource usage and the fact that it's a mature product recommend XP. I think it's still got some pretty good potential and I don't see it going away for quite some time. I know I'll be using it as my Windows for a while. I still need Windows sometimes but I sure don't need Vista.

RE: not a Windows fan but ....

By fxyefx on 1/25/2007 1:53:43 PM , Rating: 2

I agree; the very fact that Windows XP has lasted as long as it has without people really needing or wanting a whole lot more is a testament to its success. Mac OS X does outdo it usability and and eye-candy, but it will always be very limited by the exclusivity of its platform hardware. Vista looks like it's basically trying to attain the same ease of use and overall zen-like quality of Mac OS X... but at that price, I might end up waiting quite some time or switching to Ubuntu/staying with XP before climbing on the bandwagon after all. The 7.XX release of Ubuntu sounds like it'll be really neat...

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What does this really mean?

By timmiser on 1/25/2007 6:37:19 PM , Rating: 2

When support does end, we can no longer request security fixes? File claims? etc.

They will still provide security fixes via Windows update so does this news really apply to Joe end user?

From I D C

By crystal clear on 1/26/2007 5:17:52 AM , Rating: 2

Recognizing Reality
Microsoft was lauded for its recognition that not all consumers will upgrade to Vista right away.

"Anytime Microsoft extends any kind of support offerings for customers, it's almost universally a good thing," Al Gillen, research vice president for system software at IDC told TechNewsWorld.

"It's a matter of Microsoft recognizing a couple of realities and addressing them in a good way.

First, when Vista comes out, the whole world won't transition by the end of February, so they're recognizing that customers may need more support," Gillen explained. "Second, customers are keeping their machines longer and longer. Anyone who gets a Vista machine next month will probably give the XP machine to someone else -- their child, their mother-in-law -- and recycle it into another deployment."

Microsoft is frequently criticized for its customer support, Gillen added, but "this is one of those times when they're just doing something good."

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/55376.html