News - Microsoft surprised by Chinese Windows 8 ban

[HEXUS]

China has banned all government purchases of Windows 8 due to security concerns.

Read more.

[shaithis]

Wow, just wow.

XP Support ended almost 13 years after release....and because MS won't support a 13 year old piece of software, they ban the newest release? Me thinks there is a hidden agenda!

[kalniel]

Linux would only be a consideration if they consider the support to be equal or superior to MS's windows support. Establishing that with a western company is going to be tricky - Red Hat's end of life support isn't that far removed from MS's for example. It's simply not feasible for western companies to provide support for life on a cheap product, but a Chinese local/govt company may be able to.

[OilSheikh]

No surprises there, considering how bad Windows 8 is.

[kalniel]

No surprises there, considering how bad Windows 8 is.

So you think that people shouldn't be able to judge the quality of a product by themselves, and just have their government deciding if they can by something or not?

[kosch]

No surprises there, considering how bad Windows 8 is.

So you think that people shouldn't be able to judge the quality of a product by themselves, and just have their government deciding if they can by something or not?

They haven't banned it outright just banned it being used on government PC's/networks.

[Saracen]

Agree with shaithis.

I notice that Win7 installs aren't banned. I wonder quite how allowing Win7 but precluding Win8 prevents a similar lack of support in the future?

I guess MS kind-of got themselves in this situation for not pre-announcing firm and definite end-of-support dates, on release of the OS. That lack of a definitive end date has led to an inferred never-ending commitment.

Don't get me wrong, though. Members here might just have noticed that, first, I'm not a fan if Win8 (or more accurately, MS for forcing MUI on us in it), by virtue of me objecting (or moaning, depending on how you see it) about it given half a chance. What can I say, I'm annoyed over it. Also, I have a number of XP systems and I resist suggestions, from MS or anyone else, that I "ought" to upgrade. Don't need to, and not going to.

But I don't see why MS should provide never-ending free support.

Frankly, support is a service. If you want it, you ought to expect to either pay for it in the purchase price, or (after an initial period) pay for it on a monthly, annual or "as needed" basis. In any event, providing it at all is a commercial operation, and expense.

My one reservation to this is that, like all products (and software is a product) UK consumer law requires it to be of "satisfactory quality" and "fit for purpose". If ongoing "support" is necessary to address product deficiencies that cause it to drop below those standards, then at least for the period required by law, support ought to be provided. So a lot depends on what is in the "support".

[Ksyruz]

The key word here is "Piracy", seeing as a pirated copy of windows 8 is less secure than the genuine as the auto updates are off because of windows genuine activation updates and due to zero day attacks. So this ban does not seem far fetched, as China is the nation of hackers, for the government to ban a product that can be easily compromised through user negligence of important updates. Also pirated copies and other bypassing methods can house viruses from the get go.

[EggenMcBerg]

It could also be seen as a tit-for-tat reaction to the US's announcement that it's charging PLA officers with hacking US companies.

[Saracen]

It could also be seen as a tit-for-tat reaction to the US's announcement that it's charging PLA officers with hacking US companies.

Which, they very likely were.

[Badbonji]

Agree with shaithis.

I notice that Win7 installs aren't banned. I wonder quite how allowing Win7 but precluding Win8 prevents a similar lack of support in the future?

I guess MS kind-of got themselves in this situation for not pre-announcing firm and definite end-of-support dates, on release of the OS. That lack of a definitive end date has led to an inferred never-ending commitment.

Don't get me wrong, though. Members here might just have noticed that, first, I'm not a fan if Win8 (or more accurately, MS for forcing MUI on us in it), by virtue of me objecting (or moaning, depending on how you see it) about it given half a chance. What can I say, I'm annoyed over it. Also, I have a number of XP systems and I resist suggestions, from MS or anyone else, that I "ought" to upgrade. Don't need to, and not going to.

But I don't see why MS should provide never-ending free support.

Frankly, support is a service. If you want it, you ought to expect to either pay for it in the purchase price, or (after an initial period) pay for it on a monthly, annual or "as needed" basis. In any event, providing it at all is a commercial operation, and expense.

My one reservation to this is that, like all products (and software is a product) UK consumer law requires it to be of "satisfactory quality" and "fit for purpose". If ongoing "support" is necessary to address product deficiencies that cause it to drop below those standards, then at least for the period required by law, support ought to be provided. So a lot depends on what is in the "support".

But Microsoft did release EOL support dates: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/lifecycle. They couldn't expect MS to continually extend support forever as it costs money and resources.

Seeing as the revenue isn't that much there they should just ignore them, it will be interesting to see what OS they will decide to use as XP is obviously not secure now either.

[EggenMcBerg]

Which, they very likely were.

Absolutely - but let he who is without sin and all that malarkey, eh?

[crossy]

I suspect this is a storm in a green tea cup. Any one care to bet that in a month or two we'll get a quiet announcement that the "security concerns" have been addressed by Microsoft, and then a loud announcement that they (MS) have just won a large government contract with Windows 8.

From what little I've seen there's still a few concerns about Windows 8, especially around problems with software that works fine on Windows 7 not working stably on 8. In which case the PRC government are probably right. And I'm sorry, but I still don't find that Win8 interface (or what they did to Office2013) anything but worse than what was there before. (Obligatory Windows8 rant over)

Although, given the statement about "foreign OS" I suspect this is a play to justify some local procurement. But I've got no objections to that - a homogeneous setup is far easier to attack. I suppose it depends what applications they're running, and whether the government has been smart enough to insist on open(ish) standards for files etc.

[Saracen]

But Microsoft did release EOL support dates: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/lifecycle. They couldn't expect MS to continually extend support forever as it costs money and resources.

Seeing as the revenue isn't that much there they should just ignore them, it will be interesting to see what OS they will decide to use as XP is obviously not secure now either.

Yeah, but what I said was a "definitive" end date, on release of the OS .

MS has a general policy of support for 10 years, but it gets moved at their whim according to matket conditions. XP main support ended years ago. But then, due to "popularity" they offered "extended" support, and announced only two years ago when that was coming yo an end. Except that it isn't, for AV issues, and the Nalware tools. And it isn't if you pay for the custom program. And it isn't for Embedded XP, which granted, is a bit different.

That was my point. Dates are all over the place. They get moved when MS release a "new" OS that flops, for instance, like Millenium or Vista, and customer en-masse demand downgrades to XP (or 2000) and MS realise that if they decline to extend support, many users may consider switching to, say, Linux, so to protect market share, they "extend". They doing it right now. XP support ended, sort-of, except where it didn't.

The dates you gave are the life cycke dates NOW. Not when XP was launched, which was what I said.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It seems it might be part of the spat regarding the Chinese PLA people who are wanted by the FBI.

[miniyazz]

Yeah, but what I said was a "definitive" end date, on release of the OS .

MS has a general policy of support for 10 years, but it gets moved at their whim according to matket conditions. XP main support ended years ago. But then, due to "popularity" they offered "extended" support, and announced only two years ago when that was coming yo an end. Except that it isn't, for AV issues, and the Nalware tools. And it isn't if you pay for the custom program. And it isn't for Embedded XP, which granted, is a bit different.

That was my point. Dates are all over the place. They get moved when MS release a "new" OS that flops, for instance, like Millenium or Vista, and customer en-masse demand downgrades to XP (or 2000) and MS realise that if they decline to extend support, many users may consider switching to, say, Linux, so to protect market share, they "extend". They doing it right now. XP support ended, sort-of, except where it didn't.

The dates you gave are the life cycke dates NOW. Not when XP was launched, which was what I said.

The key point here is that the EOL dates have been extended. I don't see how you can claim an extension to EOL dates to be a bad thing for clients, since they can quite happily cycle out their update plans at the date they'd previously planned, if they wished. Or alternatively shelving a plan for 24 months due to an EOL extension is hardly a costly exercise and overall cheaper than upgrading sooner.
Microsoft published the EOL date that we've now passed, for XP, back in 2006. That's before Vista was even released. That's also almost 8 years over which the EOL date has not been moved which is why the incompetence of organisations like HMRC who have somehow failed to prepare adequately for this, frustrates me so much.