Yesterday Linden Lab blogged about updates to the Second Life system requirements. This mainly centred around Linden Lab no longer wanting to support Windows XP because Microsoft no longer support Windows XP. This is fine and lots of companies will follow suit.
However where matters get a tad distasteful is in Linden Lab’s moves to block future installs of the client on machines that aren’t running Windows XP Service Pack 3.
This is a very bizarre move considering the client will happily run on Windows XP SP2. There are numerous reasons why clients crash on systems, people running Windows XP are likely to be running older hardware and have less RAM than modern systems, for example, but upgrading to a new OS or Service Pack is not likely to improve their performance to any great degree in terms of Second Life.
I don’t see the problem with Linden Lab saying they are going to stop supporting Windows XP, it’s a sensible move but it’s not Linden Lab’s role to dictate to people whose systems can run Second Life, what Service Pack level they should be at unless it poses a threat to the Second Life service as a whole, which is clearly not the case or else Windows XP would have been blocked long ago.
This would make perfect sense if the client did not work at all on the systems, but on April 27th there was no mention of Second Life not working on Windows XP below SP3.
So then comes the support angle, people on older systems will need more support, but that’s a red herring when you’ve announced you will no longer support an operating system, a support call or ticket ends at that point, the same as many Linden Lab support tickets end when people inform the Lab that they aren’t running the official client.
Linden Lab could cut support even further by insisting people use 64 bit operating systems and a minimum 8GB of RAM, those systems are likely to be less problematic but it’s not a good move in terms of customer service for people who are happily running Second Life on systems that don’t meet that criteria.
In the overall scheme of things I don’t see this being a big issue because people who haven’t been updating their version of Windows are unlikely to be updating their Second Life client either. However in terms of a bizarre precedent, this is an uncomfortable move.
I’m all in favour of people being encouraged to update their OS and Second Life client, I’m far less of a fan of such draconian measures to encourage people to do so though.
Things change, software and hardware go out of date. Everquest Landmark is only designed to work on 64 bit systems, for example and those requirements will change over time. That will exclude plenty of people but that’s their choice, the game simply won’t run on 32 bit but therein lies the difference between their requirements and Linden Lab’s change, Second Life will run on Windows XP without SP3.
As I said earlier, it makes sense for Linden Lab to pull the plug on supporting systems running Windows XP, but it’s a tad more confusing as to why they would want to block installs, it will install, even on the newer clients, on Windows XP SP3, for the time being anyway.
Bizarre? Consider those poor individuals (like me) who spent a bloody fortune on dual processor PowerPC G5s in 2005 only to have Apple declare them obsolete in 2009. The domino effect quickly followed suit as we watched every software creator drop their own support, and halt development. LL has removed any and all viewers capable of running this OS.
From where I’m sitting, XP users have had a nice, long run.
They have had a nice run and over time they will certainly find the product doesn’t work on their systems. I’m just a tad confuised as to why LL want to block it before nature takes its course and I would have said the same sort of thing about PowerPC G5s … I can recall LL withdrawing support for certain Macs a few years back, only a small number were being used but there’s a difference between withdrawing support and blocking a product.