Will old Operating Systems ever die?

[Ohnoo]

@ronpat

Also, depends on the installed application/s. I discovered several months ago that Canon’s software no longer supports WinXP. New versions of their lens data installer and photo software cannot be installed on XP. Customers who purchase Canon cameras nowadays must own a computer with Win 7 or later. For me, a bummer. I believe that has been true for “new” Adobe products for at least as long, too.

That’s where I believe old os’es won’t die but just hibernate. Sometimes it is necessary to run them just to recover old files. For example. I was running Corel Family Pack 5 or (version 9 I believe). When upgrading to X7 all of my spread sheet colors dissappeared. Then support figured how to restore colors by opening a different way. Colors there but wrong. My files were old enough templates that they could be upgraded one format type with older version. So vm and xp open files in old corel resaved as newest file version available in old corel and now they are fine in new corel.

Just a shame older Corel would not work on Windows 7 but works fine now on Windows 10 go figure.

As for software aside from what is said above, about Adobe which includes flash player, Java JRE is nolonger updated for XP. If going to run vm’s and may need JRE I suggest downloading the full installer of Java 7 while you still can.

[TomB]

In future this won’t be a problem, both Apple and Microsoft are slowly heading into a rolling release model rather than specific “versions”. OS Versions will be a thing of the past within the next 10 years, the same way we have seen web browsers adopt this release model.

[WolfShade]

@TomB

Apple and Microsoft are slowly heading into a rolling release model rather than specific “versions”

Micro$oft, not so slow. They’ve already announced that Win10 will be the last OS “version”, with nothing but rolling updates to keep it going.

Not sure if I like that. But it beats having ten full “versions” per year like Mozilla is doing with FireFox and Thunderbird. That annoys the cr@p out of me.

V/r,

[Ohnoo]

@TomB

In future this won’t be a problem, both Apple and Microsoft are slowly heading into a rolling release model rather than specific “versions”. OS Versions will be a thing of the past within the next 10 years

I would not be too sure this will fix the application compatibility or even website advancements.

Maybe no new versions just service packs and or release point updates but that does not mean things won’t break. I know people with Apple devices and a simple update sometimes removes old functionally that things quit working.

Then we will still be talking old versions like are you on 10.12 or higher.

[Ohnoo]

@WolfShade

Micro$oft, not so slow. They’ve already announced that Win10 will be the last OS “version”, with nothing but rolling updates to keep it going.

What’s the plan to make money if tney do this? Does the initial price of a computer eventually rivel the costs of an Apple, even though still same base OS are major updates going to be a paid feature or maybe you will need a subscription to keep using the machine like Microsoft 365?

[PriscillaForts]

It’ll never die. My stepfather is using Win 2000 and there is nothing in this world that can force him to update it.

[Marionfive]

I think these old operating systems will obviously vanish one day, maybe not today but after sometime, because they are not compatible with the new trends and techniques , thus, when more advanced and new versions will arrive in the market, these old systems will eventually become extinct.

[SamA74]

But what is considered “old” is progressing along with what is new. I believe there will always be those who are using out-dates systems. So while Win 2000 and XP die out, there will still be those using Vista and Win 7 which will then be considered as ancient.