Mainstream XP and Office 2003 support retired

Robert Hallock 15 Apr, 2009 at 1:22pm ET Article published in Tech

The deadline has come and gone, and Microsoft has let Windows XP and all versions of Office 2003 slip from their mainstream support.

Phone assistance for these product families will now be offered on a per-hour or per-incident basis, while non-security critical fixes are no longer in the pipeline for users who did not register for Microsoft’s Extended Hotfix Support program in February.

Microsoft will continue to offer critical security fixes for these products August 4, 2014, but you’ll be upgrading to Windows 7 anyhow, right? RIGHT?

Comments

15 Apr 2009 ~ 1:49pm BuddyJ Right. Win 7 is where it's at.
15 Apr 2009 ~ 3:05pm Mt_Goat

Buddy J wrote:

Right. Win 7 is where it's at.

While I feel that XP is still useful I do agree that Win 7 is the new standard on the block.

But I absolutely HATE Office 2007!
15 Apr 2009 ~ 4:12pm Zuntar I am getting used to office 2007; I don't hate it though. I do actually like some parts of it, but I must admit though it is S L O W on an older machine.
15 Apr 2009 ~ 4:26pm Cyclonite *Shrug* I like 2007.
15 Apr 2009 ~ 4:48pm QCH Office 2007 has been on my Pc for over a year so I am comfortable now.
15 Apr 2009 ~ 5:05pm Garg I'm still bitter about the Ribbon UI not being optional, and the new file formats existing at all.
15 Apr 2009 ~ 5:15pm Thrax ^ this.
15 Apr 2009 ~ 5:16pm BuddyJ .docx is the bane of my existence.
16 Apr 2009 ~ 2:38am NiGHTS .docx is my only complaint, too. The ribbon is so much better than the old standard menu system - take the time to use it and it'll pay dividends.
16 Apr 2009 ~ 5:37am FelixDeSouze .docx sucks -- you can make .doc default but for 'Non-technical' people, it's a friggin nightmare!
16 Apr 2009 ~ 1:13pm Garg

NiGHTS wrote:

.docx is my only complaint, too. The ribbon is so much better than the old standard menu system - take the time to use it and it'll pay dividends.

I've been using it and still don't like it. But my biggest complaint is the amount of room it takes up on a notebook screen. I don't understand why people are designing things with horizontal bars when everyone is moving to wide screens. Or why they increased the amount of real estate the humble menu bar takes up at all, regardless of orientation.
16 Apr 2009 ~ 1:52pm Annes

Gargoyle wrote:

I've been using it and still don't like it. But my biggest complaint is the amount of room it takes up on a notebook screen. I don't understand why people are designing things with horizontal bars when everyone is moving to wide screens. Or why they increased the amount of real estate the humble menu bar takes up at all, regardless of orientation.

You can minimize the ribbon by double-clicking one of the headers, that should free up a bit more space.
16 Apr 2009 ~ 2:46pm QCH

Annes wrote:

You can minimize the ribbon by double-clicking one of the headers, that should free up a bit more space.

Yep... what she said.
16 Apr 2009 ~ 3:37pm Garg

Annes wrote:

You can minimize the ribbon by double-clicking one of the headers, that should free up a bit more space.

Yeah, I'm doing that because the space is precious, but it's still annoying since this compromise doesn't simply make the Ribbon smaller, it hides the controls from my screen. The old system gave me all my commonly-used controls from all of the categories on one bar.
16 Apr 2009 ~ 4:36pm Annes You can put all of your commonly-used controls onto the Quick Access Toolbar, place the toolbar under the minimized ribbon, and now using Office 2007 is just as fast (if not faster) than using Office 2003. That's what I've done, at least.
16 Apr 2009 ~ 5:25pm Thrax http://icrontic.com/downloads/ubitmenu-cans-ribbon-in-office-07
16 Apr 2009 ~ 6:18pm Garg

Annes wrote:

You can put all of your commonly-used controls onto the Quick Access Toolbar, place the toolbar under the minimized ribbon, and now using Office 2007 is just as fast (if not faster) than using Office 2003. That's what I've done, at least.

Thrax wrote:

http://icrontic.com/downloads/ubitmenu-cans-ribbon-in-office-07

Awesome, thanks both of you!

Now I just need to get our admins to get persistent profiles in our computer lab or install UBitMenu. I'll definitely do one of these for my home desktop, though.