False alarm over Windows support
deadline By Joris Evers Staff Writer, CNET
News.com
Published: January 12, 2006
Microsoft is making changes to its support
Web site in an attempt to clear up confusion over its plans for the consumer
editions of Windows XP.
Until Tuesday night, a posting on Microsoft's
Web site stated that support for Windows XP Home and Windows XP Media Center
Edition would end on Dec. 31, 2006. That would mean no more security fixes
or any other support items, such as warranty claims, for users of those
operating system products.
But the posting was incorrect, Ines Vargas,
a program manager at Microsoft, told CNET News.com. The Redmond, Wash.-based
software maker has now updated the online information to reflect that the
consumer Windows XP editions, along with XP Professional, will be supported
until two years after Vista ships, she said. Vista, the long-delayed next
update of Windows, is expected to arrive by the end of the year.
Microsoft support postings
"This was brought to our attention late last
week, and since then, we have worked diligently to make the change on the
site, which was effective Tuesday night," she said. "It was not a change
in support policy. It is reflective of the policy as we understand it."
Windows XP Professional, because it is a business
product, will get "extended support" for five additional years following
the expiration of mainstream support, which will come two years after Vista's
debut. In that extended period, Microsoft provides patches and several
paid support options.
Analysts said Microsoft may have faced a customer
revolt if Windows XP consumer support had expired by Dec. 31.
"In theory, you would have people buying computers
with XP Home in 2006, and it would immediately have to be upgraded," said
Paul DeGroot, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft. "There are also a
lot of consumers with older hardware who would have to buy a new computer
to be secure."
The support mix-up highlights the challenges
that Microsoft faces due to Vista's extended delay.
Microsoft has not released a full new version
of its desktop operating system since Windows XP debuted in October 2001.
A new Windows version was expected in 2004, but the work on Vista, then
known by its Longhorn codename, was bogged down by delays. In late 2004,
Microsoft scaled back its plans for Longhorn and promised a 2006 ship date.
"They have never taken so long to refresh a
client OS," DeGroot said.
Microsoft has faced criticism on support expiration
in the past. The company extended partial support for Windows 98, Windows
98 Second Edition and Windows Millennium Edition until June 30, 2006, after
complaints from users of the operating system software.
"Unpatched machines are a vulnerability to
Microsoft itself," DeGroot said. "If a bunch of machines are turned into
zombies by viruses, spyware or other obnoxious malicious software, and
they cause crashes or attacks on the Internet, guess who gets the blame:
it is Microsoft."
Microsoft is on the hook to continue to provide
security updates for quite some time, because if they don't, it just makes
them look bad, agreed Gartner analyst Michael Silver.
"They can't remove support from a product if
the installed base is too high."
Confusing policy
To clarify its support policy, Microsoft is
also revising other parts of its support Web site, Vargas said. In particular,
it is tweaking the "Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy FAQ," which could
be read to say that consumer software support ends after five years. That
reading would concur with the old support dates.
"Our policy, to be blunt and honest, is not
the most simple when you start applying it to different products," she
said. "We probably should be a little bit clearer here."
Microsoft in 2004 announced an updated support
policy that included a provision to cover a product until two years after
its successor is released. This policy, part of Microsoft's mainstream
support plan, would prevent a service gap between releases and give users
two years to upgrade.
This gap problem occurred mostly because Microsoft
is taking longer to release new versions of products, either intentionally
of because of delays, such as with Windows Vista.
Microsoft's support announcement in 2004 focused
on business and developer products. The software maker's lifecycle FAQ
appears to say that this provision does not apply to consumer, hardware
or business solutions products.
"We can see how it could me misinterpreted,"
Vargas said. "The policy applies to all products. We're applying it across
the board." Yet there are some exceptions, for example, for products that
are not being updated and for products that are refreshed more often, such
as Microsoft Money, Encarta and Streets & Trips, she said.
Microsoft is doing the right thing by continuing
support for all the XP editions, but it needs to take a look at its communications,
DeGroot said. "The communication was quite poor, and anyone reading their
documentation could not reasonably conclude that any consumer edition of
XP was going to be supported for two more years," he said. |