How long should an operating system last? Microsoft has issued guidelines for the life cycle on their operating systems. In a nutshell, at a minimum they expect everyone to upgrade every 3 to 5 years.

• First 3 years - licenses will be available with standard and online support.
• 4th year- licenses may no longer be available, only online and paid support.
• 5th year - only online support is available and may be terminated after providing 12 months advanced notice.
• After 6 years - you can continue to use the version, but there will probably be no support from Microsoft. In other words you are on your own.

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There has been concern over the terms in Microsoft's Auto Update Policy. The licenses of these updates say, "You acknowledge and agree that Microsoft may automatically check the version of the OS Product and/or its components that you are utilizing and may provide upgrades or fixes to the OS Product that will be automatically downloaded to your computer."

What this means is that updates can be installed without you knowing it. For example, XP's Media Player pulls down upgrades and then alerts you. You have the option to click OK to install the newer version. However, if you ever clicked the "always trust Microsoft" box while browsing the Web, it will also install mods for media codecs without any notice.

To disable such downloading, see the white paper at www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/pro/techinfo/administration/manageautoupdate

One thing you can't get around is Microsoft;s DRM (digital rights management) scheme. This built-in XP feature silently downloads and installs revocation lists. These lists prevent "revoked" programs from playing DRM-encoded content.

Getting silent upgrades like this is alarming because Microsoft has pumped out many buggy patches that themselves needed patching. Microsoft, by mistake, shipped the Nimda worm in its Korean edition of Visual Studio.Net.

The following Privacy Statement was copied from Microsoft's web pages.

Windows Update is committed to protecting your privacy. To provide you with the appropriate list of updates, Windows Update must collect a certain amount of configuration information from your computer. None of this configuration information can be used to identify you. This information includes:

• Operating-system version number
• Internet Explorer version number
• Version numbers of other software for which Windows Update provides updates
• Plug and Play ID numbers of hardware devices
• Region and Language setting

The configuration information collected is used only to determine the appropriate updates and to generate aggregate statistics. Windows Update does not collect your name, address, e-mail address, or any other form of personally identifiable information.

Windows Update also collects the Product ID and Product Key to confirm that you are running a valid licensed copy of Windows. A valid licensed copy of Windows ensures that you will receive on-going updates from Windows Update. The Product ID and Product Key are not retained beyond the end of the Windows Update session.

Windows Update also tracks and records how many unique machines visit its site and whether the download and installation of specific updates succeeded or failed. In order to do this, the Windows operating system generates a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) that is stored on your computer to uniquely identify it. The GUID does not contain any personally identifiable information and cannot be used to identify you.Windows Update records the GUID of the computer that attempted the download, the ID of the item that you attempted to download and install, and the configuration information listed above.

Other than using this information to determine needed updates, the bigger fear is what else will Microsoft do with this information in the future. There is nothing stated that they won't change their minds.

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