Microsoft's XP "Extended Support", who gets it?

[Bob151]

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3223

I seem to be having problems with MS search engine now. Putting "Extended Support" in quotes gives me hits with either extended or support. Searching with Extended AND Support give me OR search results. I don't get their search engine.

So someone here will know I'm sure. What is "Extended Support?" Will they fix vulnerabilities, will it be available to the general public, will sites carry the patches on the sly if not available to the general public?


Second Topic (thanks)


In case the picture for XP is bleak, I need to know something about that thing that MS calls "File Sharing" in Windows XP and Windows 2000 Pro. In XP Pro, I can uncheck the "Simple File Sharing" box and set specific rights and privileges on files and directories for Users and/or Groups on that system. I am not talking about NETWORK sharing like all the Google hits I read on this topic. I let me wife read the JPGs of our family, I don't let her delete any of them, she is a delete happy person. This is not network file sharing, it is only sharing on that system's file system. XP Home can't do this, XP Pro does do this. I don't know what marketing term MS might use for this now. Can someone let me know which versions of Vista have this feature, and what MS is marketing it as?

Thanks.

 

[ViRGE]

When a product enters its Extended Support phase, Microsoft scales back what work they still do on the OS; it is effectively finished and they switch to a pure maintenance mode. Security patches will still be issued until the product is EOL'd entirely, and those will be released to the public as they always have. What changes is that they are no longer offering free support beyond the security patches; any further support issues with the product require paying for them, and non-security hotfixes (and only hotfixes, there will be no further non-security fully-supported patches) are only developed as needed for paying customers, and they cost money to get. Basically all development & support is stopped outside of security issues, unless you're a large enough organization that you can afford to pay Microsoft to continue working on XP for you.

As for your other question, you're just talking about file permissions. The general equivalent of XP Pro is Vista Business and Ultimate, and I can confirm that the feature you want is in those versions. I do not have a copy of Vista Home Premium (the equivalent of XP Home/MCE) however I'm fairly sure it has full file permission support too.