Support for XP (Pro) and IE 8 users here on PPRuNe...

[mixture]

using techniques that cannot really be discussed here that could be applied across "families of operating systems"

Indeed. There was a nice little blog post somewhere in the depths of the Microsoft website that pointed out that of the many recent patches issued for Windows 7 and Windows 8, Windows XP was also patched at the same time as it was vulnerable.

Hence, as the article went on to point out, it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to guess that the "dark side" will make a profitable business out of "back-porting" Windows 7 and Windows 8 vulnerabilities by reverse-engineering the 7/8 patches them and creating exploits for XP.

like the well known abuse of cryptography now being applied for extortion.

Yeah, those are some pretty scary ones. I personally haven't seen them in action, but I've heard a few war stories.

[Guest 112233]

Mixture

Bang on the nail. Yes I saw the article too - We both read the same Mag - I did not want to scare people - Some of the implications were covered by "Security Now" this week at the end of the podcast. I have no conncetion with the producers -

Mods that podcast is spsonsored feel free to delete this if you wish.

CAT III

Edit: The crypto Scam: It's over a 100 users in the UK mainly SMB customers by E-M phishing apparently as the first vector.

[jimtherev]

quick reply

W7 pro. Rock solid in my experience. Only 2 crashes since I installed it just after release; both of 'em due to faulty usb sticks.
Unlike XB, which crashed quite frequently.

[Mike-Bracknell]

*cough*

Windows XP: Microsoft?s ticking time bomb | Analysis | Features | PC Pro

[Loose rivets]

Record all your passwords:

I'm delighted with the fully transportable KeePass. Mind you, I haven't forgotten the master password yet.


Nice link, Mr Mouse.

Here you can choose options that allow you to automatically boot your machine into desktop, instead of the Start Screen.

And coupled with a custom shell, I really found some common ground with W7. I didn't try it, but there is a download to stop the selected items hogging the entire screen. I never did contain Skype, however. Under W8 it seemed to have a (determined) mind of its own - even when I got an old copy running the new one fought its way back. The rest would have been fun . . . for someone who hadn't got a day job to do.

I'm not sure I'm going to have the courage to stick with 8.1 when I do load a kosher copy on my 'new' laptop.

[Booglebox]

airship, stick with windows 7, at least until you're sure you want to dive in to windows 8.

If there are people who absolutely cannot / will not migrate from XP, you might want to consider the mouthful that is Microsoft Windows Embedded POS-Ready 2009. Technically it's not XP but Windows Embedded as the name suggests... however, it's still NT 5.1 32-bit, seems to be 100% compatible, and you can configure it to look / feel the same (very easily, by copying Luna theme files from an XP PC).
What's more, it's supported with security updates until 2019, and that's not a typo.
More info (PDF): http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=159099

[mixture]

you might want to consider

And you might want to consider the various licensing restrictions .... the first one being you can't run Office apps on it.

[occasional]

Seems to me that it would be a good moment for governments to intervene and put an end to this nonsense about dictated obsolescence and cessation of support. Good software should be expected to last 20 years.

Anyone know if governments make arrangements for the software that they buy to be supported outside the public arena ?

[mixture]

Seems to me that it would be a good moment for governments to intervene and put an end to this nonsense about dictated obsolescence and cessation of support. Good software should be expected to last 20 years.

Says someone who has evidently not spent much time in the IT industry, let alone software development.

"dictated obsolescence and cessation of support" is a nonsense that only uneducated consumers spout out.

IT is complex with a rapid pace of change, all parties involved have to continually adapt to new developments (and new requirements from customers). Developing software costs a shedload of money, maintaining software costs another shedload of money.... you can't support it all for ever, it simply would not make a viable business model.

And before you spout the words "open source"....no, that model doesn't work either. Sure you've got access to armies of "free" coders, but the design, QA, documentation, end-user support and other aspects are poor ! Open Source has its uses, but you have to be able to put up with its downsides.

"Good software should last for 20 years" .... yeah, right !

Anyone know if governments make arrangements for the software that they buy to be supported outside the public arena ?

Anyone with enough money in their bank account can write Microsoft a cheque which will extend the support coverage of EOL software for up to 3 years post EOL date.

[occasional]

ays someone who has evidently not spent much time in the IT industry, let alone software development.

"dictated obsolescence and cessation of support" is a nonsense that only uneducated consumers spout out

Odd that the software I wrote was certainly in use 20 years after it was written, and there was even then little prospect of it being replaced.

IT is complex with a rapid pace of change, all parties involved have to continually adapt to new developments (and new requirements from customers). Developing software costs a shedload of money, maintaining software costs another shedload of money.... you can't support it all for ever, it simply would not make a viable business model.

In the world you describe most customers are best advised to find a good model and stick to that model for 10 to 20 years ie only change product when there is good reason to change.

You also appear to be overlooking the fact that support costs after ten years are likely to be pretty trivial.

The reason for my original question was that I would expect any end-user buying thousands of computers to insist that software support continued for 20 years. Assuming that a few buyers have shown that level of common sense then the additional cost of providing support for everybody is negligible. In fact, ceasing support becomes a marketing decision.

[Capn Bloggs]

Originally Posted by Mixture

IT is complex with a rapid pace of change, all parties involved have to continually adapt to new developments

Codswallop. By all means fix the stuff under the hood so the nasties can't give me a new virus, but making your software all airy, fairy, floaty and different-looking just because it gives the latest geeks a buzz is not necessary and just makes life harder for a lot of us who just want to do productive things with their computers and not have the hassle of working out how a "new" program works to achieve the same thing.

[mixture]

Odd that the software I wrote was certainly in use 20 years after it was written, and there was even then little prospect of it being replaced.

Let me guess, it was something niche, specialist and of limited scope. Some sort of embedded system like an FMS ?

I still maintain that you are very much still wearing rose tinted spectacles if you seriously think a modern Operating System, or modern general PC software should last 20 years !

The vast majority of large buyers operate on a 3 to 5 year lifecycle. Quite frankly, talking about 20 years for generic office (or home) systems is simply ludicrous. I think you very well know that.

[le Pingouin]

occasional, if you want to live with a 20 year old OS then feel free to revert to say Win3.1. Good luck on getting any recent software to run on it. You can only keep patching in new technology for so long before it all falls over under the weight of hacks to get stuff working. And your support costs only fall to zero after 10 years if your product is frozen.

mixture, exactly how much support does closed source give to the average home user, or small office user? None, aside form patches and opens source does exactly that too.

[aditya104]

@Booglebox
POS-Ready 2009 could be a handy alternative. Let's hope there is a way to run MS-Office on that. MS-Office is the only thing that is stopping me from migrating to Linux. I used to use Openoffice and LibreOffice before(even on Windows), but since I have moved to MS-Office, I have been hooked. Totally worth it. Now, I can't imagine moving back to other office apps.

Secondly, can't run FS2004 or FSX on Linux.

[mixture]

POS-Ready 2009 could be a handy alternative. Let's hope there is a way to run MS-Office on that. MS

As I said above, for those people thinking of jumping on the silly idea of using POS rather than migrating to Windows 7 or 8... READ THE LICENSE AGREEMENT. For a start, no, you cannot run Office on it, they explicitly tell you that in the agreement.

POS-Ready is a specific product for a specific application. POS = Point of Sale.... your home computer (or office computer) is not a Point of Sale.

People should just bite the bullet and move to 7 or 8 rather than clinging on to old stuff.

[mixture]

2) Concerning Windows 7 PRO, was that a reliable OS? Apparently the DELL PC would come with that as standard together with "a Windows 8 64 bits" license. Would that allow me to upgrade to Windows 8.1 (and would I want to)?

Windows Vista was a terrible OS.
Windows 7 is what Vista should have been.

Whilst 7 is a decent OS, if I were you, since you're starting from a clean slate on a new system, I would just bite the bullet and use Windows 8.1. Better to start learning now then have to face the inevitable a few years down the line. The added benefit of using 8/8.1 rather than 7 is it buys you an extended period of support from Microsoft, given that 8/8.1 is the current product, and 7 is gradually being phased out (end of Mainstream support 2015, end of extended support 2020 .... compared to 8 with dates of 2018 and 2023 respectivley)

[mixture]

mixture, exactly how much support does closed source give to the average home user, or small office user? None, aside form patches and opens source does exactly that too.

Two words .... Linker Libraries.

You see, *nix/*nux systems nothing but a collection of software. You've got the kernel and you've got all the third-party software. All this jumble of software is developed and patched up by individual groups of people. There is no real overall picture despite what certain distributions might try to portray.

What that means is if you've got software on your Linux box that was compiled against, say version 0.9 of the OpenSSL libraries, but then your next patch pull from the Linux Distribution updates the OpenSSL libraries to 1.0, which breaks your software.

On the other hand, with closed source, the Operating System developer makes APIs available to third-party software developers. As the Operating System manufacturer patches and enhances their Operating System, they ensure as part of the QA process that the APIs still work as advertised.

[le Pingouin]

Seriously, how many Linux users compile their own software? They don't. They just pull it from the repository where the distro provider looks after the dependencies.

For the average end user there is no difference.

[mixture]

Seriously, how many Linux users compile their own software? They don't. They just pull it from the repository where the distro provider looks after the dependencies.

Users might not, but they may well use third-party software not sourced from the distro repository.

Also the distro repository doesn't always take care of the dependencies that well, you can't rely on it. That's the whole point I'm making, the individual libraries are all individual little open source projects that happen to have been selected to be part of the distro repository. No promise is made that the distro cares about dependency compatibility ... they'll just continue rolling out updates to the individual packages. They simply do not have the manpower or the will to cross-check every single dependency for compatibility with all the other packages they distribute. The distros may also remove packages at a whim. That is why the closed source model of documented exposed APIs is better.

I'm not anti open-source, its just a case of the right tool for the right job. For the average home user, the hassle of open source is really not worth it when the Microsoft or Apple communities are larger and better supported.

[le Pingouin]

And they may well not use anything other than repo sourced software. The truth is the vast majority of the software that users use only comes from repositories.

Can't recall the last time software downloaded via a repository failed due to unsatisfied dependencies.