Netflix ditches XP support?

[MeineFolks'wagen]

I posted this in movies as well, but I just tried to watch Netflix on my old laptop which still runs XP. I get a message saying that I need a system running either Vista or 7 to watch. Nothing on their site (that I can find anyway) says anything about the switch and I didn't hear any news about it. Anyone know about this? I know it's getting to be outdated, but there are a ton of people out there still running XP.....

[BRealistic]

Netflix still uses Silverlight, right?

It seems Silverlight can cause Netflix issues (Netflix uses Silverlight instead of Flash).
You might check for the latest Silverlight update, or even disable what you have and re-install it.

[MeineFolks'wagen]

Netflix still uses Silverlight, right?

It seems Silverlight can cause Netflix issues (Netflix uses Silverlight instead of Flash).
You might check for the latest Silverlight update, or even disable what you have and re-install it.

It uses Silverlight, but that's not where the error is coming from. It clearly comes up with a screen explaining minimum system requirements and it now says you need Vista or 7 to run Netflix. Oh well, no more Netflix on my dinosaur laptop

[BRealistic]

It uses Silverlight, but that's not where the error is coming from. It clearly comes up with a screen explaining minimum system requirements and it now says you need Vista or 7 to run Netflix. Oh well, no more Netflix on my dinosaur laptop

Yeah... but it runs using Silverlight.
There is nothing Netflix needs to do to make it run on Windows XP... stopping support for XP just seems intentionally asinine.
Wait- did Microsoft buy Netflix?

I would contact Netflix support and see if there is a way to get it working on Windows XP.
They should announce such a support change before they do it, so it is worth checking on.. maybe a glitch?

[1stRabbit]

Yeah... but it runs using Silverlight.
There is nothing Netflix needs to do to make it run on Windows XP... stopping support for XP just seems intentionally asinine.
Wait- did Microsoft buy Netflix?

I would contact Netflix support and see if there is a way to get it working on Windows XP.
They should announce such a support change before they do it, so it is worth checking on.. maybe a glitch?

I wouldn't say it's asinine.... It is just shy of being an 11 year old operating system now. They likely aren't making much out of new XP licensing to warrant further support either. Imagine in 2001 having to still support windows 3.1 when XP is out . There comes a time when you just have to cut the cord on legacy support.

[BRealistic]

I wouldn't say it's asinine.... It is just shy of being an 11 year old operating system now. They likely aren't making much out of new XP licensing to warrant further support either. Imagine in 2001 having to still support windows 3.1 when XP is out . There comes a time when you just have to cut the cord on legacy support.

How long it was initially released shouldn't matter.
What should matter is how many current users still use it, and how long ago were new PCs sold with the OS.
Until Windows 7 came out, XP was still an option for many new PCs.

[Egilbe]

Last time I tried streaming Netlfix on Linux it popped up that Windows XP was still one of the required OS's and yes, Netflix still uses Silverlight. It should still work, but it does say in the spport notes on Netflix Win7 and Vista. I would contact support at Netflix and ask what gives. Plenty of PC's still use XP. It's still a good OS.

[SAPJetta]

If Netflix has suddenly dropped support for XP, they will be shooting themselves in the foot once more. One mistake after another this past year.

[zhenya00]

I just tested it and it's working for me on XP.

What browser are you using? Mine was on IE8.

[GahannaKid]

How long it was initially released shouldn't matter.
What should matter is how many current users still use it, and how long ago were new PCs sold with the OS.
Until Windows 7 came out, XP was still an option for many new PCs.

I wonder if you say the same thing about IE6. Just because people are using it doesn't mean it's not time to move on, and if you're still using XP at home then it's long past time.

[azunderg]

No one supports XP anymore. Wonder what that's about?

[Egilbe]

I wonder if you say the same thing about IE. Just because people are using it doesn't mean it's not time to move on, and if you're still using XP at home then it's long past time.

ftfy

[BRealistic]

I wonder if you say the same thing about IE6. Just because people are using it doesn't mean it's not time to move on, and if you're still using XP at home then it's long past time.

Considering IE upgrades are FREE, I don't see how this is comparable.

Some people don't like change. They find stuff that works fr them and they stick with them.
Some people always want the newest things. They are always ditching the current for the new even if the new is no better for their application.
Some people make upgrade choices based on whether or not the upgrade is worth it for their application.

XP SP3 still works fine. Why the XP hate?
It's not like Windows 95 that was so full of security issues MS had to kill the programmers.

[Egilbe]

Considering IE upgrades are FREE, I don't see how this is comparable.

Some people don't like change. They find stuff that works fr them and they stick with them.
Some people always want the newest things. They are always ditching the current for the new even if the new is no better for their application.
Some people make upgrade choices based on whether or not the upgrade is worth it for their application.

XP SP3 still works fine. Why the XP hate?
It's not like Windows 95 that was so full of security issues MS had to kill the programmers.

Or Windows Many Errors...

I would still be using XP if I hadn't built a new computer and put Vista on it. I hated Vista so badly I couldn't wait to get rid of it and upgrade to Win7. From there, I upgraded my other 3 PC's to Win 7 pro from XP, only because I got the upgrade keys for cheap through school.

[1stRabbit]

Or Windows Many Errors...

I would still be using XP if I hadn't built a new computer and put Vista on it. I hated Vista so badly I couldn't wait to get rid of it and upgrade to Win7. From there, I upgraded my other 3 PC's to Win 7 pro from XP, only because I got the upgrade keys for cheap through school.

Because Vista is soooo much different than XP when you installed it

XP was a POS when it was released and had the same issues as Vista . Then, it got patches and vendors finally updated their crap drivers... Like Vista. Same thing happens with every OS release by any company.

[WD-40]

I wonder if you say the same thing about IE6. Just because people are using it doesn't mean it's not time to move on, and if you're still using XP at home then it's long past time.

That may be a true statement, but you're looking at this from the wrong angle.

Microsoft dropping support for XP increases earnings because people have to buy new software.
Netflix dropping support for XP decreases earnings because it eliminates ~20% of their potential streaming customers.


If that's what they've done, it's a stupid decision for sure. As SAPJetta said, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot to do that. It's in Netflix's best interest to keep supporting the older OSs as long as they can - all the way up until the maintenance on the old software approaches the revenue from that percentage of their customer base.

[zhenya00]

Because Vista is soooo much different than XP when you installed it

XP was a POS when it was released and had the same issues as Vista . Then, it got patches and vendors finally updated their crap drivers... Like Vista. Same thing happens with every OS release by any company.

XP was very different than Vista when it was released. XP was the first consumer release on the very stable Win 2000 kernel. All prior consumer releases since Win 95 were prone to constant lockups and random crashes, not just of an individual program, but of the entire operating system. The move to XP was worth the effort for people because it markedly improved their computing experience.

In contrast, Vista offered little improvement for the headache. It not only required new drivers and programs, but learning a new GUI, most of which was just flash without substance. Windows 7 was adopted more widely because it started to offer real security and productivity improvements over XP.

[Egilbe]

XP was very different than Vista when it was released. XP was the first consumer release on the very stable Win 2000 kernel. All prior consumer releases since Win 95 were prone to constant lockups and random crashes, not just of an individual program, but of the entire operating system. The move to XP was worth the effort for people because it markedly improved their computing experience.

In contrast, Vista offered little improvement for the headache. It not only required new drivers and programs, but learning a new GUI, most of which was just flash without substance. Windows 7 was adopted more widely because it started to offer real security and productivity improvements over XP.

I went from Win98SE2 to XP and loved it. I went from XP to Vista and hated it. Obviously it was just me

[Angry_Birds]

Considering IE upgrades are FREE, I don't see how this is comparable.

Some people don't like change. They find stuff that works fr them and they stick with them.
Some people always want the newest things. They are always ditching the current for the new even if the new is no better for their application.
Some people make upgrade choices based on whether or not the upgrade is worth it for their application.

XP SP3 still works fine. Why the XP hate?
It's not like Windows 95 that was so full of security issues MS had to kill the programmers.

It's literally a 10 year old OS. This may be taboo for me to say as a sysadmin, but MS really needs to start taking the slash-and-burn approach a-la-Apple with software. I don't even want to think of just how much money and human capital Microsoft wastes supporting these antiquated operating systems.

[zhenya00]

It's literally a 10 year old OS. This may be taboo for me to say as a sysadmin, but MS really needs to start taking the slash-and-burn approach a-la-Apple with software. I don't even want to think of just how much money and human capital Microsoft wastes supporting these antiquated operating systems.

Not nearly as much as it'd cost their customers to make the change.

Apple will never make serious in-roads into the corporate market with that kind of policy, it's too chaotic for most businesses. XP works and makes people money, whereas upgrading only costs money. Heck, we still make over half of our revenue on systems running DOS.

[BRealistic]

Not nearly as much as it'd cost their customers to make the change.

Apple will never make serious in-roads into the corporate market with that kind of policy, it's too chaotic for most businesses. XP works and makes people money, whereas upgrading only costs money. Heck, we still make over half of our revenue on systems running DOS.

Yep.
Businesses want software they can depend on and they don't give a burning schnauzer about cool factor.

That long term use concern must be why Ubunto has this on their business desktop site:



Showing update cycles and LTS (long term support).

[robbyb413]

XP was very different than Vista when it was released. XP was the first consumer release on the very stable Win 2000 kernel. All prior consumer releases since Win 95 were prone to constant lockups and random crashes, not just of an individual program, but of the entire operating system. The move to XP was worth the effort for people because it markedly improved their computing experience.

In contrast, Vista offered little improvement for the headache. It not only required new drivers and programs, but learning a new GUI, most of which was just flash without substance. Windows 7 was adopted more widely because it started to offer real security and productivity improvements over XP.

Spoken like someone who's first computer ran XP SP 3. I think you're looking at things through rose-colored glasses. You've forgotten the older upgrades because they were just so long ago. The MS OS upgrade process has always been the same. New version is buggy, new drivers and programs are sometimes needed, Service Packs improve things, everything finally runs smoothly. XP didn't do it any differently or better than any other. Vista was also just fine. People just don't like to change things and like to complain. Simple as that.

[robbyb413]

Yep.
Businesses want software they can depend on and they don't give a burning schnauzer about cool factor.

That long term use concern must be why Ubunto has this on their business desktop site:



Showing update cycles and LTS (long term support).

I think you answered your question. Business want something they can depend on (LTS release) and not something that has cool factor (regular release cycle), but still making people aware that the other options exist just in case they're not privvy to that info.

[zhenya00]

Spoken like someone who's first computer ran XP SP 3. I think you're looking at things through rose-colored glasses. The MS OS upgrade process has always been the same. New version is buggy, new drivers and programs are sometimes needed, Service Packs improve things, everything finally runs smoothly. XP didn't do it any differently or better than any other. Vista was also just fine. People just don't like to change things and like to complain. Simple as that.

I actually managed the transition from Windows 98 to Windows XP at my workplace. The fact that XP was based on the NT kernel was a HUGE deal at the time. Before that, random lock-ups and system freezes that necessitated using the power button were nearly a daily occurrence for Windows end users.

Of course the transition was not totally smooth, but the point I made was that it was WORTH IT for users. XP markedly improved productivity. It's this reason alone that it's life-cycle will span 15 years. While Vista offered some increased security, it did so primarily in an abrupt and intrusive manner. It's not like the average user was suffering from the security model of XP on a daily basis, so there was no compelling reason to upgrade. The Aero effects offered in Vista were flash with no substance; they literally were designed to look pretty, but offered no added functionality. I ran it for two years, but there was no compelling business reason for us to upgrade. Even with Win 7, it's a gradual transition, nothing like XP where every computer in use was upgraded at once.

People don't like change when it offers them little or nothing in return. Simple as that.

[robbyb413]

I actually managed the transition from Windows 98 to Windows XP at my workplace. The fact that XP was based on the NT kernel was a HUGE deal at the time. Before that, random lock-ups and system freezes that necessitated using the power button were nearly a daily occurrence for Windows end users.

Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 didn't have random lock-ups and power freezes. So you mean: before that, some end-users of Windows, typically those built on 9X architecture (95, 98, and ME) had some issues with freezes and lockups.

Of course the transition was not totally smooth, but the point I made was that it was WORTH IT for users. XP markedly improved productivity.

You're assuming a world where people only used 9X architecture. Many people and Companies began using NT back with NT 3.1, and those people all went NT 3.1 to 3.5/1 to 4.0 to 5.0 (Windows 2000). How did XP improve productivity over windows 2000 exactly? By adding "rotate image" to the context menu? Game changer right there.

While Vista offered some increased security, it did so primarily in an abrupt and intrusive manner. It's not like the average user was suffering from the security model of XP on a daily basis, so there was no compelling reason to upgrade.

Vista tried to abruptly take steps to protect users from getting as many drive-by virus and malware installs, so you could actually say the average user was suffering from XP's security model.

The Aero effects offered in Vista were flash with no substance; they literally were designed to look pretty, but offered no added functionality.

What's the point of introducing that as an argument for or against? There's nothing wrong with refreshing the UI a bit to take advantage of more powerful modern machines if it isn't at the expense of productivity, which it wasn't. They enhanced the start menu in Vista, which for people that liked it could use to save them time. For those that didn't - going back to the look and feel of XP was only a right click away. It didn't make anyone less productive to use Aero, and if it did for you then you could change it back to feel very much like XP. Not the end of the world either way. Really making a mountain out of mole-hill. It's not like the slapped Metro on it!

[zhenya00]

Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 didn't have random lock-ups and power freezes. So you mean: before that, some end-users of Windows, typically those built on 9X architecture (95, 98, and ME) had some issues with freezes and lockups.

Did you miss my first sentence where I specifically mentioned Win 98 at our workplace? Or the post before where I specified that it was the first consumer release on the NT Kernel? I don't know how I could have been any clearer, or why you are trying so hard to find an argument here.

[robbyb413]

Well part of that was mis-interpretation. I thought you were saying all windows end users, not windows end users at your company sprcifically. Apologies for that mis-reading. I'm sure if you could gather metrics on that and look back on it though it was still only some of your users though, not all, that had to three-finger-crash and/or manually power cycle their machines. It just feels like "all" of them when they're complaining. The rest still stands. Windows NT was always available to the consumer. It was called "NT Workstation" or "Windows 2000 Professional" when you got the "desktop" version. Many OEMs allowed you to choose between Windows and Windows NT when you ordered, similar to the choice between something like "Windows Home" and "Windows Professional" when you order now. They were both stable, and all my points following the initial mis-interpretation still stand. XP wasn't an insane departure from either of those. It did have some tweaks and changes, but nothing that would actually make your day dramatically faster just as Vista and 7 were just an evolution and nothing more. At this point XP is nothing more than an old OS that people cling to because for them it's comfortable and they don't like change. It was (is) nothing special.

Nobody is going to lose business because they don't support XP, perhaps they will see a dip but the benefits far outweigh that loss and it won't matter.

It's a benefit to all of us to be rid of XP. Vista is about to be a thing of the past too, so software companies will only be worrying about Win7 and Win8 instead of spreading resources about on 4 different windows OS. That's going to mean companies can cut costs and/or reallocate to work on making products for Win7/8 better. They'll be saving money even if they lose some customers.

Plus the consumer should see a better end-user experience from that so those people will continue to pay, some will be happy and spring for more premium offerings from their existing providers, and they'll regain many of the customers they lost in the XP switch as people hear about how much better things are with the newst version of said products.

At that point anyone that doesn't have XP will move to other Windows versions or use support products (i.e. XBOX, Wii, etc in the case of Netflix) or they'll just miss out until April 2014 at which point they can re-evaluate their world view and try to figure out what they're going to do about their OS.