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 Microsoft to discontinue providing security updates to non-XP Internet Explorer
September 28, 2004
If you're one of about 200 million people using older versions of Windows and still want the latest security enhancements to Internet Explorer, get ready to XP upgrade. Microsoft affirmed that its recent security improvements to IE would be made available only to XP users.
Microsoft Corp. this week reiterated that it would keep the new version of Microsoft's IE Web browser available only as part of the recently released Windows XP operating system, Service Pack 2.
"We do not have plans to deliver Windows XP SP2 enhancements for Windows 2000 or other older versions of Windows," the company said in a statement. "The most secure version of Windows today is Windows XP with SP2. We recommend that customers upgrade to XP and SP2 as quickly as possible." "IE has been a part of the operating system since its release," said the Microsoft representative. "IE is a feature of Windows."
This creates a bit of headache, meaning people who still run Windows non-XP would have to make hard decisions as to what to do with the IE's future weaknesses: switch to a competitor (luckily, there are couple of credible browsers for free), or upgrade to XP, in order to continue getting later updates. The later choice would leave you wallet much thinner, from $99 if you decide to upgrade from any older OS. That, analysts say, is a steep price to pay to secure a browser that swept the market as a free, standalone product.
"It's a problem that people should have to pay for a whole OS upgrade to get a safe browser," said Michael Cherry, analyst for Directions on Microsoft in Redmond, Washington. "It does look like a certain amount of this is to encourage upgrade to XP."
Microsoft denied it was deliberately capitalizing on the Internet's security woes to stimulate demand for XP. "Microsoft is not using security issues or any security situation to try to drive upgrades," said a company representative. "But it only makes sense that the latest products are the most secure."
Microsoft currently commands roughly 94 percent of the worldwide operating system market measured by software shipments, not including free Linux OSs, as reported by IDC.
Breakdown into Microsoft's approximately 390 million OS installations around the world reveals that Windows XP Pro constitutes 26.1 percent, while Windows XP Home has 24.7 percent share, according to IDC. The remaining 49.2 percent is composed of Windows 2000 Professional (17.5 percent), Windows 98 (14.9 percent), Windows ME (6.5 percent), Windows 95 (5.4 percent), and Windows NT Workstation (4.9 percent). That 49.2 percent of Windows users are left out in the cold when it comes to significant updates to IE and other software.
But this decision is not what non-XP folks should worry about. Even being constantly updated, IE is considered as one of the most vulnerable and probed browsers of late, with more and more home users and IT professionals switching to competitive products like Mozilla Foundation's Firefox or Opera browsers.
At the end of the day, the winning combination is a fully-patched browser, antivirus with latest virus definitions installed, and a reliable firewall able to control bidirectional data.
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