Mozilla to stop supporting Win2k, early XP.

[ppgrainbow]

At the same time, Microsoft has repeated warned less than 50% of all of the users still on Windws XP that there are less than 800 days left and time is slowly starting to run out until the end of Extended Support for Windows XP in April 2014.

Stephen Rose pointed out that in his blog entry, it takes 18 to 24 months to plan a migrate from Windows XP and those IT professionals who are still clinging to Windows XP should start considering migration before it's too late.

Additionally, Microsoft will also end support for consumer versions of Windows Vista (Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium and Ultimate) on 10 April 2012 when it leaves Mainstream Support. After that, Windows 7 will be the only operating system fully supported.

The biggest problem is that those who wish to stick with legacy versions of Windows is finding a workable internet browser. Internet Explorer 7 and 8 require Windows XP SP2 while Internet Explorer 9 will not work on Windows XP or versions of Windows Vista pre-SP2. Users on Windows XP SP1 and below are pegged at Internet Explorer 6 while users on Windows 95 and Windows 3.1 are pegged at Internet Explorer 5.5 and the 16-bit version of Internet Explorer 5 respectively.

The solution for anyone wanting to move to a more-up-to-date browser features has been to move to Firefox...until now.


The Mozilla Release Engineering team has held off upgrading to a newer version of Visual Studio for a number of years to try to preserve support for Windows 2000, Windows XP RTM and SP1. Unfortunately, this comes at a ultimate price that a vast majority of users had to pay.

Asa Doltzer, the Mozilla software developer and community coordinator for Firefox marketing projects admits that developers have not been able to take advantage of new compiler features and have even had to struggle to keep valuable optimisations from breaking, this including having to back out and ultimately delay some of the important new features such as SPDY. As a result of this, users have seriously suffered a slower Firefox that has proven to be a major insult for everyone.

Well...this is all going to change. He announced nearly a week ago that they were moving to Visual Studio 2010 for all of its Mozilla-based apps (including official builds of Firefox). Because the developers have upgraded their compilers to Visual Studio 2010 after Firefox 12 moved to Aurora (see bug 563318), they will no longer be able to build future versions of Firefox (or any Mozila-based apps) on these newly unsupported platforms.

This was a very difficult and unavoidable decision and this change only affects a very tiny percentage - about .4% of all Windows users...who will soon be left in the dark.

If anyone is still running Windows 2000 as a primary machine, second-handed machine or running it even in a virtualised environment, Firefox 12 (which will be supported until 5 June 2012) will be the final released supported under that platform. After that, options are limited. For those who do not want to abandon Win2k, Mozilla recommends users to switch to Opera; otherwise, migrate to a different OS version (such as Mac OS X 10.5+, Windows XP SP2+, Linux, etc.).

If users are running Windows XP RTM or Windows XP SP1, Asa strongly recommends users to upgrade to at least Windows XP SP2 or later.

It is worth noting that Mozilla had supported Windows 2000 (and older versions of Windows XP) with newer browser versions longer than Microsoft itself. Mozilla is often one of the last surviving vendors that have supported a tiny fraction of its user base with legacy operating systems far, far longer than most projects or companies would have done. I suspect by the time this becomes a concern, a major software vendor has already stopped supporting it.

And lastly, for the Enterprise adopting the Extended Support Release (ESR), Windows 2000 and older versions of Windows XP will be supported via the Firefox 10 ESR until it reaches end-of-life on 12 February 2013. That works out to no more than one year before these Windows versions become unsupported.

For more information on this announcement, read these stories on the demise of Firefox support on Win2k and the switch to Visual Studio 2010:

1. http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2012/01/end_of_firefox_win2k.html
2. http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.apps.firefox/browse_thread/thread/ab0164a039e425e4
3. http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.planning/browse_thread/thread/be7d06905e82157f/016ae0cc2a331b8d
4. http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.platform/browse_thread/thread/a6fcb6210f8b3d62

(I can't believe that Japanese users still has a high number of users still on Win2k, yet for some reason, the users in question are either stuck or trying to find ways on how to get future versions of Firefox working on Win2k...but without anyone's help from now on.)

Thoughts anyone?

[Jaydi Blaze]

so june 5th.....I'll expect a shitload of flood calls that week from people still using rtm and sp1.

[ppgrainbow]

Jaydi Blaze

so june 5th.....I'll expect a shitload of flood calls that week from people still using rtm and sp1.

Yep.

I'm afraid that when Firefox 13 comes out on 5 June 2012, the browser will no longer be compatible on Windows XP RTM or Windows XP SP1 anymore. There are very tiny amount of users out there running these old versions of Windows XP and Mozilla urges them to upgrade to at least Windows XP SP2 or SP3.

Didn't Asa Doltzer announce that Windows Server 2003 RTM was also affected by the change as well? Looking over at the system requirements for the MSVC 2010 CRT, it requires Windows Server 2003 SP1.

[Gabriel Faust]

ppgrainbow

I'm afraid that when Firefox 13 comes out on 5 June 2012, the browser will not even start up on Windows XP RTM or Windows XP SP1 anymore.

No.

Firefox will not update to versions not compatible with your legacy OS. It'll just advise you that to update to the new versions of Firefox, you will need to update your OS.

[nouveau sereph]

For future reference, I'd be happy to let another planned obsolescence pass without commemorating it with a thread. Just putting it out there.

[ppgrainbow]

Well said.

(I can't be blunt, but not everyone will be able to abandon an OS that is no longer supported and will most likely be on their own. So, switching to Opera would be the best path forward for a little while longer. Forgot to edit this comment while you were replying.)

[psychic stalker]

ppgrainbow

Well said.

(I can't be blunt, but not everyone will be able to abandon an OS that is no longer supported and will most likely be on their own. So, switching to Opera would be the best path forward for a little while longer. Forgot to edit this comment while you were replying.)

If they're not able to abandon an obsolete OS, they've got no business using that computer.

[ppgrainbow]

psychic stalker

ppgrainbow

If they're not able to abandon an obsolete OS, they've got no business using that computer.

I agree and they'll be very sorry if they don't abandon an obsolete OS.

[The20]

Why are people still using Windows XP SP1? I can understand not switching the OS to some degree, but not installing upgrades? What?

[Lanackse-Kanvae]

The20

What are people still using Windows XP SP1? I can understand not switching the OS to some degree, but not installing upgrades? What?

Many people are unaware of the existence of the Windows Update program even though it's been with Windows since about Win95.

[psychic stalker]

ppgrainbow

psychic stalker

If they're not able to abandon an obsolete OS, they've got no business using that computer.

I agree and they'll be very sorry if they don't abandon an obsolete OS.

Then why do you keep posting about these issues that the majority don't really care about and that the minority to whom it matters are too stupid to pay attention to?

Seems to me you're wasting your own time (and ours) by keeping up with this irrelevant information about obsolescence?

[catnapgood]

Well, most Windows XP computers are pretty buggy without SP2. (Although there are plenty of security flaws even with it.) The only excuse to not upgrade it would be lazyness in my opinion.

[Tadpole Jackson]

It's about time they dropped support.

[booky630]

Win 2k? That's still used? :o

Aw, man, Vista's gonna lose support. Nuts. :c

[29582351c3]

booky630

Win 2k? That's still used? :o

Aw, man, Vista's gonna lose support. Nuts. :c

Windows 8 will be coming out soon. I think this is part of Microsoft's attempt to get onto a 3 year release schedule and to only support 2 operating systems at a time.