(1 votes, average: 10 out of 10)
Loading ...XP deathwatch: Your key questions answered
The following FAQ list appeared on Computerworld U.S.:
Even though it has had its own problems of late, Windows XP remains the most-used version of Windows. The newest data from Web metrics vendor Net Applications Inc., for example, pegs XP as driving 73% of the personal computers that went online last month, five times the nearest competitor, Microsoft Corp.’s own Windows Vista.
Which is why an impending deadline five weeks from today is important.
According to Microsoft, June 30 is the last day it will permit retailers and OEMs to sell the nearly-seven-year-old operating system.
You’ll have questions as that date approaches, including whether the deadline will drive up prices (gouging, anyone?); we plan to have the answers, starting with this FAQ and continuing through the end of next month.
How long until Microsoft shuts off the XP spigot? Five weeks from today is the last day Microsoft will officially allow retailers to sell the old operating system, and let major computer makers — called “OEMs,” for “original equipment manufacturers” — to sell PCs with XP pre-installed.
Monday, June 30, is the EOL, or End-Of-Life, a term Dell Inc., not Microsoft, has publicly used, for XP’s retail and OEM availability.
So what’s the June 18 date I’ve heard about? That’s the day that Dell has said is the last possible day for its customers to buy a machine running Windows XP. “To meet Microsoft’s June 30 last-day-to-ship OEM Windows XP deadline, June 18 is the last time to purchase a Dell laptop, desktop, or workstation with an OEM Windows XP license,” Dell says on its Web site.
Other big-name OEMs, such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and Lenovo, have not announced cut-off dates, but must also abide by Microsoft’s rules that no XP-based system ships after June 30.
Are there any loopholes? Sure, and they’re big enough to steer the Titanic through. A “downgrade” clause in Microsoft’s guidelines for OEMs lets computer makers install Windows XP Professional — but not the more common and less expensive Windows XP Home — on new PCs at customer request when those machines are ordered with Windows Vista Business or Windows Vista Ultimate.
Dell took advantage of the clause to announce last month that it would use the downgrade rights of Vista Business and Vista Ultimate to install XP Professional free of charge at the factory. Assuming customers want to, they can later use the included Vista installation media to upgrade from XP Professional. of the clause Other vendors are doing similar things. HP, for example, also offers a free at-the-factory XP Professional downgrade option on some systems sold with Vista Business.
Can I still buy Windows XP? Absolutely. In fact, we’ve started tracking retail availability and pricing at three popular online technology outlets — Amazon.com, Buy.com and Newegg.com — to gauge whether the operating system is in stock and what it’s selling for.
For the three-day stretch leading up to Monday, May 26, all three outlets have Windows XP Home OEM — the least-expensive version of the OS, but also the one that comes with the most restrictions — in stock and ready to ship for those who want to downgrade a Vista machine on their own, or who prefer to have a backup license in hand.
The prices for May 26, shipping included, were $95.15 at Amazon.com, $100.24 at Buy.com, and $89.99 at Newegg.com.
We’ll revisit those stores on a regular basis, and report our findings in future FAQs or stories in the run-up to the June 30 EOL.
Will I be able to buy Windows XP after June 30? Affirmative. There’s already a healthy market for the workhorse on eBay, the online auction site that sells both old and new stuff. That won’t disappear overnight.
Again, we’ve started tracking eBay’s listings for a couple of Windows XP metrics: How many items pop up when a search using the string “windows xp” is run on the site, and the current lowest “Buy It Now” price for Windows XP Home OEM.
We tried several different searches on eBay. During the three days prior to the 26th we found 1,804 results for “windows xp;” 1,080 results for “windows xp” narrowed down to listing strictly in the “Software” category; and 675 results for “windows xp” narrowed to not just the Software category but by “operating system” and “windows.” The auction site’s lowest prices, shipping included, for a legitimate copy of Windows XP Home OEM for the three days were $91.75 for May 23 and 24 (that is, Friday and Saturday), with a slight uptick to $92.00 on Sunday.
We’ll monitor eBay’s XP listings and prices to see if, for example, more sellers start flogging the OS as June 30 approaches, and whether prices move as the end draws near.
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...XP SP3 update corrupts Windows registry, users claim
An update from Computerworld U.S.:
Symantec Corp. today denied that its consumer security software, including Norton Internet Security and Norton 360, is to blame for wreaking havoc on some users’ PCs after they upgraded to Windows XP Service Pack 3.
Microsoft Corp. declined to answer questions about the problem, which has emptied Windows’ Device Manager and deleted network connections, preventing some users from connecting to the Internet or to wireless networks.
According to reports posted the day after Microsoft launched Windows XP SP3 on Windows Update, some users found that their network cards and previously-crafted connections had mysteriously vanished from Windows after updating to the service pack.
“The Network Connections screen now does not show any of the NIC cards. I have three adapters that used to show up,” said someone using “MRFREEZE61″ as an alias on Microsoft’s XP SP3 support forum on May 7. “In an attempt to troubleshoot, I tried to bring up the Device Manager, and to my surprise it is now empty.”
Numerous other users corroborated MRFREEZE61’s account on the same support thread.
MRFREEZE61 reported that he had found large numbers of corrupted entries in Windows Registry, a directory that stores settings and other critical information for Microsoft’s operating system. Those entries, said MRFREEEZE61, began with the characters “$%&”; once they were removed, the PC returned to normal.
Others chimed in to claim that the errant keys were located in sections of the registry devoted to settings for Symantec products, and they pinned blame on the security company’s consumer-grade software installed on their PCs. “I see parent keys that all seem to be Norton/Symantec product keys,” said someone identified as “gfrost.”
“This appears to be a Symantec-related problem according to the keys showing up,” said another user, “datarimlens.” “Is anyone from Symantec on this yet? Since SP3 has been distributed to at least one of my machines, am I to believe that this problem did not show up in testing? Really? For something as widely tested as SP3? Really? I mean seriously?”
“I upgraded three well-maintained laptop machines, one with NIS2008 [Norton Internet Security 2008] installed and running during the upgrade, one with NIS2008 installed but shut down during installation and one without NIS2008 installed,” said “bighowie,” yet another user posting to the forum. “As you guessed, the one without NIS2008 upgraded like a charm. No problems. The other two have the same mess as identified by all in this thread.”
Today, Symantec said its initial investigation had uncovered no cause and effect between its software and the corrupted registry keys, which in some cases numbered in the thousands.
“While we’re seeing that this issue can affect Norton users, we don’t believe we’re the root cause,” said Sondra Magness, a Symantec spokeswoman, in an e-mail. “In further searches on this issue, we found a number of users experiencing the problem but who do not have Norton software and/or are experiencing the issue on XP SP2.”
In a follow-up telephone conversation, Dave Cole, Symantec’s senior director for product management of its consumer offerings, acknowledged that users running Norton titles were experiencing problems, but he said the numbers are small. “The support lines are not ringing off the hook,” he said. Cole also said that Symantec had done “extensive testing” of its products with Windows XP SP3, but this issue hadn’t surfaced.
And he essentially blamed Microsoft for causing the problem. “This is related to XP SP3,” he said, “and XP SP3 has already had other issues specific to some OEMs and some processors.”
Cole was referring to the “endless reboot” snafu that users began reporting after applying the service pack upgrade. Last week, Hewlett-Packard Co., whose AMD-powered machines were cited by most users as the only ones affected, confirmed the rebooting glitch, and Microsoft announced it would add a filter to Windows Update to prevent AMD-based PCs from obtaining XP SP3 via the update service’s listings.
“People need to exercise caution before [updating to] XP SP3,” said Cole. “This may well go beyond Symantec.”
For its part, Microsoft has remained mum. Although a Microsoft engineer asked users on the support forum for additional information — and provided an e-mail address for them to forward details — the company did not address questions put to it Monday that asked it to confirm the problem, point out any posted Microsoft solutions and fix blame on either Symantec or its XP SP3 update.
Microsoft limited its response to boilerplate language that it has used before in statements about XP SP3. “Customers who experience a problem with Windows XP SP3 installation should contact Microsoft Customer Support Services, which can provide free assistance and troubleshooting for these issues,” a company spokeswoman said in an e-mail Monday afternoon.
Some users, in fact, reported that they had contacted Microsoft’s help desk, and via a remote session managed by the tech support representative, had had their Windows registry cleaned. Many others, however, vented at the apparent lack of interest by Microsoft in their troubles.
“I see no evidence that Microsoft is working on this issue, or even that they are mildly concerned about it,” wrote “Sandbridge” Friday.
MRFREEZE61 posted clean-up instructions for afflicted users on the Microsoft support forum, and several reported back that the work-around had done the trick. “Hey Mr. Freeze, just wanted to say that your solution saved my butt big time,” said someone identified as “RevDAGG” on Sunday.
Manually deleting the rogue registry keys, however, was impossible for some, who reported thousands, even tens of thousands, of corrupted entries; several called for an automated tool to help them do clean-up.
“Once we’ve figured out how many customers this affects, [an automated tool] is absolutely possible,” said Symantec’s Cole. “If there is something we can do to address the problem, we’ll do it.”
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(1 votes, average: 7 out of 10) Loading ...XP SP3 cripples some PCs with endless reboots
More from Gregg Keizer of ComputerWorld U.S.:
Installing Windows XP Service Pack 3 sends some PCs into an endless series of reboots, according to posts to a Microsoft support forum.
Jesper Johansson, a former program manager for security policy at Microsoft Corp. and a prominent Windows blogger, has worked with users to tentatively identify the problem as involving only machines using processors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
Messages from frustrated users began accumulating on the XP SP3 support newsgroup Wednesday, just a day after Microsoft released the update to the general public.
“I just installed Windows XP SP3 and after completing the processes and when the system reboots, the system cannot proceed to load the Windows,” said a user identified as “Olin” in a message that kicked off a long thread. “It just displays the flash screen of Windows then after it reboots again.”
Most users who left messages on the forum said that they were unable to boot into Windows Safe mode — a last-ditch way to sidestep the normal boot process for troubleshooting purposes — or revert to a previously saved System Restore point.
Some were understandably upset. “Way to go, Microsoft, releasing the pile of dung called SP3 that hoses your system so bad even Safe Mode isn’t working!” said a user identified as Mike Voss. “Props to your QA guys, they certainly have done their job.”
Johansson, who watched one of his PCs repeatedly reboot after installing XP SP3, traded accounts with several other users on the newsgroup and summarized the results on his blog.
According to Johansson, there appears to be two separate issues. One affects only AMD-equipped PCs sold by Hewlett-Packard Co. “The problem is that HP, apparently along with other OEMs, deploys the same image to Intel-based computers that they do to AMD-based computers,” said Johansson. “Because the image for both Intel and AMD is the same, all have the intelppm.sys driver installed and running. That driver provides power management on Intel-based computers. On an AMD-based computer, amdk8.sys provides the same functionality.”
Running the intelppm.sys driver on an AMD-powered PC isn’t normally an issue, but on the first reboot after a service pack installation, it causes “a big problem,” Johansson said. The machine either fails to boot or crashes and immediately reboots.
The other problem, according to Johansson, also seems to affect only AMD machines, and involves an error message indicating trouble with the PC’s BIOS. Johansson said that the ensuing recommendation to update the BIOS is “most likely not your problem,” but said that the problem may be isolated to a specific motherboard. “Possibly, it is related to computers with the Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard in them,” he said.
Johansson also spelled out workarounds for both problems on his blog. The HP issue can be solved by disabling the intelppm.sys driver, while the second fix requires the user to plug in a USB flash drive before booting.
Microsoft was not immediately available for comment early Friday, but someone identified as a Microsoft employee on the support forum had asked users to e-mail him information about the PC’s system configuration and whether they were able to enter Safe mode, and to submit event viewer logs.
This isn’t the first endless reboot problem Microsoft’s faced in relation to a service pack recently. In February, the company pulled a Windows Vista SP1 prerequisite update from automatic delivery because it was crippling some machines.
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...SP3 rollout snarled by Windows XP change
Gregg Keizer of Computerworld U.S. filed this report:
Microsoft confirmed Wednesday that it delayed the rollout of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) because changes to the operating system can corrupt data in the company’s retail point-of-sale and store management software.
The company has also suspended automatic distribution of Vista SP1 as well as XP SP3. “Yes, we are temporarily holding any additional automatic distribution of Windows Vista SP1″ said a spokeswoman.
Tuesday, Microsoft postponed the expected release of XP SP3 because of what it called a “compatibility issue” between the OS and Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (RMS), point-of-sale and store management software designed for small and midsize retailers. When it announced the service pack’s delay, however, Microsoft did not spell out the specifics of the bug.
In fact, a Microsoft representative had outlined the problem in a post to the RMS support forum five days earlier, on April 24. “The Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (RMS) Development team has identified problems when Windows Vista SP1 is installed,” said Tom Berger, who identified himself as a Microsoft online support engineer. “Windows Vista SP1 may cause data loss and corruption in Microsoft Dynamics RMS databases.”
According to Berger, Windows Vista SP1 changed the way Microsoft SQL Server handles some database records, specifically those that include information from multiple tables. “All users who have applied Windows Vista SP1 will be affected,” he added.
A Microsoft spokeswoman on Wednesday acknowledged that the same problems affected RMS users running XP SP3.
The company is also working on filters to block machines running RMS from being offered either Vista SP1 or XP SP3; it will resume automatic delivery of Vista SP1 and add XP SP3 to Windows Update once those filters are in place.
In the meantime, Windows Vista users can upgrade to SP1 by manually selecting it from Windows Update — it hasn’t been removed, only suspended from automatic download and installation — or downloading a standalone installer from the Microsoft site.
Although Windows XP users have no similar official alternative, some have uncovered a standalone installer for SP3 buried on Microsoft’s servers, and have been posting links on the TechNet support forum. Although the installer — available in several languages, including English, German and French — was vetted by numerous users who said it was identical to the finished version released earlier to TechNet and MSDN subscribers, Microsoft would not confirm that the links led to sanctioned files.
“In this particular case, it’s possible that some third-party websites are linking to the Windows XP SP3 software that we have published for MSDN and TechNet subscribers,” a spokeswoman said in an e-mail. “Since we cannot confirm the source of every link that third-parties provide, our recommendation is that customers wait until we’ve published Windows XP SP3 to Windows Update and the Download Center.”
Microsoft’s record with Windows service packs has not been impressive. Vista SP1, for example, was held from most users for six weeks because of balky device drivers, and the company initially blocked paying subscribers of its TechNet and Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) from downloading either Vista SP1 or XP SP3.
Microsoft has not divulged a timetable for resuming Vista SP1 on Windows Update, or offering XP SP3 for the first time. It also has not set a schedule for delivering a fix for the RMS bug.
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(4 votes, average: 7.25 out of 10) Loading ...Next Windows XP service pack may be only weeks away
Who said April is the cruellest month? According to TechARP.com, which seems to have a mole within Redmond, Microsoft will release Windows XP SP3 fairly shortly, which could represent the last major investment the company makes in the OS — unless our petition helps change their minds.
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(8 votes, average: 6.75 out of 10) Loading ...The results are in — XP trumps Vista in benchmark tests
How embarassing — Microsoft commissions tests that compare Vista and XP, with the goal no doubt being to show how much better the new version is. Except that’s not what the test results prove.
Principled Technologies Inc., which performed the tests on the vendor’s behalf, showed Vista SP1 actually lagged XP on about 46 per cent of the business-oriented operations it measured. (The gap was 61 per cent on the consumer-oriented tests, but that’s not primarily what we’re concerned with here.)
Important to note is that XP shone in tests on PCs that had just come out of sleep mode. In cold boot tests, Vista picked up the pace. Whether that’s enough to trigger massive Vista adoptions is another story.
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(3 votes, average: 8.67 out of 10) Loading ...Third time’s the charm for Windows XP Service Packs
Our colleagues at ComputerWorld U.S. report:
Two weeks after it last handed a new build of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) to several thousand invitation-only testers, Microsoft Corp. has posted that version for public downloading.
“We’re broadening the availability of the release candidate in order to receive further user feedback prior to the release of Windows XP SP3,” a company spokeswoman said in an e-mail Tuesday afternoon. “Windows XP SP3 RC2 will be made publicly available today at 5:00 p.m. Pacific time.”
On Feb. 7, Microsoft seeded Release Candidate 2 (RC2) with the 15,000 or so testers who had been working with SP3 for several months. At that time, the company said nothing about taking the version public.
This is just the second time that all Windows XP users have had the chance to try out SP3, the last scheduled major update to the six-year-old operating system. The only other public posting was of SP3 RC in December.
The release notes are available here.
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(3 votes, average: 9.33 out of 10) Loading ...XP wasn’t always so accepted
Although the end of Microsoft’s previous Windows OS has created an industry outcry, a few years ago ComputerWorld Canada published an in-depth look at why adoption did not meet expectations. Among the factors at play: a soft market for technology sales, sluggish upgrade policies and a preference for XP’s predecessor, Windows 2000. If this sounds a lot like Vista’s problems, it’s because it is.
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