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Why Microsoft really patched XP

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Re: Why Microsoft really patched XP

#11

Post by omh »

Piskvorrr wrote: post #2

Interesting idea, yet it doesn't quite line up with the facts, IMNSHO: IE on XP only goes up to 8, yet this CVE goes up to 11, and it's what, two weeks old? http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/emerging-threat-micros... - and guess what, the recommendation is "Do not use IE, at all, not even the new versions." Both the browser and its brand are broken beyond any repair.

But after the patch the advice wouldn't hold any more, everyone could go back to happily using IE.

If XP wasn't patched then the news articles would be more nuanced. The "Internet Explorer is dangerous!" theme from earlier articles might have continued and left the average consumer thinking that IE was broken everywhere.

(I'm not sure if I totally agree, but this seems to be what the article is suggesting. And I think it still makes sense even with IE on XP stuck at IE8)

Re: Why Microsoft really patched XP

#12

Post by jevinskie »

Piskvorrr wrote: post #2

Interesting idea, yet it doesn't quite line up with the facts, IMNSHO: IE on XP only goes up to 8, yet this CVE goes up to 11, and it's what, two weeks old? http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/emerging-threat-micros... - and guess what, the recommendation is "Do not use IE, at all, not even the new versions." Both the browser and its brand are broken beyond any repair.

"Do not use IE until a patch is released" is what it really said. The browser has been steadily improving its standards compliance with each new version. Yes, many people are using alternative browsers nowadays but I don't think that means IE is hopeless.

Re: Why Microsoft really patched XP

#15

Post by chasing »

"Long story short, it hurt their IE brand. MS no longer has to worry about reputation management for the XP brand, but they sure do for IE."

Maybe I'm being a little off-topic, here, but I don't think it can be overstated how much Internet Explorer has destroyed Microsoft's brand. Apart from it being their largest consumer-facing brand apart from Windows (I think), I suspect that more people came into programming through web development between 1995 and 2005 than via any other path -- and for that decade IE was basically a big advertisement for the worst sides of Microsoft during those years -- the side that steamrolled competition with their lower-quality software, the side that tried to destroy open source and open standards, the side that attracted customers by manipulation and force.

Re: Why Microsoft really patched XP

#18

Post by aninteger »

ezreal420 wrote: post #8

It's actually much simpler than you think. Microsoft have some big customers that pay them to maintain XP. Microsoft like making money, so they maintain XP for them. If these patches make it to general availability is up to Microsoft however, and it looks like they are still doing that.

Big customers like Target that would prefer to run their POS machines on Windows XP. So sad..

Re: Why Microsoft really patched XP

#19

Post by coldcode »

BlakePetersen wrote: post #4

Looks like their WP DB borked...

#1 on HN on Saturday was about 150/min sustained. That's not even 3 per second. What in WP makes this an issue, or is it just running WP on a shared instance on a wimpy server. Or is it some config in WP that you need to change?

Re: Why Microsoft really patched XP

#20

Post by Arainach »

chasing wrote: post #15

"Long story short, it hurt their IE brand. MS no longer has to worry about reputation management for the XP brand, but they sure do for IE." Maybe I'm being a little off-topic, here, but I don't think it can be overstated how much Internet Explorer has destroyed Microsoft's brand. Apart from it being their largest consumer-facing brand apart from Windows (I think), I suspect that more people came into programming thr…

Huh? I think you're off by a decade. Microsoft burned a lot of reputation by letting IE stagnate between 2001 (IE6) and 2011 (IE9), but at the time IE5 and IE6 shipped, they were legitimately faster, more compliant, and all-around better browsers than the Netscape versions of the time. I don't remember IE4 to comment on that, but there was certainly a time where IE was the best browser, both to users and developers. They simply failed to keep innovating on it.
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