WinXP: only 6 months left

[le Pingouin]

With WinXP officially being taken out behind the shed & shot in April what are current users intending to do?

Alright, the Win8 Metro interface is a dog without a touchscreen, but throw on something like Classic Shell and you have a perfectly usable Windows system.

FWIW here in Oz Win8 upgrade is still available for $68 from Officeworks.

No, I'm not flogging Win8 (I use Linux) but you need to plan to use something other than XP come April as continuing to use it is not a sensible option. Note that WIn7 only has 15 months of mainstream support left.

[Ancient Observer]

My back - up pc is on XP. The change is a shame. I'll have to buy a new pc.

Consumerism, huh!!

[Saab Dastard]

Note that WIn7 only has 15 months of mainstream support left.

True, but there's a further 5 years extended support (the same level of support that is ending for XP next year) until 2020, so I for one have no plans to migrate all 5 of my home PCs from Win 7 anytime soon. I just hope that SP2 is released before 2015.

Microsoft Support Lifecycle (http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/default.aspx?LN=en-gb&x=10&y=11&c2=14019)

Let's have this discussion again in 6 years! Or, for Vista users, in 3 years time. :)

SD

[crewmeal]

Why fix something when it works perfectly. Typical Microsoft trying to catch up with Apple's OS systems. They never will!

[ZH875]

Windows 98 still in regular use with no problems, so why worry about XP?

[seacue]

crewmeal

Microsoft would go bankrupt if they didn't strongly nudge the customer to buy newer, newer.

A dilemma of theirs is Office software. People buy a copy and use it for a long time ... during which MS get no additional money. This could explain Office365 ... which will produce a continual flow of income from its users.

It sounds as though Google may be working on ChromeOS to be pushed as a replacement for WinXP. We shall see. Interesting times.

[Phalconphixer]

We have three computers, two desktops and one netbook... the netbook and the older desktop are both on XP the newer desktop is on Vista... I for one have no intentions whatsoever of further lining the pockets of M/Soft by 'upgrading' to anything else.
Similarly, we use M/Soft Office Home and Student Edition 2003 on all three machines and are quite happy with its capabilities. If documents in the .doc format have been successfully used for so many years why do we suddenly need .docx? Its just change for change sake...
Firefox is my browser of choice, but it used to be so much better when at v3.16 after which it just got heavier and heavier with incompatibilities with other programs introduced at every upgrade...
AVG Antivirus... again, used to be good, but like FF got heavier and heavier slowing down everything. We gave it up as a bad job three years ago and went over to Avast.
Like they say... IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT!

[lomapaseo]

Like they say... IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT!


but to whom are you talking :)

MS or the end users ?

Should the end user just keep on using it until it finally stops running having been taken over by a virus +

Heck if all it is being used for is a backup computer should anybody care?

Is it going to act like typhoid mary and spew its germs to all who come in contact?

[dubbleyew eight]

where this sort of microsoft upgrade really hurts is in the industrial controls environment. most of these systems are based on windows.

as the window of hardware availability has moved over the years the computers are getting less and less usable.

you need to set up a system with reliable connections. cant do that any more.
usb connections are great until the system reconfigures port names after a plug vibrates out.

apple will not allow their machines to be used in controls environments.

XP service pack 2 with all the drivers and hardware available was far in away the best interface and computer hardware combination to use.

one of the reasons I dont go back to control systems engineering is the sheer impossibility of getting windows current versions to configure for usable work.

linux mint may prove to be the new boy on the block as far as operating systems go.

[MG23]

The real question is, what will Microsoft do when they try to 'stop support' but there are still tens or hundreds of millions of XP machines in use by businesses around the world?

It's not as though they're all going to rush out and replace them with Windows 8 and its tablet interface.

[le Pingouin]

Computing moves on and it becomes harder and harder to bolt improvements on to a clunky old chassis without cutting and welding. Why would any company do that if you aren't paying for it?

MG32, seriously, why would MS care? Those companies are probably too wedded to other MS products to change to anything different. If they really want to keep using XP they can start writing large cheques for the privilege of continued support or take their chances......

It's not like they haven't had however many years warning to plan a transition.

[MG23]

MG32, seriously, why would MS care?

Because the global infrastructure is totally reliant on computers these days, and it only takes one exploitable, unpatched and unpatchable XP bug to give the world a really bad day?

'Oh, it's not our fault, we warned you,' doesn't go down too well after something like that.

I believe Microsoft already extended support once because hardly anyone wanted to move away from XP. I won't be at all surprised if they have to extend it again, at least for major security fixes.

It's not like they haven't had however many years warning to plan a transition.

And smaller companies love spending money to replace computers that still do everything they need.

[le Pingouin]

I think you'll be sorely disappointed with MS extending support any further. How many years are you expecting MS to continue supporting people who refuse to change? People have to take some responsibility for their own behaviour.

A computer is not a toaster, despite what the marketoids have managed to convince people of! It's a highly complex device that needs maintaining. If a small company can't budget a few dollars a week per PC to cover issues known years ahead of time then more fool them. How the hell do they cope with anything else with a fixed and known lifespan?

[seacue]

Last I heard, about 30% of Internet traffic came from XP machines. It was reported that Microsoft hoped to get that down to 15% by the drop-dead date. That, of course, doesn't consider embedded systems.

One needs to consider Microsoft's imperatives as a business. They can't go on forever supporting operating systems or Office software which brings them no continuing income. Subscription software ("Office365") is an answer to their need for a continual flow of income.

There is perhaps a reason why MS has moved to the DOCX and XLSX formats. They are nearer the ISO standard which is used by OpenOffice / LibreOffice as their default. OO and LO read DOCX and XLSX documents without complaint. They can write DOC & XLS. I understand that recent versions of MS Office read OO and LO formats.

[cattletruck]

My main XP machine is so well set up with all the tools I require that it would be a costly exercise just to upgrade it for the sake of Microsoft.

If anything is going to kill it it will be because it's a 32 bit machine.

When I finally decide to make the move to new hardware my plan is to convert my physical machine into virtual form - probably VMWare. This way I get to keep my current setup in operational form.

I haven't investigated an easy way of converting an existing physical machine into virtual form, but I know I can shoe-horn it into there if required.

[CelticRambler]

Computing moves on and it becomes harder and harder to bolt improvements on to a clunky old chassis without cutting and welding.

The problem is that many of these supposed improvements are not used nor wanted by the majority of institutional users. They do want a bug-free, unhijackable machine, but they don't need an enhanced "user experience" when most of the time the computer is being used for relatively simple tasks like text entry and spread-sheet construction.

I am quite proud that my eldest, recently embarked on a computer science degree, has taken after his old man and delights in persuading his programmable calculator to accomplish with 125kB of RAM what his classmates are struggling to do with 4GB.

[vulcanised]

Wish there were more around like your son!

I am frequently horrified by some piece of bloatware that takes up huge amounts of RAM to do what something 10% of its size used to do faster.

[seacue]

I suppose that I am living in an alternate universe, but I'm surprised to hear that anyone has based serious industrial control software on Windows.

I thought that Linux or various real-time operating systems were what was used on mission-critical industrial control systems.

[le Pingouin]

CelticRambler, some of those improvements include a better security model. If all they're using it for is data entry and such then the changes to the GUI are of little consequence, so how can they cause any hassle?

It's because they made the mistake of well and truly welding themselves to a given set of tools and didn't evolve that they're crying.

[dubbleyew eight]

seacue, most of the high end control interfaces are based on windows.

at one stage the advances of hardware and windows meant the end of serial ports. the usb edgeport fixed that and microsoft bought out an industrial version that was basically an XP interface with all the previous drivers.

I have no problems at all with the security being fixed up but leave the man machine interface at XP.

computers nowadays are far less useful than they were 10 years ago.

[P.Pilcher]

I am dreading the day that I am compelled to upgrade from XP. I invested in XP in the early norties because it offered photographic handling facilities that Win 98 did not. Since that time I have managed to get XP to do everything I want including running some programmes I have been using since the days of wn 3.1 and some DOS based games. Recently I needed to acquire a new laptop and was therefore obliged to start learning win 7. I am still struggling to get it to work in the way XP does for me - silly things like my ancient version of Outlook will not store passwords - a problem I have as I have to re-enter them every day. I suppose that I am expected to invest a fortune in acquiring up to date versions of much of my software, but as people keep saying, "if is ain't broke, don't fix it". Hopefully a solution, for all the reasons stated above will emerge. I wouldn't be averse to buying a new license from Microsoft to keep my version of XP up to date. If they made it cheap enough, I am sure many others would as well so Microsoft's income could be maintained.

P.P.

[OFSO]

When - and if - I have a major problem with XP, Linux Mint will be put on my PC and everything swapped over.

But I'm hoping that the Cleverbridge guys from Brabanter Strasse, Köln, will stay on guard after MS support ends.

[le Pingouin]

MS is really not interested in extending support for XP any further:

"An IT manager, who wished to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak on the matter, told Computerworld that Microsoft had quoted his company $1 million for the first year of custom support to cover 5,000 Windows XP machines, $2 million for the second year, and $5 million for the third."

Microsoft gooses Windows XP's custom support prices as deadline nears - Computerworld (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9237019/Microsoft_gooses_Windows_XP_s_custom_support_prices_as_deadl ine_nears)

Maybe if you put aside a couple of dollars/pounds/euro a week you'd have enough money to buy new versions every so often. It's not like it's an unexpected event.

For better or worse software evolves and unless you can maintain it yourself (or pay for the privilege) you have little choice but to go along for the ride. Changing in a number of gradual steps is a hell of a lot easier than one huge leap every ten years.

[seacue]

Is the XP Mode still available for Windows 7 Pro?

I know that no version of Win 8 has an XP mode.

Manufacturers are still selling PCs with Windows 7 since major commercial customers are not ready to replace a fraction of their PCs with Win 8. There are significant retraining and support costs for having both 7 and 8 in house..

[defizr]

The next time you pop into your local (UK) post office and watch the nice lady behind the counter using her touch screen computer you're watching someone using Windows NT4 SP6 on a Pentium 4 running at 200MHz with 256MB of memory. When you pay for your coffee in Starbucks the IBM till is running NT4 too.

[mixture]

you need to plan to use something other than XP come April as continuing to use it is not a sensible option.

What he said, except I'd put it in much stronger terms.

People who use XP after it goes EOL are fools.

I don't care if you're running anti-virus or whatever, it won't help you one iota if the underlying OS is not patched up. Anti-virus and other third party security software all use underlying OS APIs.... if those APIs are insecure, then so is your security software.

As for the people here implying Microsoft don't care, those people have evidently never been involved in software development. You can't realistically continue to support all historical editions of software, you have to draw a line somewhere.

Get yourselves upgraded to a newer version of Windows or migrate to Linux or Mac.

Remaining on XP is not an option. There is ZERO justification for any private individual to remain on XP, and there is ZERO justification for any business other than large corporates with legacy systems (and a healthy sized IT department) to remain on XP.

The time has come, Microsoft gave you more than enough notice. Deal with it.

[FullOppositeRudder]

This board has generally been a gold mine of valuable and helpful information, but posts such as the one above can easily destroy that illusion.

People are entitled to make their own decisions about what operating system they use and for how long. Some may disagree with those reasons, but to vindictively label such people as 'fools' destroys confidence in the advice offered in this board, and weakens and perhaps even destroys for some what has been a valuable and trusted arena for genuine help and fraternal advice. Frankly some of the arguments offered for dumping XP - and the scenarios promised - are strongly reminiscent of what we heard toward the end of last century about something called the Y2K bug.

Changing to a new operating system is not something to be undertaken lightly. Scores of programs need to be re-installed – some of them will not operate in anything after XP. New ones may have to be purchased and learned afresh. Realistically serviceable and functional machines may have to be dumped and new ones purchased. It’s a major dislocation of functionality and familiarity. And it’s expensive in terms of time, money and frustration. Multiply this by the number of computers some of us have, and the disincentives are enormous.

The most persuasive reason for changing to a new operating system is that it will offer improvements in performance, ease of use and productivity. If that hasn't been adequately demonstrated in post XP versions of Windows then it isn't the fault of the users.

I submit that millions of users are probably going to stay with Windows XP for good and varied reasons. Whilst it may be unwise from a professional IT point of view, their reasons are valid for them, and that needs to be accepted.

In the meantime treating people with respect, politeness and goodwill may just ensure that this board remains the valuable and competent source of help and friendly advice which users had come to expect.

[vulcanised]

posts such as the one above can easily destroy that illusion.


Agreed, but you learn to recognise some posters and make appropriate allowances.

[dubbleyew eight]

the other option of course is that microsoft will become bankrupt before realising the error of their ways.

anyway that is microsoft's problem not mine since I have a non microsoft solution that works pretty well the way I want.

[OFSO]

posts such as the one above can easily destroy that illusion.

Mixture's technical advice is well thought-out and first rate. Sadly his interpersonal skills leave a lot to be desired and tend to make one disregard everything he writes.

[le Pingouin]

MS might go bankrupt but it won't be due to letting old OSes die. MS Office isn't going anywhere soon and the corporate world will move onto Win7. How does the average home user acquire Windows? They buy a PC. Attrition will take care of that.

In his own gentle manner Mixture is correct. Seriously, the purveyors of malware must be rubbing their hands together waiting for April because they know oodles of users will stick with XP. They'll have any number of zero day exploits waiting to be unleashed and every XP system will be vulnerable in perpetuity.

If you value the data on your computer and your bank balance then please stop using XP online after April. Would you leave your valuables in a car that was known to be easy to break into? No? Why would you do it with a computer? Sure, you might get away with with it or you might not,,,,,

Yes, I know it won't necessarily be easy to make the move but there are ways and means to ease the migration. Investigate using XP in a virtual machine for instance. Just don't take the bloody thing online.

You've got six months so get cracking!

[mixture]

Seriously, the purveyors of malware must be rubbing their hands together waiting for April because they know oodles of users will stick with XP. They'll have any number of zero day exploits waiting to be unleashed and every XP system will be vulnerable in perpetuity.

Exactly ! :D

If I were a malware writer, sure I'd continue releasing a few scraps here and there. But I'd be holding off my best work until April, both because I'd know I'd be able to charge a premium rate on the black market, and also because there would be bugger all Microsoft would ever do about it.

Seriously, do not underestimate the malware writers.

[Saab Dastard]

I'm firmly on the side of the upgraders.

It isn't just personal data at risk, it's the internet as a whole that can be hugely impacted by large numbers of unpatched PCs with out-of-date OSes.

Fine if your Win 9x / NT4 / 2000 / XP PC is never, ever connected to the internet.

Otherwise it is putting others at risk as well.

SD

[Guest 112233]

I'm an XP user on old "2007" kit: + Linux (IP tables Locked as a brick House.)

I do have commercial experience of supporting small 18-24 user groups , not big iron kit. SCO and Win R2003- perhaps small cake in your experience.

Surely, using Win 2003/2008 R server Admin you can limit and modify the the usage policies associated with your win XP users: hard ! Game

On the home front; for people like me - save your EM outbound data ( say Minitab/Mathcad attachments to USB) and only use your PC in Lnux mode.for internet - I have done the usual port i/o allocations - T'bird for the afflicted BT users - like me.

It's not as Mad Hat (No joke) as you imagine:

There's a huge intellectual input, in terms of customisation associated with long standing units associated with many user individuals and groups.

Its not the game promoted by "PC Mags/Advice helpers sponsored by MS advertising" etc.

Its a stinker of a problem for many ! - Am I going to migrate my Mathcad 14 ! - to 8.1 Sod knows.

Look at the granularity of the problem. ?

It's a very complex call - MS have really given the pony the stick of ginger up the jet pipe here. - I can switch off N/W connections physically.

CAT III

[le Pingouin]

The problem is that most users don't have the knowledge or interest to do anything other than use a computer as an appliance. They need to be presented with a ready-made and safe solution. Continuing to use XP online is, very definitely, not a safe or sensible option for those users. Bespoke security arrangements won't work for them.

The safe and sensible options are:

1. Buy a new system for accessing anything on-line, then pull the network cable on XP, or if you must leave it on a local network disable Internet access.

2. Dual boot a new OS with XP on the original machine. A pain in the backside having to reboot the system to switch between OSes. Again disable Internet access on XP.

3. Run XP in a virtual machine with Internet access disabled. Provided you have sufficient RAM and enough CPU grunt (not really a problem with a modern machine) this is a nice solution. There are ways and means to virtualise your current system (licensing permitting of course). Accessing legacy hardware could be a problem though.

[mixture]

Surely, using Win 2003/2008 R server Admin you can limit and modify the the usage policies associated with your win XP users

As I said.... built-in or third-party security... running on top of XP is as good as having no security whatsoever. It'll all be exploitable via bugs in the APIs.

As le Pingouin said. If you insist on using XP, then I insist on you only using it with the internet unplugged ... permanently. Anything else is not an option.

[cattletruck]

From a personal usage POV, the best way to upgrade your XP computer filled with legacy apps that are proven to already work and will cost you a small fortune to update while giving you endless migraines in the process is.....

don't.

Disconnect the network cable and buy yourself the latest and most cheapest laptop (which are spec'd pretty good) with Win 8.1 pre-installed and use that exclusively for all your internet activity. $300 is all it takes and you get a shiny new play thing.

[Guest 112233]

When Push becomes shuv - In the short term I'm going to save my work to USB - re boot and re boot into Linux (Network enabled) and send the requisite attachments by EM that way. Of course this only applies in some cases.

What a pa-lava - But needs as must.

But cattletruck has the solution.

It's the ordinary users and I don't mean that in a derogatory way, who really are going to be stuffed by the forced change.

Company computers in many cases, are protected behind all manner of sophisticated technologies and its been estimated that by the cut off, something like 26% of PC's on the internet will still be XP operating system based.

I know the statistic is open to question and I bet that does not include those used in industrial applications.

From Mixture.

But.....

"built-in or third-party security... running on top of XP is as good as having no security whatsoever. It'll all be exploitable via bugs in the APIs."

What a mess

Microsoft are a commercial operation and XP is obsolete for a number of reasons but Microsoft could have made the transition easier between XP and WIn 7.

[Mike-Bracknell]

It's rare that I now visit this forum, and even rarer that I post any more.

However, this subject sees me logging in to post this:

The bottom line, for anyone who is determined to use Windows XP post-April 2014 is that you must NEVER EVER connect it to the internet following that date unless you've paid the $Xm to Microsoft for ongoing corporate support (nobody here i'd wager).

IT guys are not renowned for their interpersonal skills, but the 2 individuals on this thread who's technical opinions I can respect are Mixture and Saab, and when you get both of them and me in consensus on this issue the people who don't consider themselves IT experts should take that for the message that it is.

Mike.

[Mac the Knife]

What a fuss! For Heavens sake!

Virtualize your old XP machine and run it in a VM on a modern OS (Win or *nix)

Just don't give the VM access to the Net - or let it and just revert to a known clean snapshot everytime you run it.

You could use a non-routable protocol like NetBIOS/NetBEUI or DLC to communicate.

Paragon's Go Virtual works nicely - Virtualize your computer (make a virtual copy of it) with Paragon Go Virtual | Reviews, news, tips, and tricks | dotTech (http://dottech.org/16940/virtualize-your-computer-make-a-virtual-copy-of-it-with-paragon-go-virtual/)

So does VMWare - Virtualize your old Win XP machine on Windows 7 | DigiBlog (http://www.digiblog.de/2012/01/virtualize-your-old-win-xp-machine-under-windows-7/)

Anyone would think the skies were falling!

Mac

Edited to add:

I don't of course mean that folks should still be running XP as their main OS.

They shouldn't.

BUT if you're keeping it around to run some very specific app then there might be some rationale for keeping an old copy around and there are ways of doing this in reasonable safety.

[mad_jock]

Sorry I personally agree with the pro's

But I suspect that the consumers are going to not upgrade.

I know that it doesn't matter what I say to the boss he isn't going to upgrade the works PC's. If they die and the new one comes with Win8 on it so be it.

It isn't just personal data at risk, it's the internet as a whole that can be hugely impacted by large numbers of unpatched PCs with out-of-date OSes.

This is going to be the carrying factor I suspect.

Its going to end up being the pro IT admins who are going to suffer. And it could very well be that things implode but I honestly can't see a mass migration away from XP aka what happened over Y2K. And to be honest there is still a lot of feeling out there because of Y2K with a lot of people seeing the whole thing as a waste of time and money.

The longer it takes for something not to happen the less pressure there will be to change.

To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if something comes out about a month after the support finishes. It will be of a very high technical standard almost as if the had access to the full technical documentation to the OS. It will of course be fatal to the OS requiring it to be wiped and a new OS to be installed.

[Ancient Observer]

For those of us that have "normal" brains, as opposed to "IT"* brains, the fact that our man in Bracknell, our man of Apple, and sundry others all agree that XP will be a problem means that I, for one, will be off next year looking for a decent cheapo pc with something other than XP on it.

*
I never got beyond Heat, Light and Sound in the 4th year, and avoided science O levels. (The skool got its own back by making me take 3 maths O levels). And I'm still on p15 of Hawkins' book.

[mad_jock]

AO

There are tons of cheap laptops on that river place.

Well personally I don't have an XP system. So its fine for me.

The problem that will occur is when nothing happens and people continue to use out of date OS's with no problems.

In the main 99% of home users never upgrade an OS, the only time they will change is when the computer dies and they have to get a new one.

So something pretty major is going to have to happen to get people to move.

[jimtherev]

Good to hear from you - you're missed!

[Ancient Observer]

Mr Mike,

Our learned rev friend is right. Do come back more often.
ta
AO

[A A Gruntpuddock]

New computer came with WIN 7 - did not look forward to the change but in the end I really didn't notice much difference from XP, except that is does appears to be more stable.

Upgraded 'er indoors' from Vista to WIN 7 and it was a definite improvement.

Still get the occasional glitch but I suspect that is the ancient hardware, certainly smoother & faster.

[Mike-Bracknell]

Good to hear from you - you're missed!

You should aim better next time ;)

Seriously, my support company's growing pretty quickly so I have less time to give away these days unfortunately.

Thanks for the well wishes though. :)

[jimtherev]

Glad to hear you're growing, Mike - so often we hear the opposite...

Anyway, what are you doing here? get back to work!!!

[seacue]

Will non-Microsoft anti-virus (etc) software still continue to support XP users after April 2014? This would include Avast, AVG, Norton, McAfee, etc.

[OFSO]

It's 13 years since XP was released to a grateful world. Three service packs followed to get it Quite Right and since then it's been a useful tool.

Yet to read posts on this thread it still won't remain a viable proposition without those weekly and monthly updates, debugs and anti-malware releases. I'm glad my car was not sold to me on the same basis.

Seacue, I haven't asked them all but the ones I have researched say they have no plans to withdraw support for XP anti-virus and-anti malware..

[le Pingouin]

Would you expect your car manufacturer to retro-fit the latest security system to your clapped out old banger? Without it you're easy pickings for any thief, car jacker or joy rider who happens along. You wouldn't drive that around the seedier parts of town and the Internet is all seedy.

[OFSO]

Mr P., your remark not understood.

My car's had three annual services since I bought it and neither the ECC nor display/nav/bluetooth/net/security software has been updated (nor needed to be) as far as I can tell by looking at the version numbers on the screen.

How may updates have been issued for XP in that time ?

[le Pingouin]

Cars age a lot more slowly than computers and operating systems. XP is like driving something out of the 60s. Your three year old car is like a 6 month old laptop.

My point was you wouldn't expect the manufacturer to provide anything for your 60s banger.

[EEngr]

The difference between my old car ('70s actually) and an operating system is that there are third party manufacturers willing to support my car with spare parts. Particularly since it has become somewhat of a classic.

Ask Microsoft if they will place the XP code base into the public domain and let others support it. I can guess their answer.

[mixture]

Ask Microsoft if they will place the XP code base into the public domain and let others support it. I can guess their answer.


Yeah, they'll tell you not to be so :mad: unrealistic. :cool:

If you want open source (Linux) or mostly open source (OS X), then go that way.

Microsoft never have been and never will be an open source developer, nor are many other major software developers (e.g Adobe, other than their open source file formats e.g. PDF).

Put yourself into their shoes, they are private for-profit company, perfectly entitled to make their own decisions about their own intellectual property and when they cease support for an obsolete product.

[Guest 112233]

In yesterday's podcast for a well known PC Magazine - the hoary chestnut of third party patches for the commonly used old XP Operating System - Read China ! came up as a proposition (I will confirm this - I need to listen again though).

XP's biggest limitation is its Memory address handling.

Microsoft could, if they had so wished, implemented 32 bit physical address extension. As supported by AMD & Intel on the Pentium Pro since mid the nineties.

Microsoft as a conventional profit orientated company (nothing wrong with that) chose the Win 7 & Win 8 route to "encourage" users en masse to purchase more kit.

Big problem - For many, functionality, familiarity and about good enough wins.

There are more XP - SP3 PC's around that Win 8 machines although this is changing.

Now the bad news for the PC tech brigade (me included) is that many users will make do with what they have for economic reasons.

A sensible route: but not the most profitable for MS is to continue to patch the Operating System for all until the XP user base is shrunk by inevitable attrition - say for three years. The working life for a traditional PC what ? 5 -6 years - I make them last longer.

If people think that the user base running XP are going to cease to run them on the internet after April 2014 are frankly deluded.

Many people just do not have the funds to buy the latest Tablets - The older PC's will be replaced in part by smart phone type devices in time.

Microsoft have set the deadline in their own interests - Come on folks I bet that the internal Patch infrastructure team, devoted XP; is only a small part of that allocated to Win 7, 8 and the Server products.

(This was typed on a system consisting of a: 2008 Advent Motherboard & case + Blu Ray DVD, Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU Q8200 @ 2.33GHz × 4 - 6 Gigs of old ddr2 -400 Ram: purchased for £70.00 - I've added a Power supply and a Seagate 1/2 TB Sata - £48.00 inc VAT. Running Ubuntu 12.04. Cobbled together on Monday last.)

[mixture]

Microsoft could, if they had so wished, implemented 32 bit physical address extension. As supported by AMD & Intel on the Pentium Pro since mid the nineties.
Microsoft as a conventional profit orientated company (nothing wrong with that) chose the Win 7 & Win 8 route to "encourage" users en masse to purchase more kit.

Sounds like a bit of a conspiracy theory to me, I don't think you can view it as a "they could if they wished" type thing.....

- There's all the complexity related to coding of the actual operating system
- There's all the third party software and hardware developers to think about
- 32 bit PAE is a hack, not a fix. That's why 64 bit OS is the way to go. XP does actually have a PAE mode anyway, its just not recommended for solid reasons.
- Yes, Windows XP was released in 2001, but development started in 1999 and the planning for development probably started a couple of years before that. The IT world has changed substantially in that short period of time, it makes perfect sense for release Windows 7/8 with its memory and other features now.... back then, the world was a different place, IT was not yet the commodity it is today and I don't think you could expect Microsoft to foresee the IT world like it is today.

A sensible route: but not the most profitable for MS is to continue to patch the Operating System for all until the XP user base is shrunk by inevitable attrition - say for three years.

Microsoft announced end of mainstream support in 2009 and end of extended support set at 2014. You've had your five years of attrition. :ugh:

Come on folks I bet that the internal Patch infrastructure team, devoted XP; is only a small part of that allocated to Win 7, 8 and the Server products.

Still resource that costs money and could be better employed elsewhere. Also don't forget the associated resource associated with software development (lab infrastructure, testing routines etc)... it all consumes time and money !

Plus, the people moaning here on PPRuNe are people who've only made a one off payment to Microsoft for their XP license in the form of a minuscule OEM royalty fee. Those people have had astonishing value for money in terms of patches being provided free of charge for so many years.

[Guest 112233]

I can only agree re the warnings - 5 years.

You have guessed it: All three of my XP copies were purchased. One was an upgrade from Win ME (There lies a story), and the other two were new builds.

[Edit: Good point. re many users - They would accept the OS as just part of the PC package when purchased]

What set me thinking, were the comments on the Magazine podcast - by someone who should know what they are talking about, was the intimate relationship between the anti - virus prods and the Operating System (I suspect this does not only apply to XP). Bearing in mind your previous comments, re API vulnerabilities, could third party patches work (we would probably have to pay !!!)

The biggi is, for those of us with valuable (in work terms) legacy software.

The other biggi: the time and trouble, many of us have taken in setting up reliable and tested backup systems.

I have used an early Ver of Acronis 8. Very successfully. Others have had problems - Norton Ghost has worked well on the systems I've used.

Cloud backup: the obvious choice for many has been undermined by recent revelations - Encrypted or not.

For ordinary bods (me) the upload time for a smallish busy personal system say 25-30 Giga Bytes took ages -

Downloads were more practical.

I know there's a fundamental difference between a "System Backup" and a repository of critical personal work.

Simplicity is best for many people: Windows 8 really does complicate things and therein lies the problem.

CAT III

[Mac the Knife]

"Ask Microsoft if they will place the XP code base into the public domain and let others support it."

XP is a real mess, disentangling that code would be a total nightmare!

You'd do better supporting ReactOS - ReactOS Project (http://www.reactos.org/)

Win7 is much cleaner and more stable

Bite the bullet!

Mac

:cool:

PS: If you install Win98SE in a VM and strip it down you can make it pretty small and surprisingly stable - but of course it is totally insecure, don't let it near the 'Net!

[Guest 112233]

Yep - we can wish - Something I forgot to mention when replying to Mixture's advice, as he/she said, as users we only see the tip of a very complex iceberg (its a long time since I coded commercially).

I bet this seems obvious and perhaps we will never know - just how well documented is the XP coding base, given its age and the conventions of 12 years ago. I would imagine the documentation base is enormous as well as the master code archives.

This would be a very complex task to take on for the open community.

The head ache is the gigantic user base.

As said earlier, normal attrition will take its toll of the XP user base as well as changes in patterns of ownership.

OK I'm one of the awkward squad for now, but I'm in a small minority. Some will go Win 7 or 8, others Mac and a lot more "Smart multifunction computing devices" and the odd % or so Linux.

Any Win 98 users still Extant?

[mad_jock]

For the majority of home users they will only change when the computer stops working.

They will not pay to upgrade.

For a lot of small business users this will be the same.

[Mike-Bracknell]

XP's biggest limitation is its Memory address handling.

Microsoft could, if they had so wished, implemented 32 bit physical address extension. As supported by AMD & Intel on the Pentium Pro since mid the nineties.

You're kidding, right?

Did you ever try Windows XP-64? The issue there was not the memory address handling.

For the majority of home users they will only change when the computer stops working.

They will not pay to upgrade.

For a lot of small business users this will be the same.

For a lot of Scottish small business users maybe. Personally, i'm down to my last 5 users (all of whom will move to a terminal services solution when their XP desktops die).

[mad_jock]

Mike any one that has taken on your services is not a normal small business user of IT.

And it doesn't matter how many go over the whole system is wide open because of the of the millions that aren't going to change until there computers fall over.

So they may have there terminal solution but if the whole internet gets swamped they are stuffed.

If everything continues working with millions of XP OS's out there its just going mean even more people aren't going to bother next time either.

[seacue]

A couple of months ago I read the MS thought / feared / hoped / expected that no more than 15% of the world would still be using XP at the drop-dead date.

[mad_jock]

Its still over 23% and has stayed that way over the last 3 months. Win 8 is gently rising and win 7 fallen slightly.

[Mike-Bracknell]

Mike any one that has taken on your services is not a normal small business user of IT.

Go on....enlighten me?

[mad_jock]

Well they have a reasonable grip that they need a service provider and not some local knobend that bought a book off amazon.

[OFSO]

Nothing I have read here has convinced me that my XP will stop 'working' (suddenly or otherwise) next year with the end of MS support.

That there will be a large increase in the frequency and severity of malware attacks I do believe, but looking back at records over the past year none of the previous attacks appear to have been picked up by MS /Defender; all have been either blocked or eliminated by my two antivirus programs running full time on the PC.

If I am wrong I will say so and some posters here can then revel in having been right (and offensive too, but there we are, can't have everything I guess).

[Mike-Bracknell]

Nothing I have read here has convinced me that my XP will stop 'working' (suddenly or otherwise) next year with the end of MS support.

That there will be a large increase in the frequency and severity of malware attacks I do believe, but looking back at records over the past year none of the previous attacks appear to have been picked up by MS /Defender; all have been either blocked or eliminated by my two antivirus programs running full time on the PC.

If I am wrong I will say so and some posters here can then revel in having been right (and offensive too, but there we are, can't have everything I guess).

I'm not one to stand on the parapets and pour scorn, especially if it turns out great for you in the end, but let me explain the theory for you to at least grasp why we're saying what we're saying:

- Your assertion that "tomorrow is going to be fine because today is fine" is flawed because today currently has a support infrastructure in place.

- That support infrastructure consists of security professionals (and amateurs/hobbyists) evaluating XP as a going concern, probing it's systems for weaknesses, and reporting these, either the courteous way (to Microsoft themselves, who then fix the vulnerability and report it afterwards), or the discourteous way (to the press who report about it, which is then picked up by hackers and used, creating 'zero-day' exploits which Microsoft then scramble to fix, often posting expedited patch downloads)....there's also obviously the hackers/foreign governments/etc that have their own clandestine vulnerability experts, who will exploit a security hole and it's only when Microsoft get wind of it that it's patched.

- The above framework is the reason you get all those damned Windows Updates. Not because they improve a product's functionality at all or fix operational bugs - those are very much the minority reason for updates.

- The whole framework described will stop soon, with Microsoft no longer releasing updates to XP. This means that the first hacker to discover a security hole in it can then create an exploit and it'll be unpatched, meaning that *everyone* using XP is vulnerable.

Now, you can think that nobody's going to be affected by anything, you can think that McAfee/Norton/etc are going to keep on manufacturing antivirus definitions until the end of time, but I can virtually guarantee that anyone currently supporting XP in a security capacity will soon announce that 'all bets are off' when considering their provision of 'security' to a platform that no longer has it's own inherent security.

This may have no effect, conversely you might find that the vast swathes of hookey WinXP licenses in China suddenly crash their economy when Japan launches their first virus targetting XP.

Who knows?

One thing I do know is that it's not that expensive to upgrade to a system which will remain supported by Microsoft AND all the other software companies writing software.

Hence the reason we're urging you, as friendly professionals, to do the right thing. We have no vested interest here, I make no money writing this to you today, in fact I could be doing other things that do make me money.

Take from this what you will, just don't ask for help on an XP system following April as you might find the resident IT experts won't be touching it with a bargepole either.

Mike.

[BOAC]

Out of interest, do we have any figures for remaining 98 and 2000 users? When does Vista support end?

[cattletruck]

I have two programs on my XP box that are too expensive to renew and don't virtualise well - Adobe CS and Steinberg Cubase (sounds like a beer).

I have no need for 64 bit images or 64 bit music (if they exist) so the old clunker which has been spec'd to the max keeps on going - and is easy/cheap to repair when things go wrong.

So I'm kinda stuck at a place where the old clunker does everything I need it to do as it is right now.

My only option is to buy a super cheap Win8.1 laptop to use to access the nerdynet. The other option of forking out big dollars to update the two pieces of software mentioned above interferes with my plans to buy an elcheapo motorbike to putt about on.

You're no fun Microsoft.

[vulcanised]

Fine words and theory about those MS updates, Mike, but my Dell running XP SP2 has never received any of them over an eight year period, so why will it miss something it's never had?

[paulc]

Old PC and laptop user both with XP - like a good number of home users I have no intention to upgrade until they stop working

[le Pingouin]

There's always eBay for a cheap laptop (from a reputable seller) - plenty running Win7. I love the moaning - you've had plenty of notice to put aside a dollar/pound/euro or three a week to cover costs.

Do any of you refuseniks take out insurance on your houses or cars on the off chance they burn down or get nicked? Same deal goes with running an up to date operating system. Sure, take your chances & you'll probably get away with it. The problem comes when you do get caught out. Fancy losing the contents of your bank account? Or having your credit card compromised?

Vista support ends April 2017: Windows lifecycle fact sheet - Microsoft Windows Help (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/products/lifecycle)

[mad_jock]

your all taking it very personally that they aren't going to bother.

I can completely understand why they can't be bothered upgrading.

there is the embuggeration factor of installing it. Which is going to put 50% of them off.

And unless they get it for free they won't pay anything if the laptop still works.

Most don't care what the pro's have to say about it all.

If they press the on button and it turns on and all there programs work they don't give two hoots that its unsecure as hell.

Lets face it most are still running in admin user mode.

[axefurabz]

Out of interest, do we have any figures for remaining 98 and 2000 users?I have one 2000 machine still in use as it's the only one I have which has a SCSI port. I also have a laptop running 98 which was kept for a CD of Doonesbury cartoons :\. Can't speak for anybody else (which is unusual for this forum!) though.

No, of course they're not connected to the internet!

[le Pingouin]

Oh, but it is personal. We get to clean up the mess caused by those who couldn't give a toss.

[vulcanised]

Oh, but it is personal


Perhaps a change of career might help? You already sound like a social worker.

[mad_jock]

Oh, but it is personal. We get to clean up the mess caused by those who couldn't give a toss.

Speak to Micorsoft then to give out free upgrades.

Your really think people are going to pay money just to give a load of IT admins an easy life?

there must be a dilbert cartoon about this

[le Pingouin]

Nah, I'm just trying to get them to do something so they don't come crying in their beer when the Internet eats their hard drive :rolleyes:

[ZeBedie]

Looking at changing from XP to Win7, I came across sellers offering Dell or HP OS discs with COA key. Are these a safe bet?

For example, ebay item 130989318028

[Saab Dastard]

There's two separate issues here.

One is the legality, and it is not legal to install an OEM licensed copy of the software other than onto the PC where the OEM licence key & COA was originally located. It is not transferable from one PC to another.

As I understand it, besides getting an OEM licence with a new PC, you can buy a new OEM licence to install on a PC that you have built yourself, although this has always been a bit of a grey area. However, it must still be a new OEM licence - you can't buy a "2nd-hand" OEM licence.

The second is the purely technical - will it work? You're very much on your own there.

SD

[Private jet]

Microsoft need to maintain a revenue stream, its as simple as that.
I suppose the obvious analogy here is car manufacturers. Cars are designed to go 10-12 years now and then fall to bits, or more accurately now, electronically "die". Unservicability becomes regular, spares and repairs get increasingly time consuming and expensive. Eventually people just get a newer vehicle to stop the aggro.
Unfortunately many modern businesses have cottoned on to the concept of customers having to buy a 'subscription' to a product or service (much easier to keep tabs on people in this internet age). I suspect in the long run this sly marketing technique will yield them far more revenue (and the customer more expense) than just selling a product as a one off.

[seacue]

I have an absolutely legal end-user Win 7 Pro Installation disk and unused license number.

I tried to install it to replace Win XP Pro on a 5-yr-old Dell.

There was a diagnostic which said that the Dell was incompatible and something about ACPI. Maybe I'm supposed to flash the BIOS with a newer version. This Win XP PC is vital and I won't try flashing the BIOS until a suitable Win 7 PC is in house.

Am I too conservative about flashing the BIOS?

seacue

[Saab Dastard]

Seacue, can you get hold of a different hard disk to install Win 7 on? That way you can go through all the troubleshooting confident in the knowledge that you have your original XP HDD securely available to go back to if you can't get 7 to play ball.

Most surprising that such a relative new PC should have problems with Win 7. I assume that it's on the Win 7 compatible / certified list?

I would look for and exhaust alternatives before flashing the BIOS, as there is always the possibility (however slight) of something going wrong. Googling the problem should provide you with a number of possible solutions.

SD

[cattletruck]

seacue, would that be a Dell Inspiron 1420 by any chance as I had exactly the same issue with it when installing a standard W7 Professional.

I often aquire old laptops fix em up and give them away for free to people who would otherwise never buy a computer. In this case getting W7 Professional to install on this Dell was a real PITA.

From memory, I fiddled with BIOS, downloaded the latest drivers from Dell, but what I vaguely recall fixing it with was using a tool called something like Universal Windows Boot System (or something similar) to reformat the hard disk at low level and install a standard Master Boot Record. I have a feeling that Dell systems by default require Dell OEM W7 to install, and to defeat that you have to overwrite the ugly bits on the hard disk, maybe someone with more expertise with Dell could elaborate.

It took quite a while to get W7 Professional up and running, and after all that effort the W7 licence key I was provided didn't validate and was going to expire in 1 month. Buggah, so I stuck Linux on it instead :ok:.

[fastaviation]

Switch to win7. :)

[seacue]

The Dell is a Vostro 200 (or is it an Optiplex 330?) desktop. I'm miles / km from it and won't see it again until mid-week.

Thanks for the comments.

The Win7 I'm trying to install is from a disk directly from Microsoft via Techsoup. I've more-or-less switched to Linux myself, but the computer in question is for an employee who needs to be MS compatible without question and is barely computer literate.

seacue

[Mike-Bracknell]

As I understand it, besides getting an OEM licence with a new PC, you can buy a new OEM licence to install on a PC that you have built yourself, although this has always been a bit of a grey area. However, it must still be a new OEM licence - you can't buy a "2nd-hand" OEM licence.

Not quite.

*picks OEM license from shelf*

"To distribute the software or hardware in this pack you must be a System Builder and accept this license. "System Builder" means an original equipment manufacturer, an assembler, a refurbisher, or a software pre-installer that sells the customer system(s) to a third party"

i.e. you're not licensed to use it yourself, it has to be sold on to a 3rd party before use.

(and yes, the disties and resellers flout this by selling to all and sundry).

[Mike-Bracknell]

I have an absolutely legal end-user Win 7 Pro Installation disk and unused license number.

I tried to install it to replace Win XP Pro on a 5-yr-old Dell.

There was a diagnostic which said that the Dell was incompatible and something about ACPI. Maybe I'm supposed to flash the BIOS with a newer version. This Win XP PC is vital and I won't try flashing the BIOS until a suitable Win 7 PC is in house.

Am I too conservative about flashing the BIOS?

seacue

As Saab says, buy a new hard drive and stick it in the PC and work from there. Note down the relevant settings in the BIOS before you change them, and you can then stick the old hard disk back in and change the BIOS settings back and it'll be as before.

It's most probably just the setting for the hard drive mode, and will install perfectly well when set to the other setting.

[Saab Dastard]

Mike, you are right about the OEM licence up to and including win 7; however, Win 8 has a "Personal Use" licence that permits use of an OEM licence on a system built for oneself. This is what I was thinking about.

I still regard it as a "bit of a grey area", and I believe that MS would rather get the revenue from an OEM licence used on a homebuilt PC than no revenue at all.

It is strange to me that they haven't applied the "Personal use" licence to Win 7 - it couldn't be that they are desperate to force people to adopt 8... could it?

SD

[Mike-Bracknell]

Mike, you are right about the OEM licence up to and including win 7; however, Win 8 has a "Personal Use" licence that permits use of an OEM licence on a system built for oneself. This is what I was thinking about.

I still regard it as a "bit of a grey area", and I believe that MS would rather get the revenue from an OEM licence used on a homebuilt PC than no revenue at all.

It is strange to me that they haven't applied the "Personal use" licence to Win 7 - it couldn't be that they are desperate to force people to adopt 8... could it?

SD

Thanks, I hadn't noticed that. I guess they'll do anything to try and sell a Win8 license (aside from fix the product of course)

[finncapt]

Re OEM win7

Surely if you build a system yourself, as an assembler, you can sell it to your wife, for instance, for a nominal sum, say 1€, and then you have sold it to a third party.

Thus complying with the terms of the OEM licence.

Discuss.

[Saab Dastard]

finncapt, I like your thinking. :ok:

As I say, it's a bit of a grey area, and in my view if you genuinely build a PC (as opposed to "buy a component") and buy an OEM license, MS are unlikely to quibble. I'm sure they are aware that it would be a PR disaster if they went after someone on that basis. There are far bigger targets for them to chase.

SD

[mixture]

Surely if you build a system yourself, as an assembler, you can sell it to your wife, for instance, for a nominal sum, say 1€, and then you have sold it to a third party.

Thus complying with the terms of the OEM licence.

Erm no..... :ugh:

Look into how one becomes a System Builder..... you have to be a Microsoft Reseller and then activate the System Builder part of the reseller programme.

You can't just go call yourself a System Builder on a whim just because it suits your desires to bypass the licensing.

Go buy a retail FPP copy like you should.

[finncapt]

Mixture

Whilst I agree that a "system builder" may indeed require MS reseller registration or whatever, I do not see where that applies to an "assembler".

It is all fairly academic nowadays since I tend to use Linuxmint when I build a computer - it is faster, has a smaller footprint and doesn't seem to suffer from slow down with age.

A new build with mint can be up and running within a short time as there is no need to install all those drivers from the install cd, that comes with the motherboard.

Mint, and other linux systems, tend to have the necessary software, office suite web browser etc, already on the installation media, a usb stick.

One can also test a build as most Linux distributions will run from a usb stick even without there being a hard drive in the computer.

And then there is the virus issue!!!

The only time I now build an MS system is if the end user needs a gaming system - I tend to use an OEM copy of Win7 for those.

[Mike-Bracknell]

Mixture

Whilst I agree that a "system builder" may indeed require MS reseller registration or whatever, I do not see where that applies to an "assembler".

I quoted the precise definition for pre-Win8 in an earlier post above. Mixture is right in that you would need to jump through the System Builder hoops before being able to legally comply with the license.

Hence the subsequent post from Saab pointing out the subtle change to the Win8 OEM licensing to include self-builders.

Hope that's clear now (despite it being OT for this thread)

[Guest 112233]

I'm not in not way connected with this organisation

I'm just on their EM listings, but this might be interesting:

https://www.virusbtn.com/blog/2013/10_21.xml

CAT III

[mixture]

but this might be interesting

Not really, its just a marketing PR stunt by Google.

As I said in earlier in relation to anti-virus and any other third party software..... run it on top of an insecure OS with exploitable APIs and you're not achieving anything.

The answer is in the last phrase of the concluding paragraph of the article :

Or is it giving stubborn users of XP what may seem like a good reason to continue using the operating system

Note the words "what may seem". :cool:

[Guest 112233]

The CAT III Procurement Dept has implemented it's new XP replacement Computer, a 2007 Vintage Advent Intel Core two Q8200 with 6 Gb of RAM, I've installed Ubuntu 12.04 64 Bit O/S and an Invidia Graphics (GT650 )card with 2 GB of ddr3.+ A 500 Gb Seagate Barracuda Sata drive (one that works) purchased separately. - Great Intel i3 Level performance + a bit more I think.

Lipstick on a Pig - I will run XP Applications in Virtual Box (Hopefully) - No Internet access.

Yep.- But all for £150 Quid.

CAT III

[Edit: no wireless but I've shoved an old BT Spatula USB Wireless connection - (It looks like a singular raised finger somehow) up one of the 6 USB ports in it rear. (After cleaning out the MB Glory be !!!! ]

[Extra Edit: Resting power consumption 85 W RMS]