Would love to still run Windows XP.
On top of that, most of their products are software running on your desktop and will still keep working after EOL
And if you're a government or enterprise with spectacularly big wallets, you can choose to pay Microsoft big $$ to keep shipping you additional security patches
Normal people also get to buy extended support if desired[1], and frankly it's not that expensive if you really need it.
[1]: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/04/03/1757230/microsoft-r...
With a three year release cycle, you used to be able to skip up to two versions of Office and still get security updates. Now you can't skip any because five years of support is too short to get you to the release six years out.
Google closes services with no alternative, and as they are almost always cloud-based, you can't use them at all after the closure.
Microsoft is selling products that can be used indefinitely, albeit without continued software updates from Microsoft.
But you can't use Google Reader or Google Wave in any shape or form.
Will that be true for Win 10 or 11 though? Would they keep running forever without updates?
> > Yes they will work indefinitely. Why wouldn't they?
Because the computer clock advanced past a date which triggers bugs or limitations on some component, and it cannot be adjusted backwards without a full reinstall, or it's talking to networked services which expect the clock to be close enough to reality. It might be possible to fix with third-party updates, but that's no longer "without updates".
And if you need a reinstall, the online account requirement and/or activation servers being turned off might make it hard without third-party modifications. (It's been a long time since I last installed Windows anywhere, and that was before the online account requirement; how hard is it to install Windows on a completely offline computer nowadays?)
The second part isn't based in reality at all. Windows 10 can be installed entirely offline.
How does it get activated? Or do you mean forever being locked out of, e.g., Edge settings and being able to turn off broken transparency effects?
I'm not going to link to any of it here, but there's also loads of cracked slmgr.vbs scripts out there that will easily activate your Windows install offline.
This is possible with any piece of software. I don't know if Windows 95 will work after the year 9999, nor do I think it's a scenario we should really worry about.
>And if you need a reinstall, the online account requirement and/or activation servers being turned off might make it hard without third-party modifications.
The online account requirement can be bypassed with a command line option during setup. It does also have some fail safe processing that catches if the online account login fails, falling back to an offline account option.
In terms of activation, you can use Windows 10 or 11 without activating it, but you'll end up with a watermark on the desktop.
Windows XP was the first Windows version to use activation, and it's still possible to activate it via the telephone 22+ years later, so it's likely the activation process for Windows 10 and 11 will continue for some years.
Much of the advance of Wave went into other products. Wave itself did not take off, but we have better chat, better email, better docs, all because of things pioneered in Wave. This is often the case with Google products disappearing, it's often because they've served their purpose and the technology has become normalised in other places.
Google Play Music is a good example of this. It was a technically capable product, but missing the market (in my opinion), and was turned into YouTube Music, a much better fit (again, opinion). Many product "deaths" are actually just a migration, or a recognition that the product is no longer necessary, and are better for it.
Apart from Reader. RIP Reader.
Google randomly kills products with 30-60 days notice, and no upgrade path to a different product.
Completely different.
Would love to still run Dapper Drake.