For Windows

[Doug Barton]

On 3/13/2011 1:02 PM, Jerry wrote:
> On Sun, 13 Mar 2011 09:37:17 -0700 Doug Barton<dougb at dougbarton.us>
> articulated:
>
>> On 03/13/2011 07:57, Jerry wrote:
>>> Outlook Express has been replaced by Windows Mail, an improved
>>> e‑mail program with enhancements such as junk e‑mail filtering
>>> and protection against phishing messages.
>>>
>>> Why are we even discussing a product that in not and has not
>>> been available for quite some time. I heard, although have not
>>> confirmed, that it does not work on Windows 7 anyway which
>>> effectively means it is dead.
>>
>> Wow, are you ever naive. :)  There are millions of people still
>> using Windows XP and Outlook Express. Microsoft has apparently
>> committed to _supporting_ XP into 2014, which means that you won't
>> see serious reduction in XP use for a few years after that, with a
>> very long tail of people continuing to use it for years following.
>> (I spoke with someone the other day who is still using Windows 98
>> because "it does what I want it to do.")
>
> So I am naive, then what are you?

Not in 3rd grade?

> You CC'd me even though I specifically stated that off-list replies
> are basically ignored.

That's just silly, given that:

1) 30 years of Internet tradition says that cc'ing the poster in
messages to the list is the polite thing to do
2) The "Robustness Principle" says, "Be conservative in what you send,
liberal in what you receive."
3) It's completely irrational for you to expect that everyone else on
the Internet is going to change their behavior to suit you
4) If you _really care_ so much about this topic, there is a mailman
configuration option that you can twiddle to solve it for you. You can
follow the instructions at the bottom of the post to get there.

> In following with my basic procedure for unwanted e-mails like that,
> I reported it as SPAM.

Well that's both silly _and_ childish.

> Now, XP sales were terminated on October 22, 2010, with support for
> service pack three to end on April 8, 2014. So what? Outlook Express
> is no longer available.

"I don't think that word means what you think it means." It's totally 
available to the millions of desktops that still have XP installed. This 
is the most recent survey I could find, and they make the mistake of 
conflating "Outlook Express" with older "Outlook" versions (which is a 
mistake because they are separate products) but it should give you an idea:

http://visibleranking.com/2010/05/most-popular-email-clients.php

> It has been superseded by another product
> which works differently. What part of that has got you confused?

I'm pretty sure I'm not the one who is confused. :)

> There are numerous users who still employ old, EOL'd operating
> systems. Does that mean we have to support them at the expense of
> those who have moved on to more modern systems and software?

That depends on your goals. If your goal is to try to force a certain 
idea of communicative purity down people's throats, then no. If your 
goal is to be able to communicate most effectively with the widest 
number of mail recipients, you might want to think about it.

> You have also failed to calculate in the simple fact that just
> because a system has Win XP installed it is also actively using
> Outlook Express.

No, actually I haven't. I stand by my statement that there are millions 
of OE users now, and that those numbers won't be going down much any 
time soon.


Doug

-- 

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