Kobo Desktop no longer available for Windows XP

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

I suspect that part of the issue is that people want to be able to do things that you used to be able to do on hardware that used to support it. Unfortunately, that can be difficult to accomplish if old installers are taken down or if incompatibilities are introduced. Another issue is that some people are willing to make due with the slightly lower performance incurred by older hardware. Keep in mind that we're talking about buying, managing, and reading ebooks on Pentium IV's or later here -- not HD video production on similarly aged products.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: obsolescence is largely in the perspective of the user. Some people are happy at the trailing edge. Others are satisfied with nothing less than the latest and greatest. In some cases it makes sense for businesses to draw that line, such as Microsoft deriving most of it's revenues from Windows from new hardware sales so they need to produce software which utilizes that hardware. In other cases, it makes no sense at all for the vendor to draw that line. Ebook sales, management, and reading does not rely upon hefty hardware so it makes relatively little sense for Kobo to dictate the latest and greatest.

I don't mind not always having the latest and greatest hardware. But the issue is, that when the hardware you have cannot run the software you want, then your hardware is obsolete and not only is it not the latest and greatest, it's time to replace it as it no longer does what you want. The way I look at these days, if you get a computer that CAN run Windows 8.1, then you will be able to run whatever software you want. Just don't run XP on it. Run Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 and you can run Kobo Desktop, Calibte 2.x, Sigil 0.8.2.

Running Linux on older hardware that's not Qt5 compatible won't help. It's just a mirage. Yes you can install, but no you cannot run. So all of those suggestions to switch from XP to Linux is not a good idea. The way to do it is check if you can run Windows 8.1 and if you can, upgrade XP. If not, upgrade the computer and XP. It has to be done in order to keep updated. Otherwise, you'll find eventually, you'll have some Reader or tablet that won't work with Calibre 1.48. And for Sigil, you'll find you want to run some plugin that ou cannot because you cannot run the latest Sigil. So just be realistic the hardware is too old and upgrade.

My desktop is not the latest and greatest, but it run all the software I need. It does run Qt5 no problem and thus, I can run the versions of Calibre and Sigil that I want.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Running Linux on older hardware that's not Qt5 compatible won't help. It's just a mirage.

Yep, you're right. Linux computers that can't run Qt5 are a "mirage." I have a computer made in 2003 and I run the newest version of Calibre without issue -- I doubt many people are using this age of a desktop computer. I would probably have to go back fifteen years to find computers that wouldn't run Calibre 2.14 -- or at least wouldn't have the SSE and SSE2 CPU features. With XP computers it's probably not (or usually not) a hardware limitation, it's a software limitation. And moving from Windows XP to Linux is a great way to extend the life of your computer. If you actually need something that runs in Windows, then fine, by all means get a newer computer and upgrade your Windows OS. But if you just want to run the newest versions of Sigil and Calibre, that twelve year-old computer will do fine ... when running under Linux.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Yep, you're right. Linux computers that can't run Qt5 are a "mirage." I have a computer made in 2003 and I run the newest version of Calibre without issue -- I doubt many people are using this age of a desktop computer. I would probably have to go back fifteen years to find computers that wouldn't run Calibre 2.14 -- or at least wouldn't have the SSE and SSE2 CPU features. With XP computers it's probably not (or usually not) a hardware limitation, it's a software limitation. And moving from Windows XP to Linux is a great way to extend the life of your computer. If you actually need something that runs in Windows, then fine, by all means get a newer computer and upgrade your Windows OS. But if you just want to run the newest versions of Sigil and Calibre, that twelve year-old computer will do fine ... when running under Linux.

It is possible that a computer from 2003 is not able to run Qt5. It depends if it has an Intel or AMD processor.

Competing chip-maker AMD added support for SSE2 with the introduction of their Opteron and Athlon 64 ranges of AMD64 64-bit CPUs in 2003.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by burnafterreading

if you ran the business which had to devote employees to supporting software for an OS that hasn't been sold in 10 years, would you do it? you have to pay these employees for their time to do this, so other than just posting a link i don't think Kobo or anyone else should do anything more. it's obsolete as far as the industry is concerned.

it's called progress. and it includes obsolescence. if progress didn't exist, we'd all be reading paperback books from a library that someone sneezed into or wiped snot on.

Um, no... if I ran the business I would devote employees to supporting software used by my customers who are buying my products to use on that software. I couldn't really give a damn about whether it is "officially" obsolete, if as far as MY industry is concerned, it is still thriving.

Last I heard, WinXP is more popular than Windows 8, it has Microsoft quite concerned actually.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Yes you can run some version Linux on such old hardware. But you cannot run software that's been compiled to need newer hardware such as Qt5.

Ah, well, yes... you see, the thing is, my hardware supports sse2 just fine. I run calibre-latest quite often on it, actually, that is rather one of the main points of having it. Or did you think I have spent all this past year yammering around in the calibre forums without a computer capable of using it? (Note: This isn't the first time I have mentioned this to you. I suspect you just like ing.)

For that matter, I use sigil 0.8.2 as well. With utterly no problems whatsoever.
And I field-test the calibre development code as soon as it is pushed to GitHub.


So yeah, I am pretty sure my hardware is just fine, thank you. Even if it isn't good enough for Microsoft's latest exalted state. There was probably some sort of vaguely good reason why I kept mentioning "modern versions" of linux distros (archlinux is very modern ) as opposed to "some version".



And that really isn't the point, because the point is, as has been reiterated multiple times, even WinXP is not magically obsolete just because it doesn't support Qt5.

WinXP will be obsolete just as soon as it is easier for people to move to newer versions of Windows than to keep running XP. And until then, prudence dictates that companies which want to remain in business do not anger their customers with ridiculous holier-than-thy-computer attitudes. Note that Kindle 4 PC still works on WinXP -- I imagine it is easier for customers to switch to Kindle apps than to buy a new computer. And a wise company would keep that in mind.

And any company that stops at least providing the older version with a gigantic "WinXP is not supported, use at your own risk" banner, is just asking to lose business.
But I guess it depends how much business Kobo expects to lose.

[murg]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Last I heard, WinXP is more popular than Windows 8, it has Microsoft quite concerned actually.

This is meaningless.

The real comparison is XP vs Windows 7 + 8.

Originally Posted by murg

This is meaningless.

The real comparison is XP vs Windows 7 + 8.

True, but also irrelevant. The real question is whether Kobo is making enough money from XP users to justify supporting XP. It is a question that only Kobo can answer, since they will have (or at least should) have a record of their sales breakdown according to platform. That breakdown would include things such as sales via a browser vs. sales via Kobo Desktop, and likely includes the usage of Kobo Desktop for reading. (Keep in mind, XP users can still make purchases via the browser or ereader.)

As outsiders, we can only make guesses at these things. We can look at general data, which shows that XP's installed user base exceeds that of OS X, where the former is unsupported and the latter is supported. Yet we don't know how that translates into their customer base (e.g. OS X users may be making more purchases or purchasing more profitable titles).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Um, no... if I ran the business I would devote employees to supporting software used by my customers who are buying my products to use on that software. I couldn't really give a damn about whether it is "officially" obsolete, if as far as MY industry is concerned, it is still thriving.

Last I heard, WinXP is more popular than Windows 8, it has Microsoft quite concerned actually.

But, how many XP users are there vs Win 7 & Win 8/8.1? That's a more realistic number then XP vs Win 8/8.1.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

WinXP will be obsolete just as soon as it is easier for people to move to newer versions of Windows than to keep running XP. And until then, prudence dictates that companies which want to remain in business do not anger their customers with ridiculous holier-than-thy-computer attitudes. Note that Kindle 4 PC still works on WinXP -- I imagine it is easier for customers to switch to Kindle apps than to buy a new computer. And a wise company would keep that in mind.

What really makes Win XP obsolete is the built-in limits Microsoft put into 32-bit Windows. So if you want or need more then 3gigs of ram, you HAVE to go to a 64-bit Windows and to do that, you have to start over with a 64-bit Windows.

[PeterT]

But its the same with Vista or Windows 7 or any other windows version. 32 bit and 64 bit are totally different.

Its the same with Linux; 32 and 64 bit are totally separate versions.

[biskandar]

Its just a reader application, man. No need to require such as 64bits advanced with fancy OS what so ever, well said. The XP'ers like me just don't get it, why kobo doesn't provide official kobosetup.exe. Or maybe i can convert to OS Chrome, i just wonder they support as well.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What really makes Win XP obsolete is the built-in limits Microsoft put into 32-bit Windows. So if you want or need more then 3gigs of ram, you HAVE to go to a 64-bit Windows and to do that, you have to start over with a 64-bit Windows.

Depending upon your use, 3 GB is a huge amount of memory. I have a Raspberry Pi with 512 MB of RAM, and rarely run out of physical memory (the CPU is a different story though). That is running a GUI at 1920x1080, FireFox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, and assorted other applications. Of course Windows is heavier than that, as are most Linux desktop environments, but it does go to show that you can do a lot with very little.

That being said, the memory limit in 32-bit Windows is quite artificial and I don't understand why Microsoft carried it over to Windows 7. PAE allows the OS to address a much larger address space. Support is built into various versions of Windows (as well as Linux).

[murg]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

Depending upon your use, 3 GB is a huge amount of memory.

Depending on your use, 3 GB is almost nothing...

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It is possible that a computer from 2003 is not able to run Qt5. It depends if it has an Intel or AMD processor.

All Intel Pentium IIIs supported the SSE feature. All Pentium 4s supported SSE and SSE2. The first Pentium III was released in February, 1999, the first Pentium 4 was released in November, 2000. Pentium IIIs shipped into 2003. Pentium 4s shipped through August 2008. So, basically, on the Intel side, you would have to go back sixteen years to find a computer that did not support SSE.

The first AMD Athlon CPU to support SSE was the Palomino class, first released in October, 2001.

This is, for all practical purposes, a non-issue as there are very few pre-2000 computers still in use. Any issue with XP and Calibre or Sigil (or Qt5) is a limitation of Windows XP, not of the hardware XP would normally run on. Modern Linux distributions do not have these software limitations.

[murg]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Modern Linux distributions do not have these software limitations.

Windows XP is not a modern Windows distribution.