For those of you running versions of Microsoft Windows without (what Micro$oft considers to be) current service packs, you are about to be disowned by the Behemoth from Redmond. Just thought you might want to know.
The versions included in this swift kick to the curb are:
- Windows XP with service pack 2 (support ends July 13, 2010, along with Windows 2000 Maintenance and Support)
- Windows Vista with no service packs (support ends April 13, 2010)
- Microsoft seems to have “a thing” about the 13th of the month…
- This means you will no longer be able to receive monthly updates, service packs and security fixes from M$oft.
So no problem, you say, I’ll just go download the updates, right? Sure, if you like to live dangerously. Read the blog entries on service pack 3 for XP regarding the risks. Any service pack for Vista is a double-edged sword. Since Vista is by far the most unstable and unpredictable OS ever released, doing anything at all to it is riddled with risks. While Vista should have all the service packs you can find for it, the time to install them is ridiculous (about 5 hours for Vista on any given HP machine for reasons we don’t understand) and you can wind up with a machine that is in a reboot / repair loop forever.
Service Pack 3 for XP has caused no end of headaches for some people. It’s a zero-benefit service pack in our estimation, simply bundling a wad of updates into an SP and shoving a modified version down the pipe to end users labeled a Critical Update. You are far better off to install it from a disk rather than a download (look for our article on this).
If you are going to install a service pack, BACK UP YOUR DATA FIRST. Do NOT use Vista Backup to do this (read our blog entry on this as well). Copy what you need to an external drive manually or download the recommended backup software listed on our Good Things / Bad Things page.
Keep in mind, you NEED the Security Updates for Windows. You do need to resolve this issue in a timely manner to remain safe.
