back to article Microsoft confirms IE9 will shun Windows XP

Microsoft has confirmed that Internet Explorer 9 will not support Windows XP. This is hardly a surprise, and it was implied by Microsoft's press materials, which said that the browser's platform preview requires Direct2D, an API available only with Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008. But just to lay the matter …

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  1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

    Oh damn

    Guess I'll have to upgrade. Oh wait...

  2. Daniel 1

    Yes, you'll have to upgrade

    Ten years ago, I had a Mac that dual booted into Classic.

    Today, I have a Mac that dual boots into Windows XP.

    One day, I will have a Mac that doesn't dual-boot into some crappy operating system, just so that I can test something.

    God rest you, Windows XP: you were a good old wagon, but you done broke down.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Alert

      No you will have....

      One day you will have a crappy mac that boots into its own crappy closed source OS.

      1. Bilgepipe
        Troll

        Bitter and Twisted

        "One day you will have a crappy mac that boots into its own crappy closed source OS."

        Now now, we know you want to stick with XP, just don't take it out on users of superior operating systems., there's a good boy. Or we'll tell your mum.

      2. bygjohn
        FAIL

        Erm, no...

        Yes the desktop etc of MacOS is proprietary, but it's built on top of an open source base: Darwin, which depending on who you read is either a BSD *nix or some other kernel (Mach?) with a BSD layer. Either way, open source, and Apple contribute open source code to it (hint: who wrote the CUPS printing system now used by most Linuxes?).

        So, nothing crappy about it (try using it, you'll see) and roughly 50% open source. How wrong do you want to be?

      3. Mad Hacker

        One day you will have a crappy mac that boots into its own crappy closed source OS.

        Yes, because Windows is SO open. Pot, meet kettle.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Happy

          Who said

          Who said I used Windows?

          Ubuntu for me!

  3. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Alert

    The cost of GPUness

    Does that mean IE's team haven't found a way to use any more CPU time so they've started to code bloat which targets the GPU?

    1. Adam Salisbury
      Headmaster

      No

      Now the bloat is merely balanced across CPU & GPU making it more diffcult for the average user to see the overhead!

  4. Glyn 2
    Coat

    Who cares?

    I'm still not going to upgrade from XP because W7 truly does suck. Oh I can't use IE9! Who cares? I'll use Firefox and actually be able to find files on my computer and not have to wait for an age while my computer decides if I'm allowed to copy a file until it does, then dies and kills both copies in different ways. And be able to position windows on my screen without them leaping about. And, and, and....

    Mine's the one with the still beating hearts of the people who designed the UI on this pile of dross in the pockets.

    1. Adam Salisbury

      Daaaamn

      Are you a bridge dweller or just someone who tried the RC on too crappy a machine?

    2. The Original Steve
      WTF?

      Title required

      For Gods sake... it's people like you who make me wish Microsoft didn't charge for their software just so you could actually try it... which obviously you haven't.

      A copy and paste from a Linux forum talking about Vista does you no credit.

      I can't even be bothered to reply to the vague and total bollocks "points" you make.

      1. Glyn 2
        FAIL

        title...pah

        I'm using it as I type, on my brand new works machine, that came with W7 preinstalled. I've been using it now for 9 months, on 3 seperate machines. I've never used Linux.

        Why does everyone who disagrees with the "W7 is worse than XP" point-of-view say that you've never used it or you're lying about what it does/doesn't do? I'm not making this stuff up, lifes too short. I'm sitting here with this OS and it makes my working day harder. Not in a list of major killing ways, in a death-by-a-thousand-cuts way.

        It's petty little stuff that snowballs together to make doing things harder. For example, in explorer the view folders button. In XP you want to hide the folder view for a second while you look at the file list shown, you click the folder button, do whatever you want to, then click the folder button and it's back. W7 has no folder button so you have to resize the window or the slide the vertical bar to the left, then move it back. Why take out something that's useful when there's plenty of space for it in that big empty bar at the top?

        And in the folder view, why does the expand/contract subfolder triangle disappear when you're not hovering over the list? What's the advantage in this over having it always visible?

        Why, if I've got a load of folders expanded so that the vertical scroll bar appears and I expand a folder does the screen scroll so that folder is at the bottom? So everytime I open a folder, I then have to scroll up? If it went to the top so you could see what subfolders there are, it would be annoying but would at least make sense, but going to the bottom of the window ????

        Little stuff but there's so much little stuff that it gathers together into a huge ball of hate.

        "well done, you've successfully managed to confuse yourself. The file copy delay was was Vista. It also sounds like you need to be booked into some week long training courses on mouse control too."

        We'll make no jokes about W7 being a vista service pack :-P

        No, I'm here on my new W7 preinstalled machine and copying files from it, to my new, formated by this very W7 machine, flash drive. Watch as I drag a textfile containing the word "hello" from my desktop to the explorer window of my flash drive. Watch it think about it. Watch it think about it. Watch it decide that I'm allowed to...this time.

        Other times it'll pop up the "can't move" box so I can "Try again" on a notepad file I haven't opened today. What's stopping it? Who knows? And then there's the "permission denied" box that will randomly pop up. I don't have permission to copy the file or move it. 10 minutes later it'll be fine but right here, right now. No, I'm not allowed.

        And what's mouse control got to do with it?

        "I don't know what pile-o-crap you were testing the RC on, but I've been soak testing 7 on a few machines round here for a while now, and found it to be pretty much bullet-proof. I was particularly impressed with its tenacity, when it successfully booted on a machine with multiple hardware failiures, and then attempted an auto-repair. Obviously, software can't pick up a screwdriver and swap-out a motherboard, but it tried its best, bless."

        3 machines, 1 a vista ready PC, 2 W7 PCs and while it hasn't BSOD on me yet as Vista was want to do and while it's nice that it'll try to fix itself, I feel that when I open an explorer window, it should open, not open then hang while it does...whatever it's doing.

        "But this means nothing to you. You're a User. If cars were software, you'd be asking "well, they can go forwards and backwards, it should be a simple enough process to make the go up and down too". I personally love the UAC. It's a kick up the arse for developers who still write their software for single user environments with full admin rights."

        Of course I'm a user (sorry "User" with a capital "U" we are using it as a term of abuse aren't we) of the operating system as is everyone else who has it installed. And if I buy a car I expect that when I ask it to go forwards, it does it. I'm not expecting it to go up or indeed down. I'm expecting it to go forwards/backwards/round corners. True, the wheels don't randomly fall off like in the vista-mobile but when I turn the wheel left I'd appreciate the car turning left rather than waiting or turning right.

        Anyone who wants to come and try any of the W7 machines at the places I've used them, feel free. This isn't trolling, this is the User (abusive "U") experience

        1. Alan W. Rateliff, II
          Paris Hilton

          Directory Opus to the rescue

          I have used Windows 7 and Server 2008 (original and R2 flavors) on very well-spec'd machines, and I have found the new Windows Explorer to be unfriendly and cumbersome. As stated, it lumbers on copies, and deletes for that matter -- for the most part, starting with Windows XP, I found it much quicker to issue a rmdir /q /s to delete folders with a lot of files.

          But a good Explorer replacement exists, and it is called Directory Opus. It has its roots in Amiga culture and continues to be a absolutely wonderful tool, especially in the age of Windows Explorer circa Vista and 7.

          Paris, rooted in something.

    3. Rusk
      WTF?

      What?

      Have you actually used Win 7 or Vista and thought it was 7...Win 7 is the best thing since XP and them some. It beats XP hands down in several areas in my books.

      Also the snapping feature while moving windows only come into play when you go to the extremes of the windows edges so you must be just throwing windows around.

      I will stick to my guns on saying Win 7 is one of the best OS platforms I have used and I have used most of them since Win 3.1.

      1. Glyn 2
        Big Brother

        Don't snap

        Moving/resizing a window within an inch of the edge of the screen snaps the window to that edge, it's not about throwing them around, it's about moving a window and then it jumps to fill half the screen. Either that or you've got an inch wide no-go zone around the edge of your monitor.

        The windows key + right/left arrow was nice, shame you can't have that on, while having the snap feature turned off. It's the designers saying, these are our toys and you'll play with them the way we want you to or we'll take our toys and go home. <stampy sulk>

        Same with the search box on the start menu. You can stop it doing a search, but it's still there but does nothing. The only way to remove it altogether is to turn off search all together, so you can't search for anything, which isn't particularly helpful.

        Like the grouping of items on the task bar. You can move them around which is nice, but it groups instances of a program together and you can't order those instances around. I depressingly frequently have to work on 3 sites at a time, with 3 copies of visual studio and 3 ftp programs open and where I'd like to have to be able to group them so :-

        VS for site a, ftp for site a, VS for site b, ftp for site b, VS for site c, ftp for site c

        it lumps the vs and ftp buttons together. Why not group on open, but allow you to move where you want. The code is almost there in the OS to do it, just seperate the instances.

  5. Richard Porter

    Am I bovvered?

    Not really.

  6. nigel 15
    Thumb Up

    play with the demo

    http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Default.html

    you can install a preview. it looks good.

    GPU FTW!

  7. mittfh
    Grenade

    Acid3

    Bet it will still perform abysmally in the Acid3 test - and even worse when Acid4 eventually arrives...

    ...unlike almost every other rival it has (including the mobile browsers!)

    1. huxleypig

      Shocked..not really

      Latest browser not designed to run on 9 year old operating system.

      and ?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why the surprise?

    I'm no lover of Microsofts, but why do so many people seem to be surprised or indeed offended that MS are not coding new apps to run on a nine year old OS? How much of Apple's new output will run on OS X 10.0?

    1. Poor Coco
      Pint

      OSX 10.0 ≠ XP

      There are some major flaws in that argument. OSX 10.0 was the first BSD-based Mac OS ever, and for a lot of users it wasn't there yet. XP, in contrast, was the most popular Windows NT family member, where the line arguably reached its peak (although personally I preferred Windows 2000 in many ways).

      I never used OS X much before 10.3, and I have used Macs since 1984 and Linux since 1999. I also have a bit of experience with OpenBSD, AIX and Solaris, so Unix hasn't scared me off in a long time.

      The base of OS X is strong and mature. The higher-level and higher-tech stuff on top are less so, and so they are a source of trouble. But this is much worse in Windows, which grew for so long without a formal architecture that it's profoundly messed up on a lot of levels. I honestly don't think there is one person that really understands Windows. This of course is pure speculation, but I don't think it's an unfounded statement.

      Now, as far as Apple "leaving users behind", on my Mac Mini at home I am still running 10.4, and there is in fact a great deal of software that runs perfectly well. Not 100%, but pretty good for a system installed in 2006 and used every day.

      Happy St. Pat's. Cheers!

    2. Goat Jam
      FAIL

      A 9 year old OS . . .

      . . . which MS was actively selling up until only a few months ago.

      I myself have a Nettop which is less than a year old which was supplied with XP (It now has Ubuntu on it).

      If you want to throw around the "9 year old OS" argument it helps if you haven't been actively selling that "9 year old OS" up until the very recent past.

      As far as I'm concerned, if I purchased that OS 6 months ago, it is a "6 Month old OS"

  9. P Zero
    Coat

    About time

    Windows XP had it's day in the sun, time to take it out back and get on with your lives.

    1. Bilgepipe

      XP is the preferred choice

      The problem with taking Windows XP out back and shooting it is that MS have yet to produce a worthy successor. The jury's still out on the long-term uptake of Win7, and in the meantime people will stick with XP.

  10. tempemeaty
    Big Brother

    Leverage and tracking.

    It was a great way to leverage w2k users out of that OS. Now the same with Win XP. MS needs your data for their Trusted Partners and Win XP just doesn't collect it like Vista and W7 does. No I don't want big brother tracking my computer activities. For those who don't know google it. Your being tracked when you use Vista and W7. MS can stuff it. Have fun with IE9 on your fully tracked and monitored OS.

  11. David McMahon
    Unhappy

    R.I.P

    I copy and paste data from my customer PC's so my backup PC has to be able to find files without using indexing!

    I could install Agent ransack on Windows ME V2 or 3 but what's the point, I will use XP until the security updates stop coming!

    There's probably a Linux distro just for what I do so will investigate

    Or of course I could install a non MS Browser!

    Other big thing that annoys me is Vista SP2 can't be slipstreamed!

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Time to upgrade

    I've been running XP (MediaCenter edition) for years. I guess the time is soon coming where I need to upgrade. And it will be to some Linux distro or other (assuming they fix multi-head support*) and something like Myth.

    Failing that it'll a new PC to act as a media server/client and get that to run a Linux.

    I've simply had enough of MS.

    *By "fix" I mean "get it to behave the way I expect" rather than that virtual-desktop scrolling about shite. What, me egocentric?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Sticking with XP + None MS Addons

    I've just "downgraded" my new PC from Windows 7 HP to XP because I don't like 7 (I decided not to upgrade another to Vista when given the option), XP is much cleaner and slicker IMHO and I know how to do everything I need to and it interoperates more easily with other XP machines.

    I played with XP in a Virtual Machine (VMWare Player becuase MS VPC Wont work with 7HP) on 7 first but decided I hated 7 enough to stick with XP fully. I might run 7 in a VM on XP, but at the end of the day if IE9 wont work on XP (just like MS VM wont work on 7HP), there are plenty of other options that will. All MS might end up doing is forcing people to use non-MS stuff instead.

    I'm not a PC and just want an OS that works without too many bells and whistles.

  14. Alastair 7

    Interesting how...

    Firefox made big woop about dropping support for 10.4, and it was widely accepted as a sensible move. MS does something similar and they're evil.

    It's a nine year old OS. The world needs to move on.

    1. ThomH

      Could be an Apple/Microsoft distinction?

      You know, with Apple having a historical willingness to switch hardware architectures and aggressively dump old APIs and OSs, possibly it just doesn't look as bad when someone says that supporting a five year-old Apple OS is a lot of effort as it does when they say that supporting a near-decade old Microsoft OS is a lot of effort?

    2. Mad Hacker

      Microsoft hasn't released a better OS since XP

      Yeah but I think most people agree, we are still waiting for MS to release an upgraded OS over XP. Most people don't feel like moving from XP to Vista or 7 because it's questionable whether it's even an upgrade. I don't know anyone who is clinging to 10.0 because they don't feel 10.5 offered anything worthwhile to them.

  15. NoDosh
    FAIL

    And to all you who bought a netbook

    for web browsing and found that the unholy alliance dictated you have XP, we'd just like to wish you all the best and a gret big f*** you. No really, we love you guys. Look, stop bothering us for spare change or we'll call the cops.

  16. DarrDarr

    Poor comprehension levels

    Read it again. XP SP2 and higher (current is SP3) has the required Direct2D support.

    If you're really running the original XP or XP SP1, then you don't have the ability to do WiFi or WPA2, either.

    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: Poor comprehension levels

      Read what again? Neither El Reg's article nor Mary-Jo's actually mentions XPsp2.

      I hope you are correct, though, since I'm one of the many who prefer XP on functional and aesthetic grounds to the crud MS have shipped since then.

    2. Peter Kay
      Thumb Down

      No it doesn't

      Your own comprehension needs assessing :

      http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd370990%28VS.85%29.aspx

      It's built on DX10.1. 10.1 is not available for XP, ergo, no Direct2D.

  17. Psymon
    Troll

    the trolls are quick this morning

    @ Glyn 2

    well done, you've successfully managed to confuse yourself. The file copy delay was was Vista. It also sounds like you need to be booked into some week long training courses on mouse control too.

    I don't know what pile-o-crap you were testing the RC on, but I've been soak testing 7 on a few machines round here for a while now, and found it to be pretty much bullet-proof.

    I was particularly impressed with its tenacity, when it successfully booted on a machine with multiple hardware failiures, and then attempted an auto-repair. Obviously, software can't pick up a screwdriver and swap-out a motherboard, but it tried its best, bless.

    XP has more than had its day. The HAL, video and audio architecture have been tweaked til their eyes water. It's time someone noticed the buzzards have started feeding on its equine corpse, and put down the whip.

    As for Firefox, I've said this time and time (and time) again. Yes, as a simple user with no concept of underlying architecture, software compliance, or best practice, it's great. I even use it myself at home (sandboxed, naturally)

    As a profesional who's job it is to ensure a stable, secure and reliable working environment, I cannot begin to express the horrors of what it does (and doesn't do) under the bonnet. This is why no large corporation has adopted it. Frankly there's a total lack of professionalism in its design.

    But this means nothing to you. You're a User. If cars were software, you'd be asking "well, they can go forwards and backwards, it should be a simple enough process to make the go up and down too". I personally love the UAC. It's a kick up the arse for developers who still write their software for single user environments with full admin rights.

    The new architecture in 7 and DX11 is going to be a shot in the arm for the PC games industry, who have been languishing under the XP shackles for too long.

    1. Gary 23
      WTF?

      Please enlighten....

      What exactly does it and doesn't it do beneath the bonnet?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      eep?

      >As a profesional who's job it is to ensure a stable, secure and reliable working environment

      Oooh, that's a bit of an oxymoron. A real professional trying to ensure such an environment would not be using Windows.

      Yes, even 7 - my lot just finished their stability, performance and security testing and the conclusion was "not fit for purpose on all counts" (although, it gave XP a thorough kicking on security).

      Mine's the one with a Puppy in the pocket.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Psymon

      "I don't know what pile-o-crap you were testing the RC on"

      I love how every time someone has a bad experience with Windows, you Wintards put it down to their computer being a "pile-o-crap".

      It couldn't possibly be that your bloated pile-o-crap operating system is constantly executing millions of lines of code written for no reason other than to keep NTs dying architecture alive year after gruesome year.

      Every time Microsoft comes up with some new bloat, you will dutifully stick your hand in your pocket and cough up for some more RAM, a faster CPU, bigger Hard Drive. You wouldn't want Microsoft's built in benchmark app to shame you into thinking your system is a pile-o-crap! Your friend might think you're uncool and then he won't invite you to his next Windows 7 launch party.

      A fool and his money are easily parted.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I see what you did there with that Troll title which was actually about you.

      "I personally love the UAC. It's a kick up the arse for developers who still write their software for single user environments with full admin rights."

      No, it's a work around for the refusal to properly kick those developers up the arse in the first place.

  18. Simon B
    Happy

    Just move to firefox, problem solved!

    Even more reason for IEers to move to Firefox or other browsers! :)

  19. Tristan Young
    FAIL

    IE9 won't play nice with XP

    This is why Microsoft is becoming irrelevant.

    Evolution is generally a good thing, and I'm all for it. I love running newer, better software systems.

    Unfortunately, this means a large swath of the internet population will be running out-of-date browsers (again). So many people are happy with XP, and have no roadmap to upgrade. With the reliability of computers, we could be seeing people forced to upgrade what - 5 to 10 years down the road. When all you do is watch Youtube videos, visit facebook, write a few letters, send email, and download government forms, upgrading your PC is usually not on your to-do list.

    Thankfully I've upgraded most of the people I know to Firefox. That being said, even Firefox runs the risk of dropping support for XP, although I expect this won't happen for at least 5 years - considering XP is a rather large install base - it would be like dropping all support for gasoline cars when electric cars are produced and purchased by the masses.

    I don't think Microsoft is making any friends with IE9 - I can't even figure out how Microsoft feels their product is relevant to people anymore. With Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera, there is healthy standards-compliant competition already (well, except for adopting a single video codec).

    Users have pretty much given up on Internet Explorer. When was the last time I saw Internet Explorer? Hmmm, a long, LONG time ago. With the IE8 Frankenbrowser, I thought Microsoft would finally admit defeat, throw in the towel, and get back to innovating. Obviously Microsoft feels they still can do better than everyone else - how many versions will it take to gain back the trust that was lost from nearly a decade of ignorance?

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    Aggh

    FFS the MS shills are out in force.... as someone once said, "Arguing on the Internet is like running in the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you’re still retarded."... so here's my contribution.

    XP may have been around 9 years, but it's not 9 years old. It was sold pre-installed on new machines last year.

    Firefox in a sandbox but not IE... what the hell is that guy smoking. Firefox pi**ses on IE in terms of security (and just about everything else).

    They guy that comments on the Windows 7 interface... valid comments. Also, WTF did MS make the quicklaunch so hard to add.

    So it is a dilemma... As far as I'm concerned the Windows 7 interface (and that's really all an OS is these days) is a convoluted mess which I can't be bothered with. I've just bought a Mac as a desktop, but I much prefer my Thinkpad (+trackpoint) laptop. Linux is great (IMHO the only real option) on servers but I've never found Gnome/KDE give me the stability that even XP has as a GUI....

    So... Stick with XP, buy a Mac I don't really want or spend some more time fiddling with the Linux desktop... I think I'll stick with XP/Firefox for now. Maybe in a year Gnome/KDE/ChromeOS will be sorted or OS X become available (as a valid licence) for other hardware (one can hope).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      Last year?

      I'm about to place an order for a new Core2Duo machine - with XP pre-installed.

  21. WHO

    No IE

    What is IE? Who cares if it is IE7, IE8 or IE9, I won't be using it. Firefox is and has been my browser of choice.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    what's this?

    outsourcing the browsers rendering functions to code contained within the operating system?

    Microsoft really haven't learned anything have they? Can't wait for the inevitable "Direct2D vuln = a million pwned Wintards" story.

  23. gerryg
    Linux

    Try escaping from the hamster wheel?

    This is a risk-free opportunity to try a modern Linux distro. You are planning to replace your OS, so why not take a sideways step first?

    If you don't like it, you can carry on as before. It won't cost you anything to try.

  24. Andy Livingstone

    Ho, hum

    " This is hardly a surprise " So it's a slow news day is it?

  25. Psymon
    Grenade

    @ Gary 23 - glad you asked, my spleen was getting bloated.

    Well, aside from the long standing issues with security certificate support, FF is a petulant, unmanageable child.

    A prime example out of the many bad behaviors , the self update is an executable that writes directly back to its' own program folder.

    No, no, no!

    If you want access to protected folders such as this, you need to have the executable installed as a Service running as Local Service User. I'm not talking 7 or even Vista here, these are rules that laid down for 2k and XP, this is one of the many reasons you run your XP as an admin, essentially turning off any and all security.

    You try running as a limited user (just like Linux, the way 2K and XP were designed to be run) and see how long it takes for your software to break.

    What astounds me is that developers have had ten years to read a whitepaper on this, and still, Mozilla, among many others, continue to flout rules that force end users to open vulnerabilities in their system.

    Then you have configuration. FF stores its settings in a config file per user in a local setting profile folder when they should be located in the registry.

    And why is this important? Three words. Group Policy Management. If your software stores its settings in the registry, Your friendly neighborhood sysadmin con configure it centrally.

    This is no small matter. THIS is the real reason corporations won't adopt it. What? You want me to run over to a computer and configure its proxy settings everytime a new user logs in? I should Coco!

    A small group called FrontMotion did try to address this extremely serious issue by creating a custom GP manageble version. Problem is, because it's modified, you can't apply security updates. Kinda important in an internet facing program. Again, since you can’t centrally manage and monitor updates, FF just presents a big black unknown hole when it comes to ensuring all your machines are fully patched.

    I could go on…

    Yes it’s extra work, but writing good code always is, and if you don’t like these windows rules and protocols, THEN DON’T WRITE FOR THE WINDOWS PLATFORM.

    This is why the UAC is such a good idea. It’s there to name and shame all the bad habits developers have been using for years, and give you a tiny little glimpse into the blood sweat and tears we sysadmins have spent in procmon watching some crappy little utility written by some crappy little programmer stomp all over our nice neat OS, because you asked us to make it work.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Yeah right

      ...which is why Firefox is installed as standard on all IBM corporate laptops that their staff use.

      Me thinks the poster doth protest too much!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      UAC

      Once upon a time I got a new laptop. This was several years ago and I'm using it right now. When I switched it on for the first time I was asked to give Windows XP a username for the new Admin account that I would be using. The dangers of this were not explained or even hinted at. Having had no computer of any kind for many years prior to that and basically no clue I went ahead and logged in every time as an Administrator, as intended.

      As intended. By Microsoft.

      Microsoft saw the cliff and lovingly, nurturingly guided me straight off it. Why? Because many of these developers with bad habits build software only for Windows and cause people who purchase and use that software to become dependent on Windows. Given the choice between my system being compromised and my user experience with that other software being difficult there was no contest.

      So the valuable developers with the bad habits saw no reason to change, and this went on for many years until MS came up with UAC. UAC is a way of making the valuable software written by the valuable developers with the bad habits work slightly more safely, and it does so by making the user stop and manually allow or deny certain actions. In other words part of MS' way of sucking up to these crappy developers is to make the user work for them.

      When you sped hours in procmon watching some crappy little utility written by some crappy little programmer stomp all over your nice neat OS (neat - really?) it is because the developer of that OS has been sucking the dicks of several crappy little programmers for a long time.

      I don't believe, like so many here, that MS is incompetent. It knows exactly what it's doing.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    the shame of it! - where's the Linux angle gerryg?

    I'm writing to my MP:

    "Dear MP, this XP ie9 thing, what you gonna do about it? eh?"

    unseriously though, at this point, anyone saying:

    "Try Linux"

    needs to be taken outside and dispatched with immediately.

    Better still, they need to have thier genitals coated with sardines and thrown to a hungry pack of Gentoo's (that'll be you, gerryg)

    This topic is about internet explorer and windows. It is not about Linux. There's not even one mention of a penguin.

    Yes, we know there's a risk-free opportunity to try a modern Linux distro, to which most non-geeky joe the plumber & wifey public would greet with "Eh?, I want windoze 'cos that's what I know is best"

    The semi-geeky john the artist & fruitcake actor boyfriend public would greet this with "But why would I use anything other than a Mac, daaahling?"

    If you persist in badgering them (or would that be penguining them?), they'll probably dress you as a tasty crustacean and throw you to starving Emperor penguins in the depths of the Antartic winter! (That would probably be you gerryg)

    What has this to do with ie9 and XP?

    About as much as it has to do with Linux, gerryg

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. blackworx
      Coat

      Antarctic, spelt thus

      That is all.

      Mine's the one with a post-it saying "I have no mates, please kick me hard" stuck to the back.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    I don't wish to seem pedantic

    Internet Explorer 9 doesn't support Windows XP?

    Isn't IE9 an application?

    Wouldn't it be correct therefore to say 'XP doesn't (or may not) support IE9?'

    Older operating system does not support newer application shock.

    Is that why IE6 is still the most widely used version of IE?

    Go and get on with some work.

  28. This post has been deleted by its author

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Halo

    Windows 7 FTW

    I have been using Windows 7 since the beta stages. And I love EVERYTHING about it. I love the beautiful UI. Not just because of its pretty looks, but because they make tasks much easier. Little things like the Breadcrumb Bar in Windows Explorer works like a charm and saves many clicks.

    I have my whole hard drive indexed and using Windows 7's search I can find any file on my computer within a fraction of a second.

    Then there is the great security. With Windows 7 and MSE I have never had any trouble with malwares.

    Overall, Windows 7 rocks and XP sucks balls. XP is fugly, insecure and unusable. I guess the Linux fanboys prefer XP because they are afraid of Windows 7 being a thousand times better than any Linux distro.

    I can't wait for a beta release of IE9. It should be great with all those added features. XP and IE6 is dead as a dodo.

    1. Lee Dowling Silver badge
      WTF?

      Stop the hyperbole.

      "I have been using Windows 7 since the beta stages."

      So just over a year then? In my business, that means we can't possibly know enough about it to risk deploying it. Not to mention retraining budgets, etc. I could also comment on how your first thought is the beautiful UI, not the advanced features, but I won't. Windows 7 actually has some nice features - shame they've been bundled with a shedload of stuff that we *don't* want (that's my main criteria for an OS... how much does it have that I *don't* want).

      "Little things like the Breadcrumb Bar in Windows Explorer works like a charm and saves many clicks."

      *cough* Try *any* file explorer in Linux for about the last 5 years. The wiki article on breadcrumb nagivation even uses Nautilus as an example, and Vista had something very, very similar. That's not a reason to upgrade an OS.

      "I have my whole hard drive indexed and using Windows 7's search I can find any file on my computer within a fraction of a second."

      *cough* slocate *cough*. Except that doesn't interfere with the usage of my computer at all and I can do *insane* narrowing down, plus it works properly with multi-user security setups. And that utility (or it's equivalents) has been around since... god knows when. Probably 1994, if not earlier, as part of GNU findutils. Feel the joy over MS scrapping their old, crappy search method (equivalent to "find" on Linux) and reimplementing one that other OS's have been using for over a decade and a half?

      "Then there is the great security. With Windows 7 and MSE I have never had any trouble with malwares."

      Good for you. It's hardly foolproof though... hell, the frontpage of the Register listed nearly a dozen ways to break Windows when I looked at it last (though you would have to read through the articles to find most of them, because they get lumped into single articles). I don't claim any other OS is any "better", but the new "security" is nothing to write home about on Windows either.

      "XP is fugly, insecure and unusable."

      I agree with you on that sentence up until that last point. And that's precisely the problem... I can't even bring myself to use Windows 7 because I can feel the lost productivity with every click.

      "I guess the Linux fanboys prefer XP because they are afraid of Windows 7 being a thousand times better than any Linux distro."

      Or they're just laughing at what you base your OS decisions on, i.e. UI elements that have been present for *years*, and work much better on other OS's, functions for which superior versions have existed for over a decade, etc. Or functions which could be (and were) added to an average Linux distro in the time it took for Windows 7 beta's to be finalised. Or which do precisely zip compared to just different, simpler, less "showy" ways of doing stuff.

      Stop the hyperbole. Nobody really cares if you're happy with Windows 7, especially if you're reasoning is so unresearched.

      And nobody "serious" is going to be using IE of *any* version for a long, long, long time - a DirectX dependency for IE9 is just the most ridiculous thing I've heard of in ages.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Gates Halo

        RE: Stop the hyperbole.

        "So just over a year then? In my business, that means we can't possibly know enough about it to risk deploying it."

        But millions of customers have been using it for months and they say it's the most stable Windows release ever. Windows 7 RTM is a lot more stable than XP SP3. Unlike the latter Win7 has never crashed on me, ever.

        "Breadcrumbs are not a reason to upgrade an OS."

        Of course they are not. It's just one of many many small things which collectively make a strong reason to upgrade. I have only mentioned about the breadcrumbs, but there are Libraries, Taskbar features like Jump Lists, Tab previews, Aero Peek, Aero Snap (it's incredibly useful for editing two documents side-by-side), Action Center and so on. If you know how to use these features you start to appreciate their value. If you try to make Windows 7 like XP, only then you will face a loss of productivity.

        "Except that doesn't interfere with the usage of my computer at all and I can do *insane* narrowing down, plus it works properly with multi-user security setups."

        I think you are saying this because you haven't ever used this search feature. It improves productivity by a long way. It can find files within a second without having to browse through folders. I find myself using the Windows Explorer less and less these days in favor of the Start Menu Search. Plus you can find anything in the Control Panel using this feature. Wanna change the screen resolution? Just type "resolution" in the search box and immediately you get a link to change the screen resolution.

        "I don't claim any other OS is any "better", but the new "security" is nothing to write home about on Windows either."

        Windows 7's security is infinitely better than XP's security and it's one of the most compelling reasons to upgrade.

        "I can't even bring myself to use Windows 7 because I can feel the lost productivity with every click."

        That's because you don't know the right way to use Windows 7. Instead you try to do things in the XP way. Learn to use Windows 7's features and you will notice a huge improvement in productivity.

        "Or which do precisely zip compared to just different, simpler, less "showy" ways of doing stuff."

        Well, I use Ubuntu 9.10 side-by-side with Windows 7 and I can safely say Ubuntu is by no means simpler or more productive. It seems like a downgrade from Windows 7. I'm talking about the default features not third party tools. Where is the search functionality like Windows 7? Why is the UI so old-fashioned? Why do I have to "sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces" every time to get my broadband to work? Why does the file explorer look like it's from ten years ago?

        Ubuntu may be good enough for people who like XP, but it's not for me.

        "And nobody "serious" is going to be using IE of *any* version for a long, long, long time."

        Again that shows your closed-mindedness. Sure, at the moment I'm using Google Chrome as I like its simple UI and responsiveness. But IE9 will probably be good enough to bring me back to IE. I'm just waiting for the UI to arrive.

        1. Glyn 2
          Gates Halo

          memories, like the corners of my mind

          "I think you are saying this because you haven't ever used this search feature. It improves productivity by a long way. It can find files within a second without having to browse through folders. I find myself using the Windows Explorer less and less these days in favor of the Start Menu Search. Plus you can find anything in the Control Panel using this feature. Wanna change the screen resolution? Just type "resolution" in the search box and immediately you get a link to change the screen resolution."

          There's been a running joke for years from a lot of MS fanbois laughing at the fact that mac users were all idiots because they stored things all over the place and used the search to find anything as opposed to putting their stuff in a logical structure. Congratulations Microsoft, you've finally succeeded in making your fans hate themselves :-)

          Want to change the resolution? Press Windows key, S, C which opens the control panel, then click on display. What's so hard about that?

          Libraries, yay, the photo's of me on holiday are in the same place as the button images for the sites I'm working on. Progress???

          AeroPeek a badly skewed image that let's you see that it *is* a window, but not what's on it and that eats into your PCs capacity, so something that's marginally just about as useful as alt+tab but runs slower because of the overhead it has.

          Similarly Tab previews are small and worthless if you've got 2 things which are vaguely similar, like 2 word documents.

          If you've got 2 web browsers open and ones of a red site and ones a blue site then yes, handy. If you're in the more likely scenario of 2 applications with similar content, then...notsomuch!!!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      slurp slurp ;)

      enough with the brown nosing already :)

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      I have a suggestion.

      Stick to wanking.

    4. Glyn 2
      WTF?

      hmm

      The beautiful UI that's the same as XP but with bigger edges and rounder corners? And the semi-transparent background so you can see through to the windows below which if it's cluttered, makes trying to read the top bar of the top window difficult. It's time to take out shares in specsavers because that's going to cause eyesight problems down the line.

      Yes, they really went all out to leave XP's interface behind, "Forget XPs thin grey windows, now Windows comes in slightly wider blueygrey" Woo and hoo

      And the address bar...which doesn't show you the full path if your window isn't full screen and you're more than 4 folders deep. So you know you're in a folder, but where are you exactly. To find that out you've got to click on the address bar...if there was space to click on it because there's no room, so it's just thrown you up 2 levels because you missed with your mouse. And the mouse-sniper game which is the dropdown on the breadcrumb that takes you to folders at that level (the same mouse-sniper game which is trying to turn off the computer, click start, then try to click the little dropdown without clicking whatever you've set as default). It'd be easier if there was a demarcation seperator between the button and the dropdown but no, you've kinda got to guess where one starts and t'other ends.

      The "up level" button was simple to use and most importantly, never moved. You click on the breadcrumb trail when you can't see all of it and everything moves to the right, so then you've got to find the next level. Or you can hover over "up" and press it as and when you like without moving. Want to find the desktop when you're searching. Thump up a half a dozen times and you're there.

      I ran the index on the last W7 PC I had, I left the index running over the weekend on a machine with pretty much nothing on it but the operating system. 3 days later...it was still running and sat in the background churning away for the entire time I had it. And were the searches any faster...no. After 2 months, it still dragged when searching and was still builiding the index.

      If you go into a folder in the search results, and then go back, it starts the whole search off again, slowly, from the beginning. XP remembers the search results, so I can go back to the results and go in the next one without having to wait while it rebuilds the list. If I want to re-search I can click the button to start the search off again.

      From a usage point of view, I'm more likely, when searching, to want to look at a number of files/folders which match a criteria than to look at each one individually, then do another re-search to see if anything has been added in the 5 seconds since I looked at the first file/folder. Especially if the search results are ordered in a different way each time, so before I can use the results I have to order them which, yes, you've guessed it, kicks off the search AGAIN this time putting the them in order.

      Yes, I could go on that advanced mouse training course, Mr Miyagi and Yoda could get together and teach me the inner Zen of mouse clicking...or MS could practice what they preach on their courses and make things easy to use, reusing what you can (processing and searchingly speaking), customisable and logical.

      The design of W7 would fail any software course (MS or other) I've ever been on or heard about.

      I never had trouble with malware on XP ever...anti-virus software anyone?

  30. Brent Beach

    MS drops support for 1 year old OS

    I bought an Acer Aspire One 6 months ago which came with XP installed. So MS is dropping support for an OS they sold 6 months ago. Not that I use IE, having using FF since it replaced Mozilla. The MS argument that the new IE must use Direct2D that must use the GPU makes as much sense as their original argument that the OS must have IE. It is a lie. The number of changes in IE required to work without Direct2D would certainly be within the capability of MS. Marketing made this decision.

  31. blackworx
    Pint

    If IE8 is anything to go by...

    Then this is no great loss to all us XP holdouts.

    I'm with Glyn2 on the death-by-a-thousand-cuts nature of the W7/Vista SP2 interface and unexplained pauses. When something that took one click in XP now takes three, or when simplified UI "features" can't be turned off, there's only one word to describe it: stupid.

  32. David Pickering
    Thumb Down

    never use that crud anyway

    will make making developing ie/html5 supporting websites a pita tho.

  33. MinionZero
    Pint

    Oh thats bad news, I have XP and they won't let me use IE9 ;(

    Oh well, I'll just have to keep using Firefox then. ;)

    Ironically the more they fail to support XP, the more XP is getting extended life and support from open source software. Which in the long run is good news for Linux as more people get familiar with these open source alternatives and so the transition to Linux becomes easier for more people.

    But then Microsoft very evidently want to force people away from XP, but in doing so, they risk pushing more people onto Linux as they try to kill off XP.

  34. sisk

    We'll be stuck for a while

    My place of work just upgraded to XP less than a year ago (yeah, scarey, I know). Until last month we were getting rid of IE6 through attrition, but someone finally convinced the powers that be that it was time to ditch it. To my knowledge I'm the only one here running IE8, and that's only for testing websites. Frankly I don't expect to see Windows 7 here for another 5 years or so at least....Probably about the time Windows 9 is coming out.

    Incidently, in response to a couple of anonymous cowards who posted earlier:

    1) IE6 is FAR from the most common IE out there now. It accounts for about 20% of our traffic, compared to 51% for IE7. Granted you're not going to find our website on a top 100,000 sites list, but we get diverse enough traffic that I think that's probably a fair reflection of what's out there.

    2) Speaking as a Linux geek, I don't fear Windows 7. I still wouldn't willingly use it, but I gladly recommend it to others. A lot of the GUI features that everyone seems to love in it just drive me nuts. Isn't personal preference great? And what's with the Microsoft ad anyway? Seriously you sound like a TV commercial.

  35. Keith Doyle
    Coffee/keyboard

    Nice to know

    That Microsoft's Windows 7 has finally made it to the advanced world of the 1980s with the "modern graphics" of a 2D API.

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Troll

    Shameless trolling

    Ah noes....no IE9 for me. I'm so sad :(((

    I'm a bit at loss about WHAT exactly they want to achieve? Fanboys and/or somewhat early adopters and/or rich people (...or just peoplet that wanted it) already have W7, die-hard XP users won't definitely care about IE (not until they sent the black helicopters and BlackOps), the old or stupid and/or conservative and/or government people won't care either.... Sooo? Or do they really expect me to burst in tears, bow before 'em and go buy 99 copies of W7 after that?

  37. andrew mulcock

    And for MS update

    So when will MS update only work on IE9 or above ?

    that will kill XP fast ,

  38. Mark Land

    Lame Excuse

    So Firefox/Chrome/Opera runs on Windows X, Apple, Linux and IE9 doesn't run on all Windows. Maybe MS should ask Opera and Mozilla how to make their browser run on XP, what a lame excuse. I am willing to bet, Opera or Chrome running on my old Celeron Ubuntu laptop will outperform IE9 on a dual core Win7 machine. DirectX lol

  39. passionate indifference
    Megaphone

    too much hating going on here

    it's fairly clear to all that in the World of IT, people tend to be rather resistant to change

    The main advantage to upgrading to IE9 is the additional support for GPU hardware acceleration in images and video, that will be particularly useful in displaying video for HTML5.

    Thing is, I'm not sure this is particularly relevant to most people:

    - HTML5 isn't going to be widespread for some time - some say as far away as 2022

    - date for EOL of IE7 on XP SP3 is July 2012 (if I can read the ms eol pages correctly)

    - date for EOL of IE8 hasn't been set yet but is years away

    - the people running Windows XP with competent GPUs are very much in a minority - most graphics-intensive applications tend to run faster in Windows 7

    You really don't have to upgrade to IE9. There's no penalty for staying with IE7 or 8. If IE's not your cup of tea, there's plenty of other browsers - and a change is as good as an upgrade.

    Does this warrant the amount of hate going on in this thread?

    1. Glyn 2
      Megaphone

      bwa ha ha

      "it's fairly clear to all that in the World of IT, people tend to be rather resistant to change"

      No, in the World of IT, people are resistant to garbage, backed up with a glossy advertising campaign being palmed off on us as a radical change into the greatest thing in the universe and if you don't rush out to buy it the bogey man will break into it and steal your souuuuuuuulllllll.

      W7 is not radically different, it's just another iteration of windows 95, with a slightly larger padlock, more blue in the colour scheme and some useful accoutrements taken away for no reason.

      When the first thing we got shown in the demo from the MS salesman was that the mouse pointer reflects on the taskbar...a billion $$$ in development and the first thing you show us is a white pointer shadow instead of the usual black one...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

      "Does this warrant the amount of hate going on in this thread?"

      The hate is reserved for the people who think that anyone who doesn't love W7 must :-

      - not have a 1337 PC

      - is stupid

      - is lying

      - is a technological luddite

      - be a Linux or Mac lover

      If Microsoft made a new OS I liked, I'd like it, not hate it just because it's M$ or because it's new. As it is, they've failed to make something, I and many others think is nothing special

      Look again, the Emperor is naked.

  40. passionate indifference
    Troll

    meanie

    It's quite funny looking back at the criticism for XP:

    http://www.actsofvolition.com/archive/2001/december/windowsxprough says "it looks weird"

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1321953.stm says "little is new"

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/104954/windows_xp_slow_to_gain_ground.html says "why bother?"

    Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. For those who wish to change, go ahead and change. For those who don't or can't, in this case, you're really not missing out.

    and to anyone who tries to signoff with a one-liner put-down: if you're not Charlie Brooker, P.J O'Rourke or Sir Alan Sugar, your one-liners won't be very good

  41. Ahmad Ali
    Gates Horns

    WTF

    Why Microsoft WHY ??

  42. John Sanders
    Linux

    Truth is that...

    MS is still in charge of the largest commercial computer platform, but it is not as relevant to the industry as it was anymore.

    Three things about Vista SP3, I mean Windows 7/2008/R2 sorry NT 6.1

    1) Why you can not put network files on a library?

    2) Why shared folders do not show a different icon anymore?

    3) Why you can not pin shortcuts of exes from network files to the task bar?

    What's up with the network? Not friends anymore?

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