Windows XP is two months younger than IE6.
Windows XP is the successor to both Windows 2000 Professional and Windows Me, and is the first consumer-oriented operating system produced by Microsoft to be built on the Windows NT kernel (version 5.1) and architecture. Windows XP was first released on October 25, 2001 –Wikipedia
7 replies on “Windows XP”
I have never seen Windows XP without IE6 and it is always installed with the OS. If I dont remember wrong, Microsoft even claimed that IE6 makes part of the OS.
So I wonder how it can be younger…
@Douglas: maybe you misunderstand… Windows XP is younger than IE6, meaning IE6 was released *before* Windows XP.
This is so awesome! IE 6 is f’king older than an OS that will be longer supported than Vista. Well. think about this! 🙂
Actually, IE6 was released WITH Windows XP.
Your project to bring “death” to IE6 will fail because of Windows XP :
Windows XP RTM (SP0) ships with IE6 gold
Windows XP SP1 ships with IE6SP1 ( also in Server2003 )
Windows XP SP2 AND SP3 both ship with IE6SP2 ( also in Server 2003 with SP1 and SP2 )
between all those IEs there is little to no different, except that with IE6 in XPSP2/XPSP3 the popupblocker is built in and zones are a bit tighter set.
Even with an integrated SP3 in a XP disk or a *new* CDROM from Microsoft which has SP3 integrated, the End USer finds himself in XP with IE6. ( He also finds Windows Mediaplayer 9 and the Windows Messenger 4.7 )
Microsoft has decided for whatever reason to ship outdated versions of their applications in a Servicepack at a time when already IE7, WMP11 and Messenger 5.1/WindowsLive 8.5 was long available.
There are users that get used to those apps out of the box ( just remember how far IE6 is embedded into XP and how much internet-centric the OS is ) and decide to not get the new versions offered by Windowsupdate.
Take also in account that XP is in use on machines from 2000/2001 and are absolutely supported officially by Microsoft. XP SP3 says it runs on a P300 with 128 Rams. So has IE and WMP to be.
IE7 and especially IE8 are memory hogs. Maybe that is the reason to not ship them with newer XP disks. Because the systemrequirements for the whole OS would go up or double.
The biggest “problem” and tech-stopping factor is that XP will be around for the next 5 years at a minimum. Microsoft will deliver updates until 2014. That is : Updates for IE6 when running in XPSP3.
You can see that now with Windows 2000 :
If you install Windows 2000 Sp4 from the last disks thtat were produced you end up with IE 5.01. If you do not take the offer to install IE6 from Windowsupdate (IE6SP1 is the last for 2000 ) you will get security updates offered for ie501..
xp is a extremely popular os, even more than win98se..
ie6 wont die..
so your argument boils down to:
a two versions ago browser is popular on the last version of an os and will continue to be popular, despite the only os it ships with will soon be two versions removed? just saying ie6 is still popular doesn’t make it true. right now, there isn’t any one browser version that can claim to have a majority of users. sure, internet explorer in aggregate accounts for something like 67%, but ie7 is definitely not the same browser as ie6.
even though it’s technically true microsoft supports it and it may be technically true these ancient machines might still be online surfing youtube, hitting up flickr, where were you before november 1st 2008? wait, let me guess, you were pushing software vendors to maintain compatibility with windows 3.11, right? because that’s when windows 3.11 finally reached end-of-life.
and regarding your assertion that xp is extremely popular, does this sound familiar? doesn’t it sound silly now? when xp came out, how many people do you know were shopping around for a new windows 95 machine?
you’re right that ie6 will still be around. all i’m saying is it doesn’t matter to me.
I agree fully with Dave Auayan, the internet will not progress until support for these browsers becomes more limited. My personal web development philosophy is to support IE6 to a point where it’s stable and accessible but not in hinderence of the overall quality of the site/app.
As for Windows XP, true that the requirements would go up, but Windows Update bases its suggestions for updates on your system specs and if you fit the needs of IE7 or IE8, it will recommend the update, so many many XP users are upgrading already. Smartie made it sound like XP users are stuck with IE6 regardless of the situation, which simply is not true. I have seen IE8 work great on XP machines, just not really low-end ones.
… my 2 cents