Mainstream XP and Office 2003 support retired

Robert Hallock (Thrax)

April 15, 2009 1:22 PM ET in News, , , , ,

windows-logoThe deadline has come and gone, and Microsoft has let Windows XP and all versions of Office 2003 slip from their mainstream support.

Phone assistance for these product families will now be offered on a per-hour or per-incident basis, while non-security critical fixes are no longer in the pipeline for users who did not register for Microsoft’s Extended Hotfix Support program in February.

Microsoft will continue to offer critical security fixes for these products August 4, 2014, but you’ll be upgrading to Windows 7 anyhow, right? RIGHT?

17 Comments:

  1. Buddy J
    15 Apr '09, 5:49 pm

    Right. Win 7 is where it's at.

  2. Mt_Goat
    15 Apr '09, 7:05 pm
    Quoting Buddy J

    Right. Win 7 is where it's at.

    While I feel that XP is still useful I do agree that Win 7 is the new standard on the block.

    But I absolutely HATE Office 2007!

  3. Zuntar
    15 Apr '09, 8:12 pm

    I am getting used to office 2007; I don't hate it though. I do actually like some parts of it, but I must admit though it is S L O W on an older machine.

  4. Cyclonite
    15 Apr '09, 8:26 pm

    *Shrug* I like 2007.

  5. QCH
    15 Apr '09, 8:48 pm

    Office 2007 has been on my Pc for over a year so I am comfortable now.

  6. Gargoyle
    15 Apr '09, 9:05 pm

    I'm still bitter about the Ribbon UI not being optional, and the new file formats existing at all.

  7. Thrax
    15 Apr '09, 9:15 pm

    ^ this.

  8. Buddy J
    15 Apr '09, 9:16 pm

    .docx is the bane of my existence.

  9. NiGHTS
    16 Apr '09, 6:38 am

    .docx is my only complaint, too. The ribbon is so much better than the old standard menu system - take the time to use it and it'll pay dividends.

  10. FelixDeSouze
    16 Apr '09, 9:37 am

    .docx sucks -- you can make .doc default but for 'Non-technical' people, it's a friggin nightmare!

  11. Gargoyle
    16 Apr '09, 5:13 pm
    Quoting NiGHTS

    .docx is my only complaint, too. The ribbon is so much better than the old standard menu system - take the time to use it and it'll pay dividends.

    I've been using it and still don't like it. But my biggest complaint is the amount of room it takes up on a notebook screen. I don't understand why people are designing things with horizontal bars when everyone is moving to wide screens. Or why they increased the amount of real estate the humble menu bar takes up at all, regardless of orientation.

  12. Annes
    16 Apr '09, 5:52 pm
    Quoting Gargoyle

    I've been using it and still don't like it. But my biggest complaint is the amount of room it takes up on a notebook screen. I don't understand why people are designing things with horizontal bars when everyone is moving to wide screens. Or why they increased the amount of real estate the humble menu bar takes up at all, regardless of orientation.

    You can minimize the ribbon by double-clicking one of the headers, that should free up a bit more space.

  13. QCH
    16 Apr '09, 6:46 pm
    Quoting Annes

    You can minimize the ribbon by double-clicking one of the headers, that should free up a bit more space.

    Yep... what she said.

  14. Gargoyle
    16 Apr '09, 7:37 pm
    Quoting Annes

    You can minimize the ribbon by double-clicking one of the headers, that should free up a bit more space.

    Yeah, I'm doing that because the space is precious, but it's still annoying since this compromise doesn't simply make the Ribbon smaller, it hides the controls from my screen. The old system gave me all my commonly-used controls from all of the categories on one bar.

  15. Annes
    16 Apr '09, 8:36 pm

    You can put all of your commonly-used controls onto the Quick Access Toolbar, place the toolbar under the minimized ribbon, and now using Office 2007 is just as fast (if not faster) than using Office 2003. That's what I've done, at least.

  16. Thrax
    16 Apr '09, 9:25 pm

    http://icrontic.com/downloads/ubitme...n-in-office-07

  17. Gargoyle
    16 Apr '09, 10:18 pm
    Quoting Annes

    You can put all of your commonly-used controls onto the Quick Access Toolbar, place the toolbar under the minimized ribbon, and now using Office 2007 is just as fast (if not faster) than using Office 2003. That's what I've done, at least.
    Quoting Thrax

    http://icrontic.com/downloads/ubitme...n-in-office-07

    Awesome, thanks both of you!

    Now I just need to get our admins to get persistent profiles in our computer lab or install UBitMenu. I'll definitely do one of these for my home desktop, though.

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