As was fairly widely reported, Windows XP will be getting an extra 4 months to live.  The previous cutoff date for computer manufacturers to pre-load systems with Windows XP was Jan. 31st, 2009.  That date has now been extended by Microsoft to May 30th, 2009.  This means you’ll still be able to purchase a new PC from smaller build-to-order manufacturers with Windows XP pre-loaded until May 30th, 2009 – over 7 years from the original release date of Windows XP.  Larger OEMs have until the end of July, 2009 to ship Windows XP.

Assuming the release date for Windows 7 holds, this would leave just a six month gap between the release of Windows 7 and the end of life for Windows XP for smaller build-to-order manufacturers.  It would be only three months for the larger OEMs.  Many business users may never experience Windows Vista Business, and instead move directly to Windows 7.

A lot of critics have cited the oversized hardware requirements for Vista and the lack of backwards-compatibility for hardware drivers and older software.  At the moment, it’s unclear to me how Windows 7 might solve that problem.  Is Microsoft suffering because Windows XP was too reliable?

Windows NT 3.51, 4.0 and Windows 2000 were all horribly unstable business operating systems compared to XP.  Blue screens after software or hardware installations were common.  Unexplainable missing registry keys were common.  Windows XP, on the other hand, was a robust and (relatively) stable OS for business.  It begs the question: should business software be built like other office hardware is?  Should we all develop software that will intentionally be obsolete within 5 years?  Or should we always build backwards-compatibility into infinity?

Filed under: Microsoft, Product Management, Windows