New lease of life for legacy PCs

Microsoft has developed a software that may possibly help extend the life of older PCs. Known as Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs, it is targeted at organisations with multiple systems running older Windows versions. The product should help those organisations that are not presently ready to replace or upgrade existing PCs to Windows XP.

This software is available only to Microsoft Software Assurance customers. Aimed to reduce the total cost of ownership, the software also claims better security, manageability and improved end-user productivity.

This new concept is based on Microsoft Windows XP Embedded Service Pack 2. It claims to ease the transition process to Windows Vista Enterprise.

The product is not a general-purpose operating system. It is designed to operate with Microsoft remote desktop connection client or third-party clients such as the Citrix ICA Client. However its drawbacks include limited number of locally executed workloads; security software, management software, terminal emulation software, document viewers, and the .NET framework.