Will Windows 7 be the next XP?

[Ralph Bromley]

This question has been hanging in my head for a bit and want a windows users perspective on it.
With support for XP now finally gone and with the failures of Windows Vista and 8 I think its time for Microsoft to re evaluate its current stance on windows 7.
As of October sales of windows 7 have ceased, there are currently no plans for a new service pack for W7 nor there seems to be an initiative to keep support for windows 7 any farther then its cut off in 2020.
Is Microsoft setting itself up for a suicidal leap of faith here?
By relying on the upcoming windows 9/ Windows 8.2 is Microsoft doing its final act as king of the mountain by having a steady plunge off the top of Everest to its demise?
This is a critical time for Microsoft, already the future of the company looks grim if they dont do something good here in the next few years.

I think at this current phase Microsoft should set up 9 regardless, actually decide what the heck its going to be and maybe just maybe extend support for 7, give it a new service pack and hope the eggs dont all break under the sheer force of Microsofts folly.
Best way to solve it is to undo windows 8, put the white out over windows 8's record and hit the back button.
Just keep 7 as the workhorse until its not needed anymore, as it is now though 7 is needed more then ever to people who are looking at Microsoft as if its governed by crazy people.

 

[whs]

Many of us are Windows 7 fans, but we do not fit very well into Microsoft's strategy. They want to go a 1 system approach for all devices and for that they need to implement something that works on touch.

Nevertheles, I think MS is well aware of the potholes they created and are backpaddling a bit. Windows 8.1 and the 8.1 update were good moves into the right direction for the desktop users. Unfortunately they are giving us those changes only in homeopathic doses - maybe because of a shortage of resources because the majority of their staff is probably already working on the next major release (Windows 9 ??).

In the meantime there are hundreds of million XP users not knowing where to go. Many of them are stuck because of their legacy programs or because of lack of funds.

E.g. the British Health Authority with 1.5 Million employees is now paying $8 million per year to get XP maintenance. For them that is peanuts compared to a migration to another system which has already an end-of-life in sight.

The city of Munich in Germany made the smart move. They migrated to Linux 2 years ago and now controls the whole chain. It was a big initial investment, but now they are saving Millions every year.

The city of Berlin was not that smart. They still have 60,000 users on XP with no migration plan. They are now looking at 2015 to develop such a plan and then it will take years until they get off XP. On top of that the city is broke so one can wonder how this will finally end.

I am sure there are thousands of similar cases. It shows our dependency on what is being decided in Redmond. The responsibility Microsoft has in that regard is enormous. They could bring the whole world economy down if their products don't fit the customers requirements.

In any case, it will be interesting times to watch how this will unfold.

 

[Ralph Bromley]

You see that is why I think Microsoft will XPify 7, its such a critial time for Microsoft and it could open the doors for linux to swoop in.
Maybe not desktops but offices and such will probably go linux if this foolishness on Microsofts part isnt patched up

 

[whs]

Linux is a good option for a large organization or for individual users. But the migration from Windows is no childs play if you have a large inventory of programs and a lot of users to re-educate.

A large orginization with a big IT department can participate in the Linux upgrades because they can get the source code. Thus they control the direction in which they want to go. The initial investment is high but over time they can save a lot of money.

For an individual with average requirements, many Linux distros are sufficient out of the box. And tuning the system to your needs is simple - unless you chose a Red Hat distro like Fedora where you have the challenge to deal with the command line.

 

[Ralph Bromley]

Linux is a good option for a large organization or for individual users. But the migration from Windows is no childs play if you have a large inventory of programs and a lot of users to re-educate.

A large orginization with a big IT department can participate in the Linux upgrades because they can get the source code. Thus they control the direction in which they want to go. The initial investment is high but over time they can save a lot of money.

For an individual with average requirements, many Linux distros are sufficient out of the box. And tuning the system to your needs is simple - unless you chose a Red Hat distro like Fedora where you have the challenge to deal with the command line.

Actually Fedora isnt that bad command line wise, it hasnt been overly command line heavy in a while now.
I used Fedora 19 and 20, very little command line needed.
Its no worse then Ubuntu in that respect.

 

[whs]

I had a terrible time with Fedora. My preferred distro is Mint Mate. And there I need a command only to get more skins. And that is apt install mate-themes - very simple. For the rest it is all UI. It's a nice system. You should try it. Here is a little demo I made.

 

[Ralph Bromley]

I had a terrible time with Fedora. My preferred distro is Mint Mate. And there I need a command only to get more skins. And that is apt install mate-themes - very simple. For the rest it is all UI. It's a nice system. You should try it. Here is a little demo I made.

When was the last time you tried fedora I may ask?

Anyhow Mint, been there done that
By the way Mate is pronounced Mah-tay not Mate as in "me and my mate went down to the pub" so you know, its named after a beverage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_(beverage)

 

[whs]

Last time I tried Fedora was last fall. And when I got a bit loud about some of the crummy ways on the Fedora forum, they banned me there, LOL. Those guys are touchy.

 

[ussnorway]

Disclaimer: I don’t work for Microsoft so this is just my personal & professional opinion.

Windows 7 is ip4 based which seriously limits its networking capability as a business solution. It has a 2020 deadline as an end of life… the only reason it will be supported for that long is to make up for the fact that Vista was such a dog!

Microsoft is backing Hyper-v as the future business solution and the fact that it comes installed in 8.1 or as a FREE stand alone is hard to ignore.

A company that has painted themselves into a corner by over investing in xp can purchase a modern 2012r2 server and offer virtual xp machines to their users without exposing them to the internet because they can then switch to using a windows 7 or 8 (physical or virtual) machine for networking to the outside… yes you still need to educate your staff but the learning curve is considerably reduced.

p.s. cities are run by politicians so nobody should be all that surprised when they go bankrupt.

 

[whs]

p.s. cities are run by politicians so nobody should be all that surprised when they go bankrupt.

Very true observation. Example:

The city of Berlin started building a new Airport in 2005 to be opened in 2011. A contractor had offered to build it for 1 Billion Euros. The city thought they could do it for 750 Million and turned the contractor down.

In the meantime the airport is still a construction site - they are 'looking at' 2016 for the opening and the current bill is over 5 Billion Euros. Of course nobody is responsible. And that for a city that is bankrupt already.

 

[whs]

error

 

[Fixer1234]

It's tough to be Microsoft. They need to evolve their product, periodically in major ways. Maintaining each version is a huge undertaking and gets progressively more difficult and costly as it becomes more and more archaic and needs to handle things that were never provided for in the original design.

Microsoft doesn't charge maintenance or subscription fees. They sell a piece of software, don't get another dime after the original purchase, and more than a decade later, users still expect it to be robust and secure in a computing environment that is substantially different from when the software was released. That is not a realistic or tenable business model. Microsoft must end free support for a product after some reasonable period of time or go bankrupt.

There are three “stages” in the life cycle. There is an initial period, during which the software is still operating pretty much in its original environment and maintenance can be done at a reasonable cost. There is a period after end-of-life, in which it becomes impractical and cost-prohibitive to do what is required to maintain the product in a changing world within the original design framework. And there is a transition period in between that is really the issue. The question is how to handle that transition period.

At some point, virtually all users must move to a new product. The choice is when. The longer a user waits to change, the costlier it is to maintain their old software. Who should bear the burden of that cost? Should all users pay more to purchase Microsoft products to underwrite the cost of supporting those users who choose not to change because it costs them nothing to keep their old product?

Lifetime free support provides the wrong incentives. Large organizations do have big infrastructure costs but they need to do proper life cycle planning and provide for the transition when it is needed. The cost of maintaining the old infrastructure is part of the equation.

With XP, it is really past its end-of-life. Big players (like governments and major corporations), have purchased a support organization within Microsoft, but that is not available to the average user and is really just a transition strategy for organizations that didn’t adequately plan ahead.

So what are the alternatives? Charging subscription fees from the beginning would likely lead to claims that Microsoft is holding the world's commerce hostage with a “protection” racket. Making maintenance optional would be bad for business--those choosing not to pay the ongoing price would suffer failures and security problems which would cast doubt on Microsoft's products.

It seems like a reasonable strategy Microsoft could adopt would be to provide free support for some reasonable period of time, say five years, specified up front. After that, product maintenance would be by subscription (at a reasonable cost, not a usury price designed to force an upgrade). Users would make their own choice--incur a one-time cost to upgrade and get new capabilities vs. continue to use the old software, pay for maintenance, and over time, pay the cost of the upgrade without getting it. Each user makes his own timing decision and pays his own associated cost. If the replacement product is crap and adoption is slow, there would be a large base of users underwriting the cost of maintaining the old version.

If Microsoft wants to encourage voluntary and early migration, they should focus on ensuring backward compatibility and the ability to emulate the look, feel, and functionality of the old product.

Just my two cents.

 

[whs]

If Microsoft wants to encourage voluntary and early migration, they should focus on ensuring backward compatibility and the ability to emulate the look, feel, and functionality of the old product.

That's where the problem is. That is easier said than done.

As a former developer of operating systems I have been wrestling with this problem for 35 years. And let me tell you, it is not obvious because may decisions are not being made on technical grounds but for (often false) marketing reasons. Most of the code in a current system is for legacy stuff. And that bloats the product, introduces a lot of bugs because often is is impossible to test that code and increases the cost of maintenance enormously.

And where and when do you stop. Should there still be support of floppy disks in Windows 8.1 - I have not seen such a device in years. Or are filetypes of Office 97 still appropriate in Office 2013. Hard to cut this stuff off because there is always this one important customer that still needs it.

 

[Fixer1234]

1. If it was easy, everybody would be creating their own operating system.
2. Regarding your two examples, I would vote to drop those. BTW, just saw a clip that I believe was from 60 Minutes--Leslie Stahl touring a nuclear missile silo. They are still using 8" floppy disks so on second thought, you might want to leave those in. Our national security might depend on it.

 

[whs]

What national security is that. Who is going to attack us for what you need nuclear missiles with floppies. Those devices belong into the museum since a long time. Who can trust floppies these days.

 

[Fixer1234]

During the cold war, the US got its hands on what was then the latest Soviet MiG. The military laughed when they discovered that the on-board computing was done with computers based on vacuum tubes. How hard could it be to defeat an enemy with such archaic technology? Later, they realized that the design was intentional--vacuum tubes weren't nearly as sensitive to EMP. As far as 8" floppies, can you think of a more secure way to store information? Where are you going to find an 8" floppy reader if you got your hands on the disks?

 

[Ralph Bromley]

Well apparently no 7 will not be the next XP, Microsofts apparently dropping the ball bigtime with this recent tidbit:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/0...ond_means_win_8_fixes_skip_7_researchers_say/

Ugh makes me glad I dont rely on Microsoft no more, linux all the way for this penguin.
Hell at this rate might as well nuke windows 7 again if its not going to get the updates it needs.
Microsoft really wants folks to use 8, bucha suicidal numbskulls.

Seriously flks you may want to conciderr your OS of chice.
Either A: bite the bullet with apples high price tags
B: still use windows despite how insane Microsoft is
or C: use linux and while it may not be the ideal choice its still a choice nonetheless.