Microsoft says 74 percent of work PCs still use Windows XP, extends downgrade rights (update 2)
By Sean Hollister 
posted July 12th 2010 10:47PM
posted July 12th 2010 10:47PM
The latest Microsoft operating system may be selling seven copies a second, but it's no match for the behemoth Windows XP, still the most popular OS in the world despite recent nefarious attempts (we kid) to invoke spontaneous shutdowns, slow hard drives and trigger blue screens. In fact, a Microsoft exec admitted today that practically three-quarters of business computers still run the nine-year-old OS on hardware averaging 4.4 years old, and Computerworld's now reporting Microsoft will extend XP's lifespan Update: So it seems as if that 2020 date is incorrect, according to Microsoft's PR team. We're presently waiting for an official update of some sort, and will let you know if / when we get it. Don't worry about the robots -- we've got top men working on Plan B.
Update 2: The official Windows Team Blog has stepped forward to reduce the confusion, but they've only toned it down a tad. Microsoft won't commit to an exact date for Windows XP downgrade availability, saying instead that you can trade in your OEM copy of Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate until the company stops selling it... which is presently slated to be two years after Windows 8 ships... whenever that is. Find the complete non-committal statement at the more coverage link.
Yup. My work place computers were upgraded to XP just a few years ago. And yes, IE6.
@pika2000
We use XP with IE6 at work, because of all the Java applications written for it. We should be using the NSA's version of Linux. (Yes, I work for the US government; write your congressman.)
I am an IT Consultant for Venture Capital firms in San Francisco area. The vast majority of my customers are yet to make the jump to 7 even though they recycle hardware every 3 years or so.
just extend downgrade rights until ∞ already.
XP. It just works. :)
Working at the game company Riot... we have to support XP so we still need some of our machines to use that. However we don't support windows 95 so I guess eventually XP will be phased out in my industry.
i still run XP but thats just cuz my parents can't be bothered to upgrade my PoS computer. but im getting a new laptop next yr for college so i guess i don't rly care. i don't use the computer for much now expect for the occasional old game or school work and internet stuff.
It's time to close the door and get the train moving on. At some point this will be bad for the future.
Soon we will see a complete re-write of windows to take advantage of massive changes in technology and these companies will be left out cold.
@d3sc3nd3ncy yea sure, we've hearing this for 15+years and they didnt even rewrote explorer....
Oh good, that'll give Rockwell 10 more years to get their software working on anything other than xp. Hell, if we're lucky they might have sp3 compatibility by then!
@(Unverified)
Service Pack 3? You mean the "If we break XP, they'll have to move to Vista" service pack?
@HighestRanked2
How many mac's are running in the enterprise again? Yeah less than 0.0001%. How many macs are running on how computers 3-4% worldwide. That is what is massive FAIL.
Business and enterprise discussions really shouldn't take place on Engadget, as proved by this discussion.
Sure, it'd be asinine for anyone to actually stick it out with XP until 2020, but it's not a terrible precedent when you consider that Steve Jobs said OS X "set Apple up for the next 20 years" during the 2005 WWDC keynote.
XP is the new DOS
@McHoffa
Windows 8 will be Windows XP in disguise. All Microsoft has to do is alter the boot and startup screen and print up new retail boxes showing Windows 8 for Windows XP and they're set. Only a few geeks will suspect something is strange.
didnt microsoft laughed at google for taking a 2 OS apporach... microsoft will soon have 3...
7 8 XP....
@tom902 poor microsoft don't know who to laugh at next... i feel sorry for them, they look so lost....
wheres the surprise? after all win7 is xp with some additional crapware and wizards spread around the system!
@rodo Windows 7 is no more Windows XP than a Ferrari is a Prius - yes, they're both cars, both have 4 wheels, etc. Yes, you can, in an effort to make some point, draw many similarities between the two, but the bottom line is that they are more different than they are similar.
Now, saying Windows 7 is just Windows Vista patched up and optimized properly - I'd buy that, because it's true. It's also obvious if you compare the two. But saying 7 is XP? You'd be hard pressed to support that claim.
Are these 64bit XPs? Or will MS say oh you can keep the XP but you can't have the new IE 8 since you aren't using 64 bit XP. Then whine because all of a sudden IE loses even more market share.
I bet MS wishes they could be Arrogant Aholes like Apple and just say "screw XP" shut it off and move to a brand new code base. And have customers who would go, "Ok." Do things the Steve Jobs way, just kill stuff and tell your customers if you don't like it, go somewhere else.
@malexandria1
Which always seemed backwards to me. Apple kills old versions of its os and apps, where you going to go, Windows? With plenty of options for almost anything you could name (except Orifice, after MS used their power to kill Lotus), Heck Yeah!
Microsoft kills off the old os and apps, where you going to go, Apple? With only one way - Steve Jobs way - of doing things, and only a handful of applications, and almost no games?
Corporations (like the one I work at) have a huge base of XP machines, spread across the country. We have relatively tight control over them, and they run in-house written software. While I use 7 at home, the logistics of trying to upgrade all of those machines yields no real value. We were starting to look at that option, but only because of the threat of being required to in the near future. With that threat gone, I doubt seriously that moving to 7 will be justifiable in a way that management will buy into.
If it wasn't official from Courier, Microsoft is absolutely STUPID.
MAC OSX for the win
Still on XP here, although I believe that 7 will be an available option soon. That doesn't really help me, however, since my laptop is pretty new and therefore I'll likely be stuck with XP for many more years since the company won't be rolling out 7 except on new computers. It might be time for this one to have an unfortunate "accident"...
Nooooooooo!!!!!! :(
and here I was hoping that our company would be forced into a new OS in the reasonable future.
No doubt, XP was good but Windows7 is Da Bomb! Amazing.
www.privacy-tools.es.tc
I'd say that where I work, 90% run XP, 8% run 2000, and the other 2% are other versions of Windows (including Vista and 7) and some Apple boxes.
I run 7 myself, even at work. The chief (and really only) complaint I have about 7 is the ssslllooowww network discovery. After nearly a half-century on this earth, I'm beginning to find it hard to remember the hostnames of all 200+ machines I support at my little shop.
Interesting (to me at least): Open a command prompt in Windows 7, type "ver" and hit return. "Version 6.1.7600", not "Version 7.x". This appears in several other places in Windows 6.1, I mean Windows 7. Wonder if Windows 8 will be 6.2, 7.0 or 8.0.
Noooooooooo!!!! This means IE6 will still be supported through 2020!
It's a work-horse
We still run XP for two main reasons, just as is the case with most small to medium businesses. 1) The HUGE expenditure in upgrading to machines that can effectively run Win 7. 2) The HUGE expense in upgrading the software that will run effectively on Win 7. Hello, we are in a flat or declining economy, and businesses are expected to come up with the money to upgrade all their computers, printers, and software to Win 7 compatible, just because it's available? Our current business software runs just fine on older processors and XP. Why the heck would I feel compelled to invest in quad core or greater machines just so I would then have to buy newer software? The computer industry has lost their collective minds with all the recent changes toward "high definition." Why would a business machine need HD and the more expensive OS/processor/video card/monitor to run it? I don't know about you, but my spread sheet looks pretty much the same in low def. What really chapps my a** is that our efforts to buy what we ARE trying to upgrade (those huge crt monitors to flat panels) is being hampered by the fact every one wants to sell us "widescreen" panels. WE ARE NOT WATCHING MOVIES HERE! I want as much real estate on by business monitor as possible to see documents, etc. and a 19" standard is much more suitable than a 18.5" wide screen.
So, I for one am thrilled that XP will continue to be supported as long as possible. Thank you Microsoft for being smart enough to realize that small and medium sized businesses are already struggling with funding IT resources. Now, perhaps you could come up with an XP2 that take all those 9 years of patches just makes a whole new version out of them?
windows 7 uses GPU to draw takes too much battery
I've worked in business IT during this time period and I can tell you that it doesn't matter how good a new version of Windows is, businesses aren't going to covert. I've worked in automotive and manufacturing corporations. i don't know how representative they are of Microsoft's North American corporate customer base, but here is what influences the decisions in my corner of the economy.
First, about the same time XP came out, Microsoft began cracking down on corporate licensing misuse. The companies I worked for did not actively try to pirate Windows. We just didn't keep good enough records and had a poor understanding of Microsoft's licensing terms. We had to spend a lot of money to make our licensing right. This froze future spending on Microsoft products and probably has inflated XP's numbers. In all seriousness, I would suggest that if Microsoft hadn't done this, you would see a lot more Windows NT and 2000 installations than you do now.
At around this time there was also a change in accounting practices. Companies could no longer lease computers or treat items under $5000 as capital costs. I'm not an accountant and I don't understand fully the reasons for this, but this put a terrible chill on computer purchases that lasts to this day. When a company is facing a recession and off-shore competition, they cut their expenses, and computers are expenses.
We also implemented a lot of network and web-based applications that put less demands on the computer, so it became harder and harder to justify buying a new one. If you can only promise that Sally in Accounting will get 10-30min more productivity a day if she gets a new computer, that's not enough to loosen the purse strings. Even if there are hundreds of Sally's throughout your company, it is not enough. They want you to automate all those Sallys so we don't need them at all, or their computers, or their copies of Windows.
2020 sounds about right. By then the computers people are using now will probably have worn out and companies will hopefully have had to upgrade their enterprise apps to versions that will require new versions of Windows.
"In fact, a Microsoft exec admitted today that practically three-quarters of business computers still run the nine-year-old OS on hardware averaging 4.4 years old"
So... can we finally put an end to the Mac argument that while they're more expensive than PCs, people tend to hold onto them longer than PCs?
The whole point is that, as you extend the option you are just prolonging the cycle. They won't willingly migrate to a new version of the operating system no matter how great it is. Then you are stuck supporting multiple-fragmented os'es. If you stop patching WinXP, they will eventually learn that it needs to be phased out. Further, if you remove the ability to get new licenses the new systems will become windows 7 by default. In 3-5 years, the XP machines are magically gone. It's shockingly simple. Can't believe they haven't figured it out.
@iclkennyg
On the other hand, if you try to force them, they might just decide that the free software called Linux might just be worth looking into.
Give me one reason to upgrade from XP, it works absolutely wonderful for surfing emailing, music.
Faultcode programs for OBD readers I have won't work on vista or 7, neither management systems for car injection and so on. On of my computers just has an uptime on 1½ year running just great.
I'm not a gamer, why should I upgrade? I don't care about security issues, if some hacker is stupid enough to spend time to fuck with my computer, fine, don't care.
Then agin I don't like the start menu on 7, still use the classic style because I work fastest that way.
I use XP at work, and can't imagine switching. I can't afford to lose even an hour or two of work time to switch. Even if I do get switched to 7, how do all of my applications work? Is the update to Windows 7 an update, or would it require me reinstalling (and possibly needing new versions) of all the applications I use?
this is a bad bad news for web develop :D
they have to spend more time & money for ie6
oh damn ie6 with M$
Can't stop the beast!! Lol gosh die already XP