January 24, 2007 11:15 AM PST
Microsoft extends support for XP Home, XP Media Center
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That's what Microsoft is now offering buyers of Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Media Center Edition. The company announced on Wednesday that it is adding five-year customer support for the operating systems, marking the first time that such extended service has been offered with a Microsoft consumer product.
The "extended" support, which kicks in after April 2009, will bring the two products on par with Microsoft's Windows XP Professional for businesses. Microsoft previously reserved its five-year extended support feature to only enterprise-grade products.
Under Microsoft's Support Lifecyle Policy, consumers and businesses both receive "mainstream" support for their products. XP Home Edition and XP Media Center will see mainstream support end in April 2009, which includes paid support, security updates, design changes and feature requests.
Once mainstream support expires, the five-year extended support is due to kick in. Previously, XP Home and XP Media Center consumers would migrate to self-help support for eight years, after their mainstream support ended.
The extended-support level includes roughly half of the eight features included in mainstream support. Those not included are design changes and feature requests, warranty claims, no-charge incident reports and nonsecurity hot-fix support, unless a user purchases an extended agreement within 90 days of the mainstream support expiring.
The phase for additional software support will provide consumers with service until 2014, Microsoft said.
For the software giant, extending its help window is nothing new. Microsoft extended support for Windows 98, Windows 98 SE and Windows ME by two years, with assistance ending last summer.
And although Microsoft is expanding its support for its two consumer XP products, the move comes as it is gearing up to release its Windows Vista operating system to consumers next week. Vista, which is currently available to computer makers to load on their boxes, is expected to ultimately replace XP, though market watchers note that it might take some time.
"Microsoft has listened to customer feedback and realized that providing security patches for Windows XP Professional, and not extending that support to the XP Home and XP Media Center Editions, was not a consistent approach," a company representative said. "Microsoft is currently making the change for Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Media Center Edition only, and (it is) taking additional time to evaluate a permanent policy change that would apply to all consumer operating system versions."
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Josh Chandler
http://www.josh-chandler.blogspot.com
http://www.techoriphic.com
If one doesn't purchase the extended support, what does one lose in 2009? From the end of the story, it sounds as though at least security updates will stop in 2009. Is there anything else that might make purchasing the extended support valuable?
From my experience - I don't think extending support is a good thing.....
They have a 30yr history of lying about just about everything.
Keep in mind WinMe support only lasted 6yrs.
Don't trust what they say about Vista either. It is an unneeded eye candy upgrade.
Well I guess the next questions is why do I use any Microsoft products? I guess it's because they have a very good promo department and have convinced a lot of large companies how good they are then sold them their products which has made it essential that employees of said companies have to use their products or operating systems to get their work done. By the way a lot of the large companies are coming to their senses and started keeping up on how much Microsoft products are costing them every year in upgrades and licenses and are turning to other products and operating system to do the same work and job for a lot less.
So here we sit with 12 out dated computers, 12 inoperable computers (no system), and a bunch of unhappy kids. I try to teach them there is good in everyone but that?s hard to do when they see what Microsoft did to them.
Microsoft is just another company trying to make money. They are providing products and services to a market that has no real traditions, standards, or any baseline of customer experience we can use to judge them--good or bad. Widespread support of home computer operating systems did not exist prior to M$.
What the heck are we comparing them to, your local florist? Apple? Is every negative comment here from one the 14 people who've called Apple tech support? Or do you all have Linus Torvalds on speed-dial?
Why do I let myself get baited into this nonsense...?
- whooo.... just three versions of XP....
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by Maccess
February 20, 2007 1:21 AM PST
- I wonder what support issues there will be with six versions of Vista.
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