XP downgrade rights extended to 2020

[Cuddles McKitten]

Looks like XP's never going to die.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9179109/Microsoft_extends_Windows_XP_downgrade_rights_unti l_2020
http://whitehatfirm.com/news/windows-xp-pro-available-until-2020/3239.html
http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/07/13/ms.extends.option.to.use.xp.for.10.more.years/

[RiceMonster]

Yuck. I was really hoping XP would die out in the next 4 years. Well, it's not like that was realistic anyway.

[Nano Geek]

Who would run a 20 year-old operating system on their desktop?

[Giant Speck]

Who would run a 20 year-old operating system on their desktop?

Businesses that are too technologically retarded to attempt to upgrade their computers.

And Grandmas.

[Groucho Marxist]

Businesses that are too technologically retarded to attempt to upgrade their computers.

And Grandmas.

Or, people who are fed up with Microsoft arbitrarily and substantially altering the GUI of Windows. From the people I've talked with who haven't "upgraded" to Windows 7, that seems to be the leitmotif. Windows 7 is eye-candy at its worst cloaked in DRM and software bloat. The bubbly interface was a clear sign to me that Windows now thinks of and treats all of their users as if they were hyperactive adolescents.

[RiceMonster]

Or, people who are fed up with Microsoft arbitrarily and substantially altering the GUI of Windows. From the people I've talked with who haven't "upgraded" to Windows 7, that seems to be the leitmotif. Windows 7 is eye-candy at its worst cloaked in DRM and software bloat. The bubbly interface was a clear sign to me that Windows now thinks of and treats all of their users as if they were hyperactive adolescents.

*sigh*

If Ubuntu did anything like that, it would be considered innovative and a big usability improvement. Have you even tried Windows 7? The interface is actually cleaned up a lot, and the taskbar has been improved drastically (I don't like previous Windows taskbars). Also, features like homegroup aren't exactly useless.

[Giant Speck]

*sigh*

If Ubuntu did anything like that, it would be considered innovative and a big usability improvement.

BLASPHEMY! UBUNTU IS THE COOLEST THING EVER!

Second only to Gosalia.

[lukeiamyourfather]

Who would run a 20 year-old operating system on their desktop?

You'd be surprised. There's still lots of equipment used all over the world in many industries that's built on Windows 95. Medical equipment, lab equipment, industrial equipment, utilities infrastructure, etc. I can definitely see Windows XP being used in 2020.

For example, there's a large LED sign on the highway next to where I work and we manage the content on the sign. The machine that runs the sign is Windows XP and the new software to run the sign on Windows 7 is thousands of dollars to upgrade. If it ain't broke, why fix it? I guarantee they will be using Windows XP until that sign is replaced which is going to be at least 2020 or later.

As for the average desktop user, there will be a few hardcore fans clinging but they will fade eventually. Though Windows XP will be around for a long time for embedded systems and legacy hardware/infrastructure.

[Groucho Marxist]

You'd be surprised. There's still lots of equipment used all over the world in many industries that's built on Windows 95. Medical equipment, lab equipment, industrial equipment, utilities infrastructure, etc. I can definitely see Windows XP being used in 2020.

For example, there's a large LED sign on the highway next to where I work and we manage the content on the sign. The machine that runs the sign is Windows XP and the new software to run the sign on Windows 7 is thousands of dollars to upgrade. If it ain't broke, why fix it? I guarantee they will be using Windows XP until that sign is replaced which is going to be at least 2020 or later.

As for the average desktop user, there will be a few hardcore fans clinging but they will fade eventually. Though Windows XP will be around for a long time for embedded systems and legacy hardware/infrastructure.

Considering that Windows 3.x in airplanes was only recently retired (2008 ) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7707016.stm) shows that companies will use what they know until it no longer suits the original purpose.

[gnomeuser]

I understand businesses with existing large XP deployments not wanting a mixed environments just because they a forced to buy new machines.

However for the rest of us this means some thing terrible just happened, effectively IE6 will live till at least 2020.

This kind of customer pressure to extend special deals for long life of old software isn't unique to Microsoft though. Red Hat e.g. offers, on special terms, support for any of their major RHEL releases for up to 10 years.

[LowSky]

Microsoft kept XP on the market too long and its replacements changed so drastically that compnaies will often need to replace very costly applications or hardware that wont work with the newer OSes.

Its really a shame. Microsoft shot themselves in the foot.

[CharlesA]

*headdesk*

Oh well, what are you going to do?

[Dr. C]

Who would run a 20 year-old operating system on their desktop?

Many businesses do not see any significant productivity gains from migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7 that would justify the expense and disruption of the migration.

Microsoft may have spent billions of dollars on DRM schemes for Windows Vista and 7 including HDCP to keep Hollywood happy (the big change from XP), but how exactly does this does this improve productivity for the typical business?

[uRock]

I was at a used PC shop recently and watched a guy get mad at his wife for even looking at PCs with anything other than XP. The stubbornness of humanity.

[arashiko28]

Many businesses do not see any significant productivity gains from migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7 that would justify the expense and disruption of the migration.

Microsoft may have spent billions of dollars on DRM schemes for Windows Vista and 7 including HDCP to keep Hollywood happy (the big change from XP), but how exactly does this does this improve productivity for the typical business?

I doesn't You can look at the specifications of my laptop on my signature and W7 made it crawl, they might have knocked off some of the resource consuming good for nothing "features" that Vista had, but still W7 consumes a lot of resources, I tried it so that no one came and said "have you even tried it?", it's not the typical MS hate, is simply lack of functionality.
At least for me, if I can't use internet, play music, work on documents and keep pdf's books open at the same time, It's a waste of time and money...

[Dragonbite]

On the plus side, those people that don't want to move to Windows Vista/7/8/.. will see just about any Linux distro by that time to be far superior than what they are currently using!

[TyrantWave]

I doesn't You can look at the specifications of my laptop on my signature and W7 made it crawl, they might have knocked off some of the resource consuming good for nothing "features" that Vista had, but still W7 consumes a lot of resources, I tried it so that no one came and said "have you even tried it?", it's not the typical MS hate, is simply lack of functionality.
At least for me, if I can't use internet, play music, work on documents and keep pdf's books open at the same time, It's a waste of time and money...

My laptop is a dual core 2.16GHz, 2GB RAM spec, and can run Windows 7 64-bit without *any* slowdown.

I can do all of what you said at the end and it runs fine.

Opera, Foxit, WinAMP, MS Office, Illustrator, Thunderbird, Digsby, and a slew of other background programs all running at once with no issues.

Yeah, my Ubuntu install is faster, but then again it's also faster than XP.

[McRat]

You want the TRUTH???

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!! :o

From a business perspective, buying or writing custom or speciality software is not SUPPOSED to be disposable.

In my case it's my CAD software. Their graphics engine won't run right under WinVista7. Even their newest release.

I'll never give up my speciality software. I'll go out of business if I do.

Well guess what kids? MS broke compatibility with Vista7. And it wasn't good timing to do it, since the software market had virtually stagnated for 10 years. You can break compatibility if there is a great advantage, but if nothing else really changes, it's stupid.

And NO, "XP Emulation" does not work right. Wine does a better job than MS does.


For a business, name one app that is less than 10 years old that is a Killer App, something really useful?

[McRat]

A major reason for the increased market share for Mac and Linux is the broken compatibility issue that happened with Vista.

It gave companies a reason to switch. They had to take it in the shorts anyways, so some decided to jump what they thought was a sinking ship.

By extending XP, it stops this forced migration. Seems like MS is willing to hurt their long term survival just to snuff out competition. This works when you have a monopoly. Will it work today with 90% instead of 98%? It will be interesting to watch.

[uRock]

You want the TRUTH???

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!! :o

From a business perspective, buying or writing custom or speciality software is not SUPPOSED to be disposable.

In my case it's my CAD software. Their graphics engine won't run right under WinVista7. Even their newest release.

I'll never give up my speciality software. I'll go out of business if I do.

Well guess what kids? MS broke compatibility with Vista7. And it wasn't good timing to do it, since the software market had virtually stagnated for 10 years. You can break compatibility if there is a great advantage, but if nothing else really changes, it's stupid.

And NO, "XP Emulation" does not work right. Wine does a better job than MS does.


For a business, name one app that is less than 10 years old that is a Killer App, something really useful?
I see exactly where you are coming from. The self check out machines at most of the grocery/retail stores are custom applications that run on XP. Medical/Dental programs are mostly written for XP or other non-Windows OSes. Hopefully CADD programmers will rewrite their software in the near furture to work with W7.
I think that part of the reason that the software market has stagnated is the fact that they are busy repairing code to close holes in XP programs, but I may be wrong on that one.

[RiceMonster]

A major reason for the increased market share for Mac and Linux is the broken compatibility issue that happened with Vista.

It gave companies a reason to switch. They had to take it in the shorts anyways, so some decided to jump what they thought was a sinking ship.

By extending XP, it stops this forced migration. Seems like MS is willing to hurt their long term survival just to snuff out competition. This works when you have a monopoly. Will it work today with 90% instead of 98%? It will be interesting to watch.

Yes, Windows does break compatibility, but I would argue that it is miles better at maintaining backwards compatability than Linux is. Shared libraries break all the time, and the kernel devs made a conscious decision NOT to maintain backwards compatability (it's even documented within the kernel source tree).

[Dragonbite]

Who would run a 20 year-old operating system on their desktop?

Those people who are running applications that don't run on later versions of Windows, and are not able to or willing to run them in a Virtual Machine.

When I installed Windows 7 the annoying thing is my Office (2000), Photoshop (7) and Illustrator (?) were not listed as supported. So I replaced them with open source alternatives (OpenOffice.org, Paint.NET and Inkscape respectively) although I would greatly prefer to use a more update version of the software titles. At least I have a choice.

[kamaboko]

*sigh*

If Ubuntu did anything like that, it would be considered innovative and a big usability improvement. Have you even tried Windows 7? The interface is actually cleaned up a lot, and the taskbar has been improved drastically (I don't like previous Windows taskbars). Also, features like homegroup aren't exactly useless.

LOL, isn't that the truth. I'm using Win7 for my media server and it rocks. The lossless audio out via HDMI to my receiver is fantastic; a trick I don't expect to see from Linux in quite a while. As for using a 20 year old OS, I see a lot of 20+ year old cars on the road that seem to be doing OK.

[McRat]

Yes, Windows does break compatibility, but I would argue that it is miles better at maintaining backwards compatability than Linux is. Shared libraries break all the time, and the kernel devs made a conscious decision NOT to maintain backwards compatability (it's even documented within the kernel source tree).

Well then MS has nothing fear from OS X and Linux, so they should stop spending hundreds of millions a year to fight them.

Write them a letter suggesting it, and ask for 0.1% of the savings, and go get a nice house.

The reason Linux will never be popular on desktops is not kernel development or compatibility. It's that it sucks really hard and is pretty much worthless for anything at all.

Just go ask any "power user" on the internet. Even some moderators at Linux sites will tell you it's worthless.

Well guess what. Ubuntu compiled in April supports my printer and CAD system, and Windows compiled in April doesn't.

So it doesn't matter for me what "power users say". If it works, it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't.

I don't use software because I'm bored. It has to do something. Microsoft has realized that as well, hence extended XP support.

[RiceMonster]

Well then MS has nothing fear from OS X and Linux, so they should stop spending hundreds of millions a year to fight them.

Write them a letter suggesting it, and ask for 0.1% of the savings, and go get a nice house.

The reason Linux will never be popular on desktops is not kernel development or compatibility. It's that it sucks really hard and is pretty much worthless for anything at all.

Just go ask any "power user" on the internet. Even some moderators at Linux sites will tell you it's worthless.

Well guess what. Ubuntu compiled in April supports my printer and CAD system, and Windows compiled in April doesn't.

So it doesn't matter for me what "power users say". If it works, it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't.

I don't use software because I'm bored. It has to do something. Microsoft has realized that as well, hence extended XP support.

I'm not sure if you're making a statement about me, but I didn't say Linux "sucks really hard". I did, however, point out something that I consider to be a flaw. Obviously if Linux works fine for you, I'm not going to contest that. Continue using it and be happy.

Also, if you don't believe me about what I said earlier, please read this:
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/gregkh/misc/2.6/stable-api-nonsense-2.6.10-rc2.patch
Obviously there is good reason for doing what they do, but they DO knowingly break backwards compatibility.

[V for Vincent]

2020? Wow. Pretty overkill. On the other hand, they really should come up with a lightweight, unobtrusive windows. It's the constantly reminding me that it's there part I really dislike about 7.

[McRat]

I'm not sure if you're making a statement about me, but I didn't say Linux "sucks really hard". I did, however, point out something that I consider to be a flaw. Obviously if Linux works fine for you, I'm not going to contest that. Continue using it and be happy.

Don't take it personal. It's tech.

And it's a recurring theme, so probably should be broke out the thread: "Linux Sucks Compared To Windows" is perhaps the most common "funtime" thread on this site it appears.

I have a feeling that opinion would change LinSxs'es had to keep doing this for 10 years:

"Crap, this machine keeps disconnecting from the network. I need to finish this job by UPS shipping time!!!"

"How the hell should I know what's wrong with it? Did it do updates or something? Is the A/V locking up?"

"I don't think so. It was running fine this morning."

"Is it saying anything is wrong?"

"Naw, it never does."

"I'll run down to Costco and get you another tonight. Use mine for now. I'll use the accountant's computer and send them home."


Basically, Windows knows when you REALLY need it to work right. It has Artificial Intelligence that looks for those in a critical hurry, waits until the right time and WHAM!!!

Perhaps Linux does do the same, and I'll find that out. Until then, I'll be blissfully ignorant of the uselessness of it, and since I don't know better, keep using it.

[Dragonbite]

2020? Wow. Pretty overkill.

Yeah, seriously!


On the other hand, they really should come up with a lightweight, unobtrusive windows. It's the constantly reminding me that it's there part I really dislike about 7.

I don't like the performance I'm getting with Windows 7 on my P4, but chances are if I used it more it would probably get better or I would come across tweaks to speed it up. Right now I don't bother.

Even Red Hat doesn't cover their software for that long, and they do SERVERS! I mean, it's 10 years old now (+/-) and they are going to support it another 10?!?!

We'll see if they don't change their mind sometime.

[uRock]

I find it amazing that such a thread could go down hill so quickly. The only time Windows has ever crashed is when I installed crappy software and when I was using Kazaa to get my musical fix, which came with spyware and viruses. Windows has its annoyances, but it is still a great tool. Yes I do prefer Ubuntu, but I am not into exaggerating MS issues that are usually caused by the operator not the OS.

[McRat]

I find it amazing that such a thread could go down hill so quickly. The only time Windows has ever crashed is when I installed crappy software and when I was using Kazaa to get my musical fix, which came with spyware and viruses. Windows has its annoyances, but it is still a great tool. Yes I do prefer Ubuntu, but I am not into exaggerating MS issues that are usually caused by the operator not the OS.

Apparently many companies don't share that view. That is why XP is getting extended.

I'm not exaggerating my problems with Windows. We had random network errors for a few years that got progressively worse. I replaced all the network hardware, all the cards, the firewall, the switches, the cables. Still there. Switched from XP to Vista to Win7 to OS X for the file server, still there. I'm just 10 networked computers, so running MS Server is a bit overkill for simple file-sharing, but it was in line for testing. I'm into this for about 40 hours and $2000 in parts so far, IIRC.

I took a brand-new in the box Vista 64 machine tried it as file-server, failed to fix problem, removed the HDD, put in a fresh drive, loaded Ubuntu on it, and the problem went away. With no other changes. I took a brand-new MSI/AMD clone and tried to run W7 on it. It crashed at random. I put Ubuntu on it, and it runs great. Did another, ditto.

Now, if I had come to UbuntuForums.org and read it first, I would have skipped over trying Linux as a solution. Why? Many of the well-respected members post this:

"Windows does everything as good if not better than Ubuntu. In fact, Ubuntu has far more problems than Windows ever had."

I would have taken their advice and went to MS Server instead. Hopefully that would have fixed it as well, and my new career would be Full Time IT guy. F that. I already have a job.

Ditto for Wine. "It seldom works" is the posted concensus. Nope, worked like a charm running XP app that Win7/Vista could not.

I'm probably in the minority with that opinion though. That's OK. Like I said, what works, works. Vista and Seven aren't working for my Win stuff, so I kept at it until I found a solution.

Cliff Notes: I'm a user who believes Ubuntu is better than Win V/7. Congrats to the Ubuntu Developers for a great product.

[uRock]

I can't say either OS is better than the other. They both work well for me.

[TheKramer]

As a scientist, we often have to create custom software to run various experiments. It is either very time intensive (if we do all or most of the coding ourselves) or very costly (if we hire outside programmers)... or both (if we do a little of each).

Often, a team of researchers may work together on separate parts of the code (keep in mind that usually none of us are actually trained programmers), then share it.

However, that means that 5-10 years down the line, this coding project that may have taken 2 years to create and test, still works, but only on the original OS we created it for.

An example: my lab has been using custom software written in C using a Genus graphics package on Windows 3.1 machines booting up in DOS. The only thing that has been changes in those machines in the last 15 years has been the hard drives, I believe.

For the last 3 years we have been slowly working on a Windows XP/MATLAB solution that looks like it is ready to roll out this year. We might not have access to some of the original programmers who put this together in a few years, so an "update" might be out of the question. Keeping XP could mean not having to rework our custom code again in a few years... so we could, you know, actually do our research instead of spending time working on new software to do our research. :P

[McRat]

Anyhow, it's getting close to my time to move on. When I want to learn about something new, I often visit "enthusiast boards" to learn from actual owners/users.

I really haven't had many problems since starting with Linux, so it's on to the next project. I might drop in now and again. I've really enjoyed my time here, but my goal isn't to be a "power user", just need enough to install, config, deploy, and that appears to be done, so hanging out further is just going to delay other necessary tasks.

This thread is fitting. I was worried about how long we could continue to use XP, ie - how long I had left to switch to OS X or Linux. But now it appears that further migration can occur as machines retire at leisure. Everything is 100% better than it was in May with our machines.

It was great chatting with all of you, perhaps I'll run into some of you at other sites of interest.
:KS

[koenn]

It was great chatting with all of you, perhaps I'll run into some of you at other sites of interest.
:KS
if this is goodbye :
It was fun having you around

[koenn]

As a scientist,
...

However, that means that 5-10 years down the line, this coding project that may have taken 2 years to create and test, still works, but only on the original OS we created it for.
...
For the last 3 years we have been slowly working on a Windows XP/MATLAB solution that looks like it is ready to roll out this year. We might not have access to some of the original programmers who put this together in a few years, so an "update" might be out of the question. Keeping XP could mean not having to rework our custom code again in a few years... so we could, you know, actually do our research instead of spending time working on new software to do our research. :P

Something's not right here. If you already know you'll have this sort of problems, there's something wrong in your planning.
Don't you have an IT dept. to help with this sort of stuff ? A budget ? ...

On the other hand, if all you need is an XP to run your custom app for 20 years or so, you might consider running it in a virtual machine (this should take care of hardware trouble and reinstall/re-activation issues) and just run it 'dedicated' i.e. use that system for nothing but your app. It that works today, it will still work in 20 years, and who needs updates or other support then ?

On yet another hand, your situation is the main reason (some) enterprises postpone OS upgrades : support for legacy apps with (practically) no upgrade path. Extending the life of XP accomodates exactly that. Pretty much the same thing happened with NT4.

[lukeiamyourfather]

Something's not right here. If you already know you'll have this sort of problems, there's something wrong in your planning.
Don't you have an IT dept. to help with this sort of stuff ? A budget ? ...

On the other hand, if all you need is an XP to run your custom app for 20 years or so, you might consider running it in a virtual machine (this should take care of hardware trouble and reinstall/re-activation issues) and just run it 'dedicated' i.e. use that system for nothing but your app. It that works today, it will still work in 20 years, and who needs updates or other support then ?

On yet another hand, your situation is the main reason (some) enterprises postpone OS upgrades : support for legacy apps with (practically) no upgrade path. Extending the life of XP accomodates exactly that. Pretty much the same thing happened with NT4.

Its not that simple really. Even if there is an IT department they probably cover general computing needs like Ethernet networking and shared storage, not custom applications for lab equipment. Virtual machines often won't work because of legacy interfaces on the host like a parallel port that can't be virtualized or dedicated interface cards for some equipment. People do the best they can with what they have (budget or no budget).

[koenn]

No, but if there's an IT dept, i suppose it would be part of their job to provide a platform for that custom app. The IT dept. also would hopefully have some understanding of the concept of life cycle management.
I'm not saying they'd be able to solve everything in the blink of an eye, but at least it would make sense to have them cover some of the IT aspects, and give the scientists some time to do science.

Likewise, I didn't mention virtualization is the cure for all legacy problems (and I know first hand about some of the problems it doesn't solve). But it can serve as an example of something an IT dept could investigate as a possible solution, something a scientist with a bit of programming skills might easily overlook.

[TheKramer]

Something's not right here. If you already know you'll have this sort of problems, there's something wrong in your planning.
Don't you have an IT dept. to help with this sort of stuff ? A budget ? ...

On the other hand, if all you need is an XP to run your custom app for 20 years or so, you might consider running it in a virtual machine (this should take care of hardware trouble and reinstall/re-activation issues) and just run it 'dedicated' i.e. use that system for nothing but your app. It that works today, it will still work in 20 years, and who needs updates or other support then ?

On yet another hand, your situation is the main reason (some) enterprises postpone OS upgrades : support for legacy apps with (practically) no upgrade path. Extending the life of XP accomodates exactly that. Pretty much the same thing happened with NT4.

Well, we're talking about a University setting here. We do have help from the IT department, but our experiments can sometimes require timing controls and recording at nearly the ms level. When you start using emulators, it seems like you might end up with timing issues.

We also have sometimes have graphics card issues as we actually output our signals and use voltage attenuators to recombine the signals to linearize a single gun with many more monochromatic levels than you could normally get on a CRT.

I also wasn't very clear. We don't just reinvent the wheel per say, we also update and increase functionality. Our most recent build gives us a lot more modularity and flexibility than our previous build had.

We had a different set of code that was Mac OS based, and we had been running it on emulators, but recently, even the IT guy was having issues keeping it running properly, but our new program can do both the stuff that our old C code was doing in DOS and can handle the stuff that the Mac code (don't remember the language offhand... I did go in an modify things, but it was a language I had never used before) as well as doing things we couldn't do with either set of code.

Some universities and research centers do have teams that are more able to help with this kind of stuff, and some don't (depends on size, funds, etc.). There is also a lot of freeware out there (communities using Python, etc.), but it doesn't always do exactly what you need it to. In addition, you can drop $$$ down for an integrated software and hardware package that probably does much of what you need and not have to worry about much of this stuff, but that can run a lot of money which might be better spent elsewhere (assuming you even have that much money to potentially budget for software).

To be fair, we could have stuck with DOS, but we were starting to have a use for different controls in the software, so we figured we would make something that ran on a more modern system with more functionality that was flexible and did exactly what we wanted. The price we pay for that, though, is newer versions of anything have a chance of creating bugs and slowdowns, and things like could potentially shut our research down for months. If the program is still working, we would rather stick with it for 5 more years while slowly developing new software (it keeps costs down and saves us time testing, debugging, retesting, reretesting, redebugging, rereretesting, etc. every time a new version of Windows drops).

Also, I'm only modestly tech savvy when you really get into the nitty gritty details (especially on the hardware side), so maybe there are other options I'm not aware of that would actually work.

[TheKramer]

No, but if there's an IT dept, i suppose it would be part of their job to provide a platform for that custom app. The IT dept. also would hopefully have some understanding of the concept of life cycle management.
I'm not saying they'd be able to solve everything in the blink of an eye, but at least it would make sense to have them cover some of the IT aspects, and give the scientists some time to do science.

Likewise, I didn't mention virtualization is the cure for all legacy problems (and I know first hand about some of the problems it doesn't solve). But it can serve as an example of something an IT dept could investigate as a possible solution, something a scientist with a bit of programming skills might easily overlook.

Also, consider that at mid-sized University you might have dozens of departments with dozens of researchers per department, and they each may have their own custom software needs. Getting the time from the IT guys and having enough meetings and giving them enough info to get them up to speed on what you want can be a looooong, painstaking process on both sides. I think many of us have just learned to try to be as self-sufficient as possible. In addition, if we leave for a smaller college with even less research level support, we need to be able to trouble shoot our stuff on our own (and it needs to be owned by us... or shareware... so we can take it with us as easily as possible).

And again, there might be a better way, but this is the reality for at least a decent chunk of us right now.

[koenn]

Interesting. Harder tha it seemed at first, in any case.

Just of the top of my head, here are some things I'd consider.

- If MS-DOS worked for you, you might consider migrating the thing to FreeDOS. It was developed longer than MS-DOS (still is being developped, possibly), so it's more of an Operating System than MS-DOS ever was (reasonable shells, TCP/IP stack, ... -> maybe other stuff that's useful for you)

- Thinking about FreeDOS, if you'd tell the project you'd actually plan to use FreeDOS in a production setting, they might be willing to cooperate with you and customize/extend it to (some of) your needs.

- you might want to publish your code and specs, and see if you can get some hobby programmers / colleague scientists to cooperate. Unless, of course, this means you're giving away your research while you don't want to

- like I said, talk to your IT dept or to some programmers. The things you do in your program may be stuff future OSes will not let you do (eg directly access hardware), so you may want to plan accordingly. Or you're solving problems in creative ways that turn out dead ends along the road, and someone with formal training will see that and know of a more canonical, future-proof approach.

[koenn]

Also, consider that at mid-sized University you might have dozens of departments with dozens of researchers per department, and they each may have their own custom software needs. Getting the time from the IT guys and having enough meetings and giving them enough info to get them up to speed on what you want can be a looooong, painstaking process on both sides. I think many of us have just learned to try to be as self-sufficient as possible. In addition, if we leave for a smaller college with even less research level support, we need to be able to trouble shoot our stuff on our own (and it needs to be owned by us... or shareware... so we can take it with us as easily as possible).

And again, there might be a better way, but this is the reality for at least a decent chunk of us right now.

Yeah, the long, painstaking process of getting IT tro understand the business, and business to understand IT. Been there, on the IT side. :)

I can see how a certain level of self-sufficiency is a good thing here. Also, lots of what's now IT comes from academia - scientists building tools for their experiments, and at some point, those tools became computers and software. So you have a point there.

otoh, you apparenty have a problem with your current software and the work it requires. It is not a bad idea to look at what other options you may have, even if those solve only a small part of the problem. That's all I'm saying.

[Merk42]

On the plus side, those people that don't want to move to Windows Vista/7/8/.. will see just about any Linux distro by that time to be far superior than what they are currently using!
Considering a main reason for downgrading to XP is program compatibility? Uh no.

EDIT:
It seems this is all being blown out of proportion (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/xp-in-2020-not-even-close-read-the-fine-print/2270)
Long story short, yes you could downgrade to XP in as late as 2020, but it would need to be from a copy of Windows 7 you bought years ago, as it wouldn't be on sale anymore. Also, even if you did all that, XP will no longer be supported as of April 2014 (which was always the case), meaning no security updates, so why would you want to?

[TheKramer]

Interesting. Harder tha it seemed at first, in any case.

Just of the top of my head, here are some things I'd consider.

- If MS-DOS worked for you, you might consider migrating the thing to FreeDOS. It was developed longer than MS-DOS (still is being developped, possibly), so it's more of an Operating System than MS-DOS ever was (reasonable shells, TCP/IP stack, ... -> maybe other stuff that's useful for you)

- Thinking about FreeDOS, if you'd tell the project you'd actually plan to use FreeDOS in a production setting, they might be willing to cooperate with you and customize/extend it to (some of) your needs.

- you might want to publish your code and specs, and see if you can get some hobby programmers / colleague scientists to cooperate. Unless, of course, this means you're giving away your research while you don't want to

- like I said, talk to your IT dept or to some programmers. The things you do in your program may be stuff future OSes will not let you do (eg directly access hardware), so you may want to plan accordingly. Or you're solving problems in creative ways that turn out dead ends along the road, and someone with formal training will see that and know of a more canonical, future-proof approach.

Good stuff in your last two posts, and I definitely appreciate the input. I'm still a young researcher, so I've certainly got time to figure out the best way to do some of this. At the moment, I'm primarily following orders and helping guide the process so it also works for me.

Hopefully by next year I'll be doing my own thing, and then I'll have more freedom to move in some of these directions.

Also, we do share our code. Most of the time you can email another researcher and they will send you their programs (source code and all) if you want. We also often publish them (when we think they are useful enough), and I plan on trying to publish this set of code we are just finishing (which actually utilizes some already published "toolboxes" created by the research community).

I think you are right, though, that having a solid IT team that can help troubleshoot and foresee possible problems in the future would be invaluable. In fact, for this latest set of code it started with me being the sole programmer (with a few people helping) and our University hired some higher level research-oriented tech guys, and one of them (and an intern) took the project off my hands and did things I never could have done, and they've modularized things to some degree so that I think some of this code might last us for decades if it is still useful to our research directions.

Again, thanks, and I'll definitely be considering all of this when I'm heading up my own lab space.

[TheKramer]

Considering a main reason for downgrading to XP is program compatibility? Uh no.

EDIT:
It seems this is all being blown out of proportion (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/xp-in-2020-not-even-close-read-the-fine-print/2270)
Long story short, yes you could downgrade to XP in as late as 2020, but it would need to be from a copy of Windows 7 you bought years ago, as it wouldn't be on sale anymore. Also, even if you did all that, XP will no longer be supported as of April 2014 (which was always the case), meaning no security updates, so why would you want to?

We actually run all of our experiments off line and transfer data off via... well, floppies right now, but I imagine we'll start using USB sticks with our new system. Regardless, security issues aren't really a concern for people like me, but certainly in the larger business environment that would be an issue.

[Dragonbite]

Considering a main reason for downgrading to XP is program compatibility? Uh no.

EDIT:
It seems this is all being blown out of proportion (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/xp-in-2020-not-even-close-read-the-fine-print/2270)
Long story short, yes you could downgrade to XP in as late as 2020, but it would need to be from a copy of Windows 7 you bought years ago, as it wouldn't be on sale anymore. Also, even if you did all that, XP will no longer be supported as of April 2014 (which was always the case), meaning no security updates, so why would you want to?

Yeah, but by 2020 Linux may be able to handle those formats finally. ;)

This is, sort of, good news at work since we get the Windows 7 licenses but choose to install XP instead. We have the option of moving to 7 anytime we want but the deciders are not satisfied with the ROI on moving to 7 at this point.

[arashiko28]

My laptop is a dual core 2.16GHz, 2GB RAM spec, and can run Windows 7 64-bit without *any* slowdown.

I can do all of what you said at the end and it runs fine.

Opera, Foxit, WinAMP, MS Office, Illustrator, Thunderbird, Digsby, and a slew of other background programs all running at once with no issues.

Yeah, my Ubuntu install is faster, but then again it's also faster than XP.

I could do all that, but in plain words, I felt the lag... I like it rocket fast and Ubuntu gives me that, besides wine gives me what I need. Just to mark my point, I'm a doctor and I have used specialized programs in Ubuntu through wine.