Should developers drop support for Windows XP?

[InsaneNutter]

On another website I was reading some one was having a moan how Microsoft are dropping support for Windows XP with certain applications, such as Windows Live Series 4, as are some other developers, such as the guy who works on Paint.NET.

Is that really such as bad thing? for example when Paint.NET 4 is released at the end of 2011 which is the first version not to support XP, Windows XP will have been released over 10 years ago, Vista over 5 years ago and Windows 7 will have been out for over two years.

Even my previous PC, a 7 year old Athlon XP can run Windows 7 fine, yes i realize some older computers cant... but when you hear about people installing XP on new Core i7 machines you have to wonder if people should just accept Windows XP is old move on?

 

[Nimrod]

Windows XP was great for its time, but its just such a Fail by todays standards

 

[Trebor]

Hmmm looks like the poll agrees with the way I'm thinking. If people genuinely can't see the differences between Windows 7 and XP then I can't fathom what it'll take for MS to convince them otherwise. I think I've said before that in a way MS seems to have almost shot itself in the foot with how successful XP had become (mainly after the release of Service Pack 2).

 

[NemVitzh]

Notice that both the developers mentioned may be trying to push a new OS on consumers. I know paint.NET isn't officially affiliated with MS anymore, but I'm sure they have some kind of leverage remaining in it's development. Perhaps there are more, but those are the ones you mentioned.

Also, any company trying to turn a profit on software most certainly DOES need to continue support for XP. According to wikipedia (march 2010), 52% of consumers are still using it. So I think this is a bit of a preemptive worry.

Yes, I will eventually upgrade - but for the time being, XP is running great!

 

[InsaneNutter]

The reason Paint.net 4 will not support Windows XP is that it makes use of new additions to Windows that XP doesn't support and never will. Direct2D is only supported on Windows 7 and Vista + SP2 + the Platform Update update installed.

Of course Microsoft is wanting to phase out XP, which is easy to understand why, however despite that even the new Office 2010 works in Windows XP so I wouldn't worry about them totally dropping XP until support officially ends for it in a few years time.

 

[Titcher]

As long things don't intentionally block XP out it's all good. Windows Vista/7 still use the NT kernel so most things for those operating systems should work. There will of course be some exceptions, but most stuff slated as Vista/7 only still works on XP, remember Halo 2?
Also, in regards to age of the operating system. There are still some bank systems running OS/2, released in 1987, so newness isn't everything in software. Plus there are those of us who would rather use the keyboard for almost everything, Windows 7s disorganised Control Panel and annoying explorer make this more difficult, so don't be so judgemental to people not wanting to change OS, if there were no setbacks everyone would.

 

[MasterChief]

If there is a need to drop XP support then yes, old versions of the application will still work and do the job for people who can not upgrade.

Office 2010 didnt need any features such as Direct2D so would be silly to block it from installing on XP just for the sake of it, which of course Microsoft didn't do

I do however think the computing world needs to move on from Windows XP where possible.

 

[Dark Scyth]

Windows 7s disorganised Control Panel

Though I can't completely remember how the control panel is in XP, I know for Windows 7 in the classic view its pretty much like XP and in alphabetical order (which I bellieve thats how XP is, maybe i'm wrong).

Though I do find it funny that multiple people say to drop support for XP, there are quite a few people that still use XP and if its easily possible to still add the support for XP, why get rid of XP support? Seems illogical to me.

 

[Titcher]

I'll have to check that on my laptop then. I didn't notice a classic control panel option before, but that should make network configuration a little easier, it was annoying going through 4 sections just to see my network adapters.

 

[Dark Scyth]

I'll have to check that on my laptop then. I didn't notice a classic control panel option before, but that should make network configuration a little easier, it was annoying going through 4 sections just to see my network adapters.

Vista also supports a classic view option, as soon as you go to the control panel look on the left side you'll see the classic option.

For Windows 7 its on the top.