I want to buy a cheap laptop and XP laptops are the cheapest. I wonder how
long support for XP will be around?
If I buy an XP laptop will I be left with a useless machine after a year or
so? I only want to use it for surfing the net and Office applications.
Thanks,
Warren.
Windows 2000 is still a very modern and well supported operating
system.
Windows 98 is still able to run many modern applications and is still
useful as a basic operating system on old machines. Microsoft extended
support to 2006 because it was so popular. Win98 was only availible
for 3 years 1998- 2001 (if we count Mistake Edition).
XP was the only MS desktop operating system for 6 years before Vista
showed up, and during that time there's been an explosion in sales,
and many more XP machines exist than 98 machines, and the useful life
of older machines is much longer, so I expect in a similar manner to
98, XP's popularity will keep support around for a while.
Policy wise XP will leave mainstream support in 2009 and enter
extended support. According to Microsoft's lifecycle policy:
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy
"Microsoft will also provide Extended Support for the 5 years
following Mainstream support or for 2 years after the second successor
product (N+2) is released, whichever is longer."
At a minimum 2014. XP isn't going anywhere any time soon.
