back to article Beyond the Grave: US Navy pays peanuts for Windows XP support

Microsoft canned support for Windows XP and Office and Exchange 2003 in April 2014 - unless you are the U.S. Navy, which is paying $9.1m a year until 2017 to obtain security patches for these obsoleted products. The Navy contract also includes support for Server 2003, which is unplugged from life support on July 2015. Our hats …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    Since it is the taxpayer's money paying for it...

    Why don't they release those patches to the public ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Since it is the taxpayer's money paying for it...

      Presumably the license doesn't allow it. I assume Microsoft would charge a lot more for a license to freely distribute those patches to all and sundry.

    2. AMBxx Silver badge

      Re: Since it is the taxpayer's money paying for it...

      Shame the NHS didn't have the negotiators from the US Navy - bargain.

      1. Voland's right hand Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: Since it is the taxpayer's money paying for it...

        Shame the NHS didn't have the negotiators from the US Navy

        Ever heard of gunboat diplomacy? Last time I checked Redmond is not that far from the coast. Granted, Iowa is now retired, but even in its absence the Navy can still pack some very good "negotiating punch".

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Since it is the taxpayer's money paying for it...

        didnt the NHS only pay 5m? still , only 1000 stations to go....

  2. glen waverley
    Mushroom

    windows for warships or for battleships?

    Can I qualify for extended support as my old (now out of service) XP machine has battleship on it?

    1. Arbee

      Re: windows for warships or for battleships?

      ...and minesweeper.

  3. Roger Greenwood

    I wonder how the conversation went?

    'Either support your OS and our brave troops or we won't buy anything else from you ever again'

    'errr . . '

    'I have Red Hat on the other line'

    'OK'

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I wonder how the conversation went?

      'I have Red Hat on the other line'

      They charge more though.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does that mean somewhere someone has played Minesweeper... on a minesweeper?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Or the bond girl from Live and Let Die playing the Patience style card game as bundled with Windows 3.1 to 7.

  5. Eddy Ito

    I'm sure there are plenty of other XP systems in the other branches of the DOD. I wonder if they all pay a similar rate considering the DOD is the largest employer in the world.

  6. Camilla Smythe

    Hi

    Clippy here..

    "in the context of the U.S. Navy's 326,00 active personnel"

    In the context of the U.S Navy's

    > 326,00 Active Personnel

    > 326,00 a) i]

    Glad to have sorted out your 'bullet points'. Please do carry on.

  7. M7S

    Probably a token fee...

    ...based on the fact that the NSA (and I assume they're friendly with the USN) can give lots of free advice on how to secure WinXP, given that the NSA probably know all the vulnerabilities, although as I type this I realise that if true (regarding computer systems generally) this didn't work out so well for the OPM. Perhaps they don't get the same level of membership in the US Govt "club".

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Probably a token fee...

      Agencies and departments generally don't talk to each other. To do so would mean loss of status and power and most importantly, budget. Hell, the army, the navy, and air force don't talk to each and they're in the same agency/department.

  8. JP19

    "in the context of"

    Or maybe consider it in the context of $91 per year per copy of windows which is probably more than it cost in the first place.

    I have said before I just can't understand how anyone considers it acceptable to have to pay a supplier to fix defects in the product they sold you because the defects were not discovered within some time limit the supplier set.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "in the context of"

      If not some arbitrary time limit, though, what would you have? It's a bit unreasonable for somebody a hundred years from now to unearth an XP box that has some critical data on it (for whatever reason) and contact whatever variant of Microsoft exists then asking for updates to the myriad exploits that will have been discovered by then, wouldn't you say?

      1. JP19

        Re: "in the context of"

        "It's a bit unreasonable for somebody a hundred years"

        No it isn't. If a myriad exploits are discovered it is because the software had a myriad defects to be discovered. I have a customer running software I wrote which is older than Win95. If they found a bug today I would feel obliged to fix it free of charge. If what I sold them is faulty I will fix it, that they didn't notice it was faulty for 20 years is irrelevant.

        1. Mark 85

          Re: "in the context of"

          You're thinking and acting with a sense of ethics and NOT profit. After 20 years, you could have been selling them updates (oh.. new and exciting releases... forgot my marketingspeak).

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      Re: "in the context of"

      I'm trying to convince Commodore to fix defects in my Plus/4, but they stubbornly refuse, don't answer my calls and I can't understand why...

    3. Nigel 11

      Re: "in the context of"

      I just can't understand how anyone considers it acceptable to have to pay a supplier to fix defects in the product they sold you because the defects were not discovered within some time limit the supplier set.

      Right now I'd (somewhat) happily pay Microsoft for another XP license, complete with all the bugs that it had at its termination date. BUT I CAN'T.

      I am looking at an XP PC embedded in a microscope that cost a hundred grand when new, and which is still working and useful and another hundred grand to replace it (which is out of the question). But the PC is flaking out. I can't simply stick a copy of its disk into some other PC and make it work because it's an OEM XP License locked to that (ancient) motherboard. And some experimentation is likely to be required, so even if I could get Microsoft to transfer the license once, that may not go enough to solve the problem. (It would be nice if we had an installable copy of the software we need to transfer, but needless to say we don't, and the microscope manufacturer isn't around any more).

      I've wasted a day on this Wombat already. I'll need to track down a second-hand Windows XP Retail license, so I can do unlimited reinstalls. They're selling on Ebay at a **premium** to the price that Microsoft charged while XP was available for sale. What does that tell you?

      Surely MS could at least sell XP Transfer licenses, so people could keep their XP running until eventually there's no compatible hardware left for love nor money (sometime around 2060 I'd guess). But no, they just want to piss on us.

      1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

        Re: "in the context of"

        Get an XP boxed retail license off ebay.

  9. Anonymous Custard
    Trollface

    Choices, choices...

    The security patches are likely to cost little more than Navy expenditure on toilet rolls.

    Yes, but if push comes to shove, which one would you rather do without?

    1. 's water music

      Re: Choices, choices...

      >> The security patches are likely to cost little more than Navy expenditure on toilet rolls.

      > Yes, but if push comes to shove, which one would you rather do without?

      When pushing gives way to shoving I definitely want toilet paper to be involved

    2. beep54
      Facepalm

      Re: Choices, choices...

      Well, if push comes to shove, I would rather upgrade. To one of those fancy Japanese toilets (I mean, really, would you wipe your hands with dry paper and call them clean?). But, then, that's just me. I doubt that the Navy would waste precious water in such a way.

  10. Gordon 10

    Windows for Warships

    I highly doubt Win4War was part of the XP EOL agreement. No-one in the military would have gone anywhere near if it didn't have a cast iron 40 year operating life.

    1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

      Re: Windows for Warships

      I'm sure that I read somewhere that in part of the contract to supply the DoD with weapon, control or maintenance systems, there was a clause requiring a 10 year withdrawal of support notification.

      This means that the supplier has to warn the DoD of the date that the kit would not be maintainable 10 years before the support was withdrawn.

      That makes the 3 year notice rather abrupt, don't you think.

      1. kain preacher

        Re: Windows for Warships

        Actually the rule is you must maintain it for ten years from date of purchase.

        1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

          Re: Windows for Warships

          Ah, OK.

          But even so, Microsoft may have to support XP for the DoD until at least 2018, so one wonders whether the same "Custom Support" plan rules operate for DoD as for other people.

  11. MeRp

    Having worked with windows for warships, making a training environment, I know the following things about it:

    a) it does indeed use both Windows XP (for workstations) and Windows Server 2003 (for all the servers)

    b) it is such a steaming pile that it makes vanilla Windows Server 2003 look like a work of art

    c) if they're offering those patches to you, you don't want them

    d) the procedures for installing patches are detailed to the idiot level, but don't actually work when followed

    Oh, and the civilians who install it and train the sailors on it did not know that it had the nickname Windows for Warships until I told them; they thought it was a very entertaining name.

  12. x 7

    previous press reports and announcements have stated that Windows for Warships was based on a hardened Win2000 core, not XP or 2003 server

  13. Andy The Hat Silver badge

    So a fully costed, full patch support contract for a small number of Xp machines is $9m p.a.

    If MS had charged $10 on the original Xp price per user as a "premium support option" to extend EOL (security patch support only) that would have netted about $400m, at only 10% uptake, for little extra work (the patches are already done for $9m pa for the Navy remember) and nobody would be complaining about unpatched systems ...

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