Windows XP Professional SP2C

Robert Hallock (Thrax) The undead OS

August 14, 2007 11:46 AM ET in News, ,

While Microsoft jumped the gun and wanted to peg Windows XP’s EOL in 2008, Microsoft has been forced to release a “Service pack” for XP Pro only to address the shortage of CD keys. Due to the volume of licenses still being purchased for the venerable operating system, XP Pro was set to run out of license permutations long before the EOL. As a result, Microsoft’s new service pack features nothing more than a new batch of permissible key permutations.

This comes on the heels of Microsoft revising its revenue predictions from their OS segment, turning an 85/15 Vista/XP split into a 78/22 split.

Microsoft fans: See? Look how great XP is!

Vista haters: See? Look how terrible Vista is!

They’re both right.

18 Comments:

  1. kryyst
    14 Aug '07, 5:16 pm

    Well it doesn't much matter anymore for the Vista haters. IBM, Dell, Sony, HP, Toshiba, and Acer are no longer selling any XP equipped machines (at least not in Canada). Even though a couple of their sites list XP Pro equipped business machines if you try to order one they'll give you the appology and ship it with Vista.

  2. Thrax
    14 Aug '07, 5:32 pm

    All of those manufacturers can provide XP pre-loaded if you purchase the computer through Futureshop.

  3. BLuKnight
    15 Aug '07, 4:35 am

    Just another indication that XP will "... will not go quietly into the night."

  4. jared
    15 Aug '07, 4:59 am

    Dell will only put on XP if you buy through Small-Business on up.

    I told this lady who was buying a notebook to ask for XP instead of Vista and they told her 'no-can-do'. Bastards.

  5. Shorty
    15 Aug '07, 5:27 am
    Quoting BLuKnight
    View Post
    Just another indication that XP will "... will not go quietly into the night."

    Mass adoption through business is very very slow. My employers roadmap has Vista in 2009. Waiting for the first service pack at least.

    The biggest issue is that we have a lot of laptops with just a celeron and 256MB of RAM. Those laptops creak enough with XP, Vista would annihilate them

  6. Lincoln
    15 Aug '07, 12:12 pm
    Quoting jared

    they told her 'no-can-do'. Bastards.

    And there should end the order.

  7. Qeldroma
    15 Aug '07, 12:43 pm
    Quoting jared

    I told this lady who was buying a notebook to ask for XP instead of Vista and they told her 'no-can-do'. Bastards.

    They tried to do this to me at Best Buy a while ago- and I said, "Fine, I'll go to someone who does."

    I did- paid less for an equivalent machine with a 3 year warranty and let me put the OS I wanted on it.

  8. muddocktor
    16 Aug '07, 7:05 pm
    Quoting Shorty

    Mass adoption through business is very very slow. My employers roadmap has Vista in 2009. Waiting for the first service pack at least.

    The biggest issue is that we have a lot of laptops with just a celeron and 256MB of RAM. Those laptops creak enough with XP, Vista would annihilate them

    Yep, I can heartily agree there, Shorty. I got to mess around with a Vista Basic HP with 512 MB ram and and a Celly and it was simply painful to even try to use. It took at least 5 minutes to boot up. And I see no advantage at all with Vista Basic over XP Home since it won't do anything that XP can already do and they stripped Aero out of basic too (dubious as Aero is as a reason to justify Vista). I upgraded them to 2 gigs of ram and that improved performance quite a bit.

  9. airbornflght
    16 Aug '07, 9:18 pm

    My friend bought a computer with a low end pentium D and 512mb of ram. Lets just say that on XP it'd probably be a pretty decent computer. Vista home basic kills that thing. It is painful to use.

  10. QCH
    17 Aug '07, 2:43 am

    Microsoft... Service Pack 3 please. Roll all those 90 patches into one big service pack. I am tired of re-compiling patch CDs every month.

  11. Thrax
    17 Aug '07, 2:49 am

    SP3 is already being circulated in beta, and should be out by winter.

  12. Leonardo
    17 Aug '07, 3:55 am

    If Microsoft were smart, they could spin this SP3 news to their advantage: "Windows XP, the most successful operating systems the world has seen, is still in such demand that....." It would actually be more accurate then most of their other marketing (or any large tech company's marketing for that matter!).

  13. airbornflght
    17 Aug '07, 3:59 am

    I want DX10

  14. GHoosdum
    17 Aug '07, 2:52 pm

    What is scheduled to be included in SP3? Just an update rollup or are they adding any functionality?

  15. CB
    17 Aug '07, 2:59 pm

    It'll be able to play XBox games, control spy satellites, and manage memory better.

  16. Thrax
    17 Aug '07, 3:39 pm
    Quoting GHoosdum

    What is scheduled to be included in SP3? Just an update rollup or are they adding any functionality?

    Rollup and brand new fixes. Microsoft says that they dislike adding new features, and never again will a service pack be like SP2.

  17. QCH
    17 Aug '07, 4:41 pm

    WOOT... A smaller patch CD.

  18. Leonardo
    17 Aug '07, 5:04 pm
    WOOT... A smaller patch CD.

    Yeah, for sure, but Service Pack 3 requires first the removal of SP2.

    i just made that up

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