I'm a little confused with the end of support for;

Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista SP2

Windows lifecycle fact sheet states that Mainstream Support for XP SP3 ends Apr 14,2009
and Extended Support Apr 8,2014

Mainstream Support for Vista SP2 Apr 10,2012 and Extended Support Apr 11,2017
The lifecycle fact sheet states that Extended Support is only available to commercial customers (as below)

I know that I have received updates for XP SP3 after Apr 14,2009 and for Vista after Apr 10, 2012 .
What do you suppose they mean by commercial customer, or am I missing something with this? overthehill


_______________________________________ _______________________________________ ____________

Mainstream support—Microsoft will offer mainstream support for a minimum of 5 years from the date of a product's general availability, or for 2 years after the successor product is released, whichever is longer. For example, if you buy a new version of Windows and five years later another version is released, you will still have two years of support left for the previous version.

Extended support—Microsoft will offer extended support for either a minimum of 5 years from the date of a product's general availability, or for 2 years after the second successor product (two versions later) is released, whichever is longer. Please note: Extended support is only available for commercial customers.

That means you give them some money.
Windows XP will continue to be useful to most users.
Even small business owners will hang on and not pay any money.
Quote from: Geek-9pm on May 04, 2012, 12:15:07 AM

That means you give them some money.
Windows XP will continue to be useful to most users.
Even small business owners will hang on and not pay any money.

Still leaves me confused though why they would state that these later dates are only for
commercial customers.

I don't recall hearing the "for commercial customers" qualifier stated anywhere before this discussion. So, I'm skeptical about that being accurate. Here's a reference on end of support which does not mention "for commercial customers": http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/help/end-support

So, I believe all users of genuine editions of the OS continue to get the stated support.

I don't recall hearing the "for commercial customers" qualifier stated anywhere before this discussion. So, I'm skeptical about that being accurate. Here's a reference on end of support which does not mention "for commercial customers": http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/help/end-support

So, I believe all users of genuine editions of the OS continue to get the stated support.

2014 is the official end of support..
PS...The OS does NOT just take a dump and stop running just because support has ended...

It's quite possible they worded that press release to simply discourage home users from using it...all i know is it's in place til the stated date...

Actually, for most consumers, whether MS supports their Operating System is only of tangential relevance; for most people, support for their machine would come from the manufacturer.

Of course windows updates and other such things will eventually stop, but by the time they do, that OS should have fallen into such disuse that it's no longer a target. For example, take Windows 3.1. It's unsecure, but not insecure, because you aren't going to find anything on the net that can infect it anymore. (On the flipside, you aren't likely to find any sites that work properly with IE 5.5, which is the latest version 3.1 can run).

What exactly does it mean when they "drop support"? For the majority, it means they will longer receive software updates from Windows Update. The other changes are only relevant as a direct consumer of Microsoft. The vast majority of people are not direct consumers of Microsoft, instead they got their copy of Windows with their PC. OEM installations of Windows are supported by the OEM, not by MS, because most OEMs fill their installations with so much crap it's no longer recognizable to it's creator, like frankenstein's monster wearing a wig.

The repurcussions are more long term. New devices released after a versions of windows is no longer supported are far less likely to have drivers and other software written for that OS.

With that phrase, What they mean when they say that it's only available to commercial customers is that direct technical support from Microsoft is only available to commercial customers. That is, consumers will still get updates, and so forth, but you can't call MS for support without a rather hefty charge. This doesn't affect most people anyway because most people are running a copy of windows provided by an OEM for which support is their responsibility. Companies of course have their own IT departments which would normally work with MS and their other software and hardware vendors to solve problems; that is who this affects, since they no longer get No-charge incident support.

Calling MS for Windows XP activation will still be free, but that is part of their "get genuine" program.