If you're one of about 200 million people using older versions of Windows and you want the latest security enhancements to Internet Explorer, get your credit card ready. Microsoft this week reiterated that it would keep the new version of Microsoft's IE Web browser available only as part of the recently released Windows XP operating system, Service Pack 2. The upgrade to XP from any previous Windows versions is $99 when ordered from Microsoft. Starting from scratch, the OS costs $199.
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News source: C|Net news
That, say analysts, is a steep price to pay to secure a browser that swept the market as a free, standalone product.
"It's a problem that people should have to pay for a whole OS upgrade to get a safe browser," said Michael Cherry, analyst with Directions on Microsoft in Redmond, Wash. "It does look like a certain amount of this is to encourage upgrade to XP."
Microsoft affirmed that its recent security improvements to IE would be made available only to XP users.
"We do not have plans to deliver Windows XP SP2 enhancements for Windows 2000 or other older versions of Windows," the company said in a statement. "The most secure version of Windows today is Windows XP with SP2. We recommend that customers upgrade to XP and SP2 as quickly as possible."

EDIT: Someone else has got a really cheap price for the full version!
Currently £62 + delivery. (Full not just the upgrade)
"All I do is type up things in word and print lables," she says.
If that's all she does, then she doesn't need XP, IE, antivirus, or any other security measures since she doesn't need to go online to do these things.
Obviously, this person isn't someone for whom an upgrade is necessary or relevant.
Well, that and the fact that the technology has hardly progressed.
Windows 9x is another story however.
Hardly true. Over the last 2 or 3 years, we've seen major advancements in hardware. Technology progressing isn't just software.
However, when you make a statement as broad as yours, it's hard to tell the timeframe. Do not judge how much technology as a whole has progressed in a few years. If you were referring to say 10 or 15 years though, you're wrong. There have been monumental advancements in computing since 1990.
I thought Microsoft wanted to gain back there browser share? This will just help firefox and other alternative browsers to gain users, which is not neccesarly a bad thing
firefox rules
Nice Move MS....
By the way, you honestly don't expect Microsoft to delay Longhorn until 2020 so they can backport everything do you?
wouldnt you say that a noob would move to something else if what he is using doesnt work for them?
STV
Also:
^^ How would that be noobish, I think it would be stupid to inconvenience yourself to try to fix something that should have never been broken in the first place. Or at the least, it should be fixed by the proprietor and not the end user.
I will say that unless IE makes some major changes it won't be used by myself.
Also, it's not a security issue which makes Firefox better, it's all of the extensions and ability to customize already inherent that makes it better.
actually, i do not "inconvenience" myself to fix IE. infact, it is rather easy. the main problem with IE to begin with was the security settings. IE has been made more secure due the the popup blocker, the better security settings and patched security holes. the word "better" is such a subjective word. all of those "extensions", for me, just get in the way of using a web browser.
STV
Maybe it doesn't make you a noob, but it still doesn't change the fact that IE is an unreliable, worthless piece of **** browser that should not be used anymore. It is simply not secure, and has been proven over the course of the last few years or so with all these big security issues. As commented by markjensen,
As commented by markjensen
...
Jeez... My name gets drug in, and I didn't even post in this news article!
How do you mean its a flaw in the OS? If it's a part of the OS and theres a flaw, technically it is a flaw in the OS, but its only a flaw in part of the OS which uses the ie engine (and the only thing i can think if that uses the ie engine is IE itself).
Just because its stable? Im missing something here. Help me out. Spending S$250 on a new OS doesnt do me justice. Win2000 uses the original core, or rather an improved NT core. Its just as stable, if only less pretty. [The prettiness of XP sickens me]
Quite a sweeping statement you have there.
STV
Recently released?
i know of some1 who uses 98 se for his business n he won't go higher cuzz he hates xp
sides i don't use ie anymore so 2000 is fine for me
nice old interface
Maybe for you, but how about the 90+ percent of people that actually use IE?
http://lynx.browser.org/
http://lynx.isc.org/release/
Very rude, Microsoft!
Second, Microsoft isn't forcing anyone to upgrade to Windows XP. They are giving you an option:
XP with support, security patches, compatibility, etc
98 with no support (soon), few security patches, less compatibility
It is completely up to you. If you think Microsoft is forcing you to use XP, think again. They are only recommending it and between XP and 98, XP is looking like the better choice
3 GB. Not enough room for other stuff. So she's stuck with 98. I have assured her into enforcing security measures on her computer but she pushes me back saying that 98 works and is good. Maybe I can show her an example, later.
OMG that’s a suicide, (on electronic terms of course)
It does absolutely not require any more graphics power. What on earth do you mean? And CPU power? Where did you get this from? Under the hood, services have been combined, and code have been improved. It is in several aspects faster than 2000. It does however use slightly more RAM, due to more services running by default. And more disk space, mainly due to the System restore feature.
But geez.
I agree that Windows XP is a lot more CPU and memory intensive than Windows 9x.
But I would really say that we have come to a point where even the most low-end systems in stores come with support for Windows XP, and if your system can't run Windows 2000/XP, you will really enjoy the upgrade for many other reasons than just a new OS.
First off, the min specs from MS for XP are P3 500 with 128MB of RAM, which is flat out BS. I've done a clean install of XP on a system with these exact specs and it was so damn sluggish. I ended up installing win2K on this machine instead and it runs perfectly, has been for the last 4 years!
If someone has had a PC for 5 years running 9x and it does everything they need it to do, except protect them because MS refused to fix these flaws in the first place, they should not be required to upgrade thier hardware just so they can run a newer, corrected, version of Windows, and obviously 200 million people feel this way.
Corporations are another good example because with hundreds or thousands of licenses to roll and all the third-party software to support, they can't just upgrade everything the second it's available. I work for a massive company and we just finally finished migrating from NT to 2K. We'll probably be using 2K after Longhorn ships!
Last edited by 59192 on 23 Sep 2004 - 20:35