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You may recall the story last week that, because Windows XP Home was considered “home” as opposed to “business” software, Microsoft product support was scheduled to expire on 12/31/2006. Greg Keizer at TechWeb News has apparently been keeping an eye on the Microsoft Lifecycle pages and discovered that Microsoft Extends XP Home Support To ‘08:
Microsoft has quietly extended the support lifespan of Windows XP Home, which as recently as last week was scheduled to be put out to pasture at the end of this year.
Analysts had pointed out that XP Home, and most other XP operating systems, would be cut off from technical support on Dec. 31, 2006, a potential problem since XP’s successor, Windows Vista, isn’t to release until shortly before that date
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In an updated support lifecycle listing, Microsoft said that all Windows XP products–which include Home, Pro, Embedded, Media Center, and Tablet PC–will enjoy mainstream support for “two years after the next version of this product is released.”
Which with Vista scheduled to ship this year means 2008.
Actually the table still needs some work, but now all of the XP family carry the note that “mainstream support will end two years after the next version of this product is released.” The business versions (XP Professional and Tablet) also have the note that “extended support will end five years after mainstream support ends.” This is the standard policy for business software which has extended support (e.g. free security fixes) while home software does not.
January 12th, 2006 at 7:00 PM
[...] Concerning the earlier post on the extension of support for Windows XP Home, Joris Evers at CNET interviews Microsoft program manager, Ines Vargas, who says it was all just a web site mistake and that the newly revised web site reflects the unchanged policy of continued mainstream support for XP Home and XP Media Center until two years after Vista ships. [...]
January 17th, 2006 at 5:37 PM
[...] Finally, hearkening back to last week, here’s some more on the mysterious extension of mainstream support for Windows Home edition about which Joe Wilcox was less obtuse than I: A Microsoft spokesperson told CNET News.com that posting on lifecycle support was incorrect. Really? I find that hard to believe. The posted support period is consistent with Microsoft’s lifecycle support policy of five years for consumer products. It’s not like the first time Microsoft has heard about this support time period. I first blogged about it in May 2004, and others have pointed out the looming deadline since then. [...]