Windows XP Sunsetting

[VincentVega]

So, it's getting close to that time. WindowsXP is about to be canned by OEMs. I'm not totally sure what this means in the reseller channel, but I'd like to get one (or even two) more copies of XP Professional through retail before I'd have to resort to eBay.

Two questions. Anyone know when it's done being sold through stores, and the other question is does anyone know of any great deals on XP Professional (32bit) at the moment? All I can find is $140.00. Seems like it's more than it used to be.

[joe]

ouch...it's definitely gone up in the past 8-12 months...don't know if this is MS setting the price to push sales of vista, or retailers just having that high of a demand...but I think I'm going to join you Vega, and grab a copy of XP Pro SP3 OEM before the stop date...

[VincentVega]

Ya. It's a great operating system to run in virtualization. So even if you are forced to get a Vista machine, you can always run VirtualPC and do what you need to do inside

[Fish111]

January is the specific date when it wont be sold anymore, With the end of july I believe as the date when big names like dell and hp will stop offering it as a pre-install option, but then again I could care less about the latter

[joe]

and the cut-off date appears to be the end of this month (June 30th, 6 days!!!)...not sure if all supply will vanish then or not...so if you want to get a copy, better order it this week...

[Fish111]

June thats what I meant the end of June. and no, supplies won't dissappear... had a big boring discussion and look over this in comp sci class yesterday

January is when actual copies of the OS won't be available anymore, and updates other than security related ones will cease to be released in mid 2009.

Total support and updates for the OS don't end til January 2014... hopefully by then there will be an OS i can buy and skip right over vista, God willing

[VincentVega]

Yeah, sooner to buy the better though, because like Joe said the price per copy is only going to go up

[Fish111]

Yeah im thinkin I should get a copy of xp pro.... what main benefits are there > home edition other than backup utility which i wont use?

[VincentVega]

Microsoft IIS, ability to join a domain, access domain resources, storing network account credentials. XP Professional is like a light version of windows server. XP Home can only do workgroups, which is fine if all you do is homework and play games

[Fish111]

Yeah pretty much all I do on this particular machine...

cant help but think about what If I build a backup/data box someday tho... or at least someday during who knows how many years Ill need to weather the vista storm, waiting for something new