No IE9 for Windows XP - Will Microsoft regret this decision?

[seta-san]

you're really going to see the extreme rapid fall and death of windows xp and IE6 once Windows 7 SP1 is released. The corporate customers are coming to terms with the fact they can't stick with XP but they usually always wait for SP1

[Ryster]

you're really going to see the extreme rapid fall and death of windows xp and IE6 once Windows 7 SP1 is released. The corporate customers are coming to terms with the fact they can't stick with XP but they usually always wait for SP1

It's been shown that that is no longer necessary. Microsoft seem to be making much more robust products at the RTM level these days. Take Windows 7 for instance. It is MUCH more stable and reliable at RTM than XP was at SP1 or SP2 even.

[hdood]

It's been shown that that is no longer necessary. Microsoft seem to be making much more robust products at the RTM level these days. Take Windows 7 for instance. It is MUCH more stable and reliable at RTM than XP was at SP1 or SP2 even.

How many fixes have been released for Windows 7 so far? 600 or so? It's perfectly reasonable to wait for SP1. That way you know the initial issues that only show up when it's deployed in the real world have been dealt with.

Anyway, much of the issue here is that a lot (if not most) of the hardware out there running XP simply isn't suited for running 7. It is a substantially more demanding OS.

[neo158]

ms should release IE9 for xp users, this will help html5 adoption and make it easier for web developers to create websites as less users will be using IE8 as a result, more websites would be standards compliant as a result of IE9 being released on XP which has a 60% market share. Most corporations, govts and some businesses only use IE so not releasing IE9 hurts them by not having a standards compliant browser. They should release IE9 with no hardware acceleration for XP or figure a new way for it to work for XP users.

Did you even read the other posts?

The Trident 5 rendering engine is designed from the ground up to take FULL advantage of Hardware Acceleration in Vista SP2 and Windows 7, this means that the Hardware Acceleration is an integral part of Trident 5 and that stripping it out would cost time and money so it simply wouldn't be worth it, the easiest way to do it would be switching back to an older version of Trident, removing support for HTML5 :blink: .

Don't forget that most businesses have to spend time testing that the new software works with existing systems, as they aren't going to upgrade if they don't have to, so it won't hurt them by not have a standards complient browser as most of them still use IE6 anyway, the UK government for one.

Not to mention that stripping out one of the most compelling features would make it little more than IE8 v2.

[Buzz99]

XP users just have to stick with IE7

[hdood]

The Trident 5 rendering engine is designed from the ground up to take FULL advantage of Hardware Acceleration in Vista SP2 and Windows 7, this means that the Hardware Acceleration is an integral part of Trident 5 and that stripping it out would cost time and money so it simply wouldn't be worth it, the easiest way to do it would be switching back to an older version of Trident, removing support for HTML5 :blink: .

Oh come on. There is no way IE is as exceptionally poorly written as you are implying. There is no technical reason. They could ship both a D2D and a GDI renderer alongside each other if they wanted. The reality is that they don't want to, and that's perfectly reasonable. There is no reason to make excuses or pretend there's any technical reason. XP is simply a discontinued product that they don't want to support anymore. XP users can just keep using what they're using (which will be fine for most businesses), or switch to a different browser.

[+Ichigo+]

As good as XP was and is. It is time for people to move on. I know somepeople that don't want to move to 7 because of the fear of vista happening all over again. Just take a deep breath and do it already, the rest of the world has :)

[neo158]

Oh come on. There is no way IE is as exceptionally poorly written as you are implying. There is no technical reason. They could ship both a D2D and a GDI renderer alongside each other if they wanted. The reality is that they don't want to, and that's perfectly reasonable. There is no reason to make excuses or pretend there's any technical reason. XP is simply a discontinued product that they don't want to support anymore. XP users can just keep using what they're using (which will be fine for most businesses), or switch to a different browser.

Who says I'm making excuses, hell I voted NO as I run Windows 7 Ultimate x64 with the 64-bit IE9 beta and the Adobe 64-bit preview version of Flash. I was simply stating that the EASIEST way they would get it working on XP is to remove the reasons for upgrading in the first place which wouldn't make a very compelling upgrade, now would it.

I know there is no technical reason why they CAN'T do it but if they did, it would be a waste of time and money and removes the the main reason for IE9 in the first place, Hardware Accelerated HTML5

[DKAngel]

let the damn fisher price based os die allready. move on people

[Frylock86]

let the damn fisher price based os die allready. move on people

QFT. Take that damn search dog with it. :p

[MS Bob 11]

By now, the OP must have realized he asked the question on the wrong forum site. :rolleyes:

[Frylock86]

By now, the OP must have realized he asked the question on the wrong forum site. :rolleyes:

Not really. I mean if there are people raising a fuss over it, there must be others as well. I just wanted to see....

[soldier1st]

as with all things you cannot support a product forever so at some point you must either upgrade or be left behind but nobody is forcing you to upgrade. IE9 cannot be backported to XP Period as there are too many changes in the code that would require alot of time and effort to backport and to add the features needed for the software to work. it is the same with Directx or like an engine. with a car/vehicle engine it is made with a framework of parts and pieces that make up what the engine looks and functions like and with that said there is only so many changes that you can make to the original framework before it either breaks down or falls part because it cannot handle the extra load but if you replace the parts that make up the original framework then it will not fall apart as they were designed for that framework so at some point you will need to make a new framework that will support the new pieces that the old framework simply cannot handle and this analogy is the same for Computers/Code like the saying goes : There is only so much you can do with old technology: New technology will soon become the old technology and the cycle will continue that way forever.

[redvamp128]

This may kind of be off topic- I have a few questions-- I know MS won't support Html5 in I9 on XP

But will the other browsers do the same?... and would they not use hardware acceleration under XP?

Like for example Chrome, Firefox or Opera?

Just a thought... those actually may still keep people on XP without choosing to upgrade.

My laptop runs XP-- I could add another gig of memory and run Win7 I guess after all it says it is Vista Capable.

[xendrome]

XP users just have to stick with IE7

Or... IE8?

[Lazure]

This may kind of be off topic- I have a few questions-- I know MS won't support Html5 in I9 on XP

But will the other browsers do the same?... and would they not use hardware acceleration under XP?

Like for example Chrome, Firefox or Opera?

Just a thought... those actually may still keep people on XP without choosing to upgrade.

My laptop runs XP-- I could add another gig of memory and run Win7 I guess after all it says it is Vista Capable.

Some people just won't stop using XP till their computer literally dies and they have to buy/build a new one. They'll have to use a newer OS, then. Even if they tried to put XP on their new system, they risk things not working properly, and the gimping of their hardware. Especially if a new standard becomes available, and isn't supported on XP at all.

I wonder what people who absolutely refuse to use anything beyond XP, would do, if they had to get a new PC that had hardware which could not run XP properly anymore?

[redvamp128]

Some people just won't stop using XP till their computer literally dies and they have to buy/build a new one. They'll have to use a newer OS, then.

For what I do on my laptop -- Xp does the job- for the other I have my Windows 7 Desktop ..

I was just saying if MS won't give XP IE9 then people on Xp will stick with IE8 or go with another browser choice.

Though I would not only have to put another gig of memory but also change hard drive- It only has a 30gig drive in it.

My laptop BTW is a DELL INSPIRON B130 -- with XP PRO and 1 gig of memory and on a 30 gig drive.

It is basically an on the Go check email or Neowin/ Facebook.

[Lazure]

For what I do on my laptop -- Xp does the job- for the other I have my Windows 7 Desktop ..

I was just saying if MS won't give XP IE9 then people on Xp will stick with IE8 or go with another browser choice.

Though I would not only have to put another gig of memory but also change hard drive- It only has a 30gig drive in it.

My laptop BTW is a DELL INSPIRON B130 -- with XP PRO and 1 gig of memory and on a 30 gig drive.

It is basically an on the Go check email or Neowin/ Facebook.

And XP is fine for old machines. My issue is with people who build amazing systems, quad cores (especially i5/i7 type systems!) with 4GB+ of DDR2/DDR3 RAM and big SLI/crossfire video card setups, but still put XP on it as their OS. What will those people do, who already ruin their amazing machines, when XP becomes impossible to install due to a change in standards soon down the road? For instance, lightpeak! I'm sure XP won't be getting support for that... >.>

[soldier1st]

And XP is fine for old machines. My issue is with people who build amazing systems, quad cores (especially i5/i7 type systems!) with 4GB+ of DDR2/DDR3 RAM and big SLI/crossfire video card setups, but still put XP on it as their OS. What will those people do, who already ruin their amazing machines, when XP becomes impossible to install due to a change in standards soon down the road? For instance, lightpeak! I'm sure XP won't be getting support for that... >.>

i agree about xp. if you want a fast pc on modern hardware don't put xp on it but put 7 on it or linux.

[PGHammer]

i agree about xp. if you want a fast pc on modern hardware don't put xp on it but put 7 on it or linux.

The dividing line between 7 and Linux is at the GPU, not the RAM, and even that is not as much in Linux' favor as you would think with a modern browser.

The problem with a modern browser and an older GPU (in Linux today) is the abysmal performance of Flash (and that is compared to a more modern GPU in the same distribution, let alone to the performance of Flash in XP, Vista or 7).

In order to balance out GPU performance with overall system performance (regardless of OS/distribution of Linux/UNIX) the measuring *stick* at the low end remains four times graphics RAM = system RAM (in other words, 1 GB of system RAM for every 256 MB of dedicated graphics RAM). When the numbers move closer to 2:1 (let alone dead even), performance gets noticeably even more sluggish (not just in Linux, but in Windows as well), and this is especially true of Flash.

I actually found this out the hard way - since my system board locked up, I've had to go to an older, and AGP-based, backup motherboard. Naturally, my existing (and PCIe) GPU was a non-starter - that meant I had to choose from one of two AGP-based graphics cards to tide me over. One is an old ATI Radeon 7500-based card; the other is a much faster X1650 Pro-based card. The system board in question has only 512 MB of RAM (albeit DDR333). The older AMD GPU has but 64 MB of graphics RAM, while the X1650 has 512 MB of DDR2 onboard.

Whether it was Windows or Linux, when system and graphics RAM were dead-even, performance (especially in Flash) tanked, and tanked badly. (I actually did have another AGP system to compare it to; putting the same X1650 Pro in a P4 with 2 GB, also running 7 x32, performance gained a great deal of snap; the performance gains held up with Linux as the OS.) Notice that the big change was system memory. That is also why I have the older AMD-based GPU in the system for now, desppite losing out on a great deal of content, simply because there are far too many Websites that use Flash that would cause noticeable falloff, regardless of what browser I am running.

However, as much as I hate the idea, there is far less difference between modern browsers in Windows than there is between modern browsers in various Llinux distributions (even worse, some of those differences can be entirely due to distribution-specific compile options), and because I don't want to make this a distro-choice thread, I have to throw those observations out.

However, there is one aberration that I must call attention to - the performance of IE 9 beta sans Aero in 7 x32. For some rather weird reason, in sites that were not loaded down with Flash-based content, IE 9 sans Aero smoked not just other browsers, but IE 9 *with* Aero enabled. However, in Flash-heavy sites, there was no offset due to the lack or presence of Aero.

"Curiouser and curiouser."

[hotdog666al]

Great that means we'll have to support IE8 for years to come. :rolleyes:

[HelgenX]

Windows XP ****ing sucks. I can't believe all the problems I had with it, all the HD crashes from trojans, all the msconfiging, services.msc'ing, Task Manager bull****.

[Neoauld]

Im sick of hte XP loyalists, theres no logical reason. I recently traded for a netbook, 1.6 nano, 1 gig ram, slow as hell really. Had XP on it, was slow as hell, put 7 on it, and it actually ran better. Benchmarks say so to!

Either way, if you're still stuck on XP and refuse to switch, get used to being left in the dust, cause chances are your computer is dirt to.

Linux is LOL to, cause i use it alot for work and have it on a system and on some virtual machines, and i gotta say its more primitive than XP in some ways.

[Ci7]

This may kind of be off topic- I have a few questions-- I know MS won't support Html5 in I9 on XP

But will the other browsers do the same?... and would they not use hardware acceleration under XP?

Like for example Chrome, Firefox or Opera?

Just a thought... those actually may still keep people on XP without choosing to upgrade.

My laptop runs XP-- I could add another gig of memory and run Win7 I guess after all it says it is Vista Capable.

other browser does support HTML5 under XP

the only reason they won't really bother to do code IE9 for xp

is that mainstream support already expired since few months ago

[Jeffrey89]

In the end, I don't think Microsoft will regret this.

As a software developer myself, I know what a pain it is to keep supporting older versions. It makes no sense either to waste money/energy on a product for an operating system which is no longer really being supported.

Also, I feel like a lot of people sticking to Windows XP are just too lazy/scared to switch to a newer operating system. Windows 7 is splendid, I never looked back. I never had problems with Vista either. So if someone's sticking to an OS because they are too lazy/scared, why would they be interested in the latest version of IE? (of course there are people with better reasons as well to stick to XP, but they are unfortunately a minority).