OS Euthenasia

 

It's a thought we all try to avoid, but when you get to be a certain age, you can't help but become obsessed with thoughts of The End. At some point, those you have known, loved, and worked with bite the dust. While it is possible to lengthen the lives of those slated to die by technological means, most of us take The End as a granted. All that's left are the memories and eulogies, when our favorite program goes off to the big database in the sky. But life goes on. After a computer program's life cycle has ended (I bet you thought I was talking about people!), we buck up and move forward, installing the next latest greatest tool being marketed as the solution to our computing needs.

 

When they use terms like "software life cycle," manufacturers obviously want to imply that the life of a program or operating system is similar to the life of a human being. There is a period of beta development (youth, in human terms), the "official release" (a Bar Mitzvah?), a period of productivity and support (the career years), and finally, the end of the life cycle, when the product is "outdated."

 

 

But isn't staying "up to date" in the software world important? Aren't you missing out on all the nifty new features, as well as setting yourself up for potential "compatibility" problems? Well, it depends; new features are nice, if you're going to use them. But most people still using Office 97 are perfectly happy with the way it works; they don't NEED the extra features in Office 2000 or 2003. Why try to fix it if it ain't broke? Upgrading for many people means spending money, spending time learning how to use the new interface the program is likely to have, and probably spending money buying new memory or other hardware to get the upgrade to run properly!

 

 

 

I bring up this topic in the context of an announcement that appeared on the Windows XP Service Pack 2 information page (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/sp2aumng.mspx): On April 12, Microsoft will automatically install Service Pack 2 for Windows XP on your XP-powered computer, whether you want it or not. The move represents a much more invasive upgrade policy than Microsoft has had in the past. If you still wanted to use Windows 98 or even 95, the previous policy said, you were welcome to; just don't come running to Microsoft when your computer is disable by a virus or trojan attack that the company issued a patch for in subsequent supported versions of Windows, but not for 95 or 98, because the "life cycle" for those products ended. Now, however, you will have to use SP2 (which we discussed some months ago as having compatibility problems with software), "for your own good," if you have XP installed. It goes without saying that plain old XP and SP1 are now out of the picture; any future security patch for XP is going to require SP2.

 

Microsoft is doing this because it says that previous versions of XP, including SP1, had too many security problems; the fixes in SP2 will create a much more secure computing environment (although security bugs, like the one listed at http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/392354, have been found). The fixes include an upgrade to the Microsoft Firewall, improved mail security, a pop-up blocker, and improved Wi-fi compatibility - features you can already get with a plethora of third party software.

 

 

On the other hand, there is the time spent uploading and installing it (SP2 is over 70 MB), as well as the compatibility and other issues - meaning that you will likely have other work to do, downloading and installing patches, etc., to get back to the productivity point you were at before the SP2 upgrade. The same applies, of course, for users of Windows 2000, 98, 95, NT, or in fact other programs that have reached the end of their life cycle. According to the Microsoft Life cycle FAQ (http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy), most products get free update and security support for about 10 years (extended support continues longer). Ten years seems like a long time, but it does come to an end. At which point you are faced with a choice: Go with the Microsoft flow, or go out on your own? (You could also move to Linux, but that's another article!)

 

There's something to be said for following the path tread for users by Microsoft; if you have a problem, many others are likely to be having one too, which means that the company will have to be on the ball when it comes to security and compatibility issues. On the other hand, there's no reason to expect that SP2 will be the last security update to any Windows OS; so if you stick with the program, you’re likely to find yourself on a continuous treadmill of updating your operating system and getting your software and hardware in sync. And XP itself is nearly obsolete! The Next Big Thing, codenamed Longhorn (http://www.winsupersite.com/longhorn) is due out next year. So that's it; either you remain protected by staying with the program, or remain "free" to compute your own way, at the risk of being exposed to nasties you will no longer be defended against, at least by Microsoft . But you'll probably be OK even if you don't choose to "move forward"; I haven't heard that anti-virus software publishers and firewall makers will stop supporting Windows XP SP1, 2000, and 98 anytime soon. As long as you keep your anti-virus profiles updated and check occasional updates to your firewall, you should be able to maintain your system as it exists now for the life of your computer.

 

I would also suggest investing in a "ghosting" program, like the aptly named Norton Ghost ($70, from (http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal). Ghost lets you completely duplicate the contents of a hard drive, including an operating system and all installed software; if anything goes wrong, you insert a floppy disk and retrieve the contents of your system from a CD or second hard drive you've stored it on. I have used Ghost extensively, and it’s a fine product. But if you want to check out another excellent (if less flexible) ghosting-type program, which doesn't cost anything at all, check out DrvImagerXP from http://woundedmoon.org/win32/drvimagerxpsetup_2.2.exe. DrvImagerXP takes a "photo" of your 2000 or XP system (will not work on 95 or 98) and stores it on another partition or hard drive, or CD or DVD as well. The best part of the program is the in-depth explanation of the way it works and the philosophy of ghosting in general. The instructions are quite detailed; make sure to read the help file thoroughly before starting your backup. DrvImagerXP saves everything, so a good strategy is to do a virus check and defragmentation before making your backup. If you schedule a backup once a week, you'll be prepared for any eventuality - and your computer's system will have a better chance of beating the odds and living forever!