Please Support Windows XP

[AndrewL]

I know that XP is up there in age but we still have a good chunk of players that are still in healthy operation with the operating system. Newer/refurbished players we get are Windows 7 but I really can't afford upgrading all the OS's to Win 7 so that the EXE version of the platform works without issue (watchdog not working, signage player crashing and not reopening, sometimes signage player not even booting at all). I've been advised to scale back to the pre exe version but eventually that will be obsolete and then what?

This information comes from after a live support chat.

[criley]

I would assume that like everything else in life, you're going to have to upgrade eventually. How do you expect MS to grow and innovate if they keep all the old technology that doesn't support the new features and expectations of their users and clients? Your fees are going to have to include $ budgeted to keep your system up to date. It may run less than $5/month per player. Probably closer to $2.

[AndrewL]

I appreciate your information and i recognize that this is the con of cloud software while having static hardware and OS.. It upgrades whether you are ready or not  - but I still don't think it is appropriate to discontinue supporting an OS with zero notice. I have upgraded each of my players, manually, and now I have to go back and put them back because MS forgot to say something. I think giving a 6 month minimum period is sufficient for a company to migrate systems.

On the plus I am very happy with the hardware demands as they have continuously come down from heavy processors to standard everyday computer requirements. I am also very happy with the support team and the fact that they are always available to chat.

Ultimately this is a lesson learned the hard way and hopefully MS learns from this error and gives notice to its paying customers - which by the way the website still says supports all Windows OS...

[criley]

You are right. I was not aware that te new stuff did not work on XP nor did MS fail to notify everyone. I have ditched XP years ago knowing that Microsoft was going to stop supporting it and seeing other signs on the wall like MS mediaboxes shipping with Windows 7. This was not an official notice but you may want to read it as it is from other users.

http://script.digitalsignage.com/forum/index.php/topic,1440.msg7460.html#msg7460

And I guess technically it still does support all processors, just in the legacy software. But, I can see how it can me misleading.