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Set Your Watches For the End of Windows XP
An anonymous reader writes "In one year today exactly, Microsoft will shut down support for Windows XP. The deadline will prove a challenge for many of Australia's largest users of IT, all struggling to migrate to new Microsoft environments." Net Applications' chart of current OS market share figures shows XP only slightly behind Windows 7, even now.
XP will no longer be "supported" but it will certainly still be used by 10's of millions of computers a year from now (and two, and three, and more). It's also a certainty that a stationary "unsupported" target will get a lot of attention by exploits and black hats.
XP -> 7 is entirely worth it. I'm no IT professional and don't know the logistics of it all but when I upgraded it was like day and night. I really don't understand the slow uptake to 7. Laziness? XP to Vista I understand, Vista was a pile of poopy fart poops. But 7 is a breeze and if I may boldly say in my experience even more reliable than XP. Of course, I could be letting the odd obscure legacy program go over my head but still... 7. 7 7 7 7 7. Did I mention 7?
You can dance if you want to.
It's not going to work when it gets riddled with malware because of unpatched remote exploits.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
It already is riddled with malware. Windows 7 and 8 still struggle with it. It's time to simply throw the entire thing out and start over with a more secure base (such as BSD/Linux)
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> It's not going to work when it gets riddled with malware because of unpatched remote exploits.
Take a look at whatever latest OS you are currently running. Is it bug and exploit free? If you think it is, then come back in a year and there likely will be a long list of vulnerabilities found during that time. And they didn't just magically appear, most of these vulnerabilities are in your OS RIGHT NOW and there is a good chance the bad guys have known about them for quite a while too.
Even a brand new Windows 7/8/Blue or Mac or Linux shouldn't just be thrown on the net without some extra precautions.
With good practices, and and extra precautions, even Windows 95 can be "secure". Many people will choose to take this path, manage security themselves, and continue to happily run Windows XP.
Now imagine that non-technical user on a different OS. Probably would get the same results....it's a user problem, not an OS problem. They are the ones that click on the African prince email links.
Now imagine that non-technical user on a different OS. Probably would get the same results....it's a user problem, not an OS problem.
While that's true to an extent, most of them aren't installing 'Nigerian Kitty Screen Savers', they're just browsing the web and ending up infected through some remote Windows exploit.
^^this.
If you're still running 16bit DOS, your machines are highly malware resistant today. I know of no virus or malware circulating currently that will infect your machine.
...no, the vast majority of malware for a very long time on all OSes has been through social engineering.
Actually, outside of a couple of incidents and a parade of trojans (most of which require astounding stupidity to install, give admin password, then run)?
So yeah - I'd say OSX has a better record over its 12-year lifespan than Windows has had over that exact same lifespan.
OTOH, Linux beats 'em both.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
That's the thing though, it doesn't work. At least not particularly well.
XP was fundamentally a transitional OS. It's half-way between the bad old days of Win9x/DOS where there was no security and practically everything ran in the kernel, and Win Vista which institutes a proper security model along with evicting most drivers to the user-mode. The stability improvements alone made XP a vast improvement over Win9x, but it's still not a secure operating system.
The reality of the situation is that users (business and consumer alike) need to suck it up one more time and move to Win6.x. Yes it's painful, yes it's expensive, and yes, learning is hard. But Win6.x is the first Windows OS that implements a modern (and dare I say *nixy) security model. It's the first Windows OS with good 64bit CPU support. It's the first Windows OS with a graphics stack worth half a damn. Heck, it's the first Windows OS that doesn't run IE as Admin.
We must make the transition now, just one more time. After that, if users want to stop on Win6.x, that's okay. Even Vista perfectly fine since it implements all the major security features that make Win6.x necessary. Like any other OS there will come a time when Win6.x grows old and tired, but unlike XP Win6.x was built to last. It was built to be secure and even now, more than 6 years after its launch it doesn't have any significant faults. It's built to withstand the world that comes with the age of the always-on Internet.
But we can't stop on XP. XP is fundamentally broken and was never meant to be used like this for this long. Use Win 8, use Win 7, hell, use Vista, but please don't stop on XP.
If you keep on top of security updates and run with UAC turned on, and NOT as an administrative user, Windows is security is good enough.
If you run Linux logged in as root and don't keep on top of security updates your asking to get owned as well.
It's not the OS that needs to be thrown out and start over. It's the IT departments who don't give a fuck about ensuring that the desktops under their control are secure, and the general user apathy that goes with it. And I say that as someone who doesn't run Windows if i can avoid it.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Maybe, just maybe, the MS user base (at around 94%) is a bit more appealing to malware/virus writers than OS X (at around 5%) or Linux (at 1%)...
Ken
No they're not. They might claim "oh i didn't do anything!" when bringing you their PC for repair, but more often than not they've been attempting to get "free shit" which isn't "free".
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Except Windows 95 has no open ports by default. Hell, TCP/IP isn't even installed by default.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Maybe, just maybe, the MS user base (at around 94%) is a bit more appealing to malware/virus writers than OS X (at around 5%) or Linux (at 1%)...
Old argument, and long ago discredited.
For a start, Android passed Windows market share last year, and will pass its installed base in less than two years. There are several orders of magnitude less malware for Android than Windows, and the malware that does exist is simple to remove.
And how does she get updates to Flash, Java and other programs that have their own updater program that require intervention by a user with and Administrator login?
I'm sorry, but no. Running as a non-administrator only works if you have someone else who keeps the system updated.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Do you know any non-technical Linux users?
You're wrong. For the last five years my wife is a happy CentOS user. And as non technical as you can get it.
Yes she needs help with her PC, but roughly the same as when she used Windows before that. And for me it's less support work because of the reduced amount of bloatware and exploits targeting Linux.
When she moved from IE to FireFox and Outlook Express to Thunderbird the only thing I had to explain was what multi-tab browsing is. For the rest it was to her "all the same thing".
The main reason that non-technical users don't use Linux is that you can't buy preconfigured Linux systems in the big-box stores.
But this starts to become a moot point, because non-technical users just use a phone instead of a desktop or laptop.
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
Oh, that's right--weren't they too busy trying to create and hype up their own proprietary "Internet" at the time or something? The Microsoft Network? That damn passing fad... it just won't go away!
Once so configured, the update process runs in the background on its own, with no interaction required by the user.
You can also assign rights to use the update program without giving full root access.
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More like "I'd rather not have software that hates me" because lets be honest folks, if you are not on a tablet or thrown out your nice LCD for some little touchscreen? Then Win 8 is NOT FOR YOU and neither will Windows Blue be for you because guess what a good 90% of the talk coming out about it from Redmond is? If you said "Shit nobody owns nor cares about" then you'd be right.
I have a feeling you'll see a lot moving up but NOT to Windows "LOL We're a hip cellphone company yo!" 8 but to Windows 7. The rest? Well if it ain't broke, not like MSFT has been worth a piss when it comes to timely security patches anyway, you are better off with a firewall and decent AV. You can download a browser right now that still runs on Win98 (Kmeleon) so considering how many XP systems there are out there I doubt finding software that will run will be a problem.
I don't get MSFT right now folks, I really don't. Its not like Nokia where years of infighting had left them without a viable OS so their backs was against the wall, they are still making pretty damned good money. Its not like Apple where they had painted themselves into a corner and ended up with an OS so damned old and creaky they had no choice but to buy out NeXT, Windows 7 is a damned good product, good enough I think it belongs right beside XP X64 and Win2K on any best of list, and its not like their market has disappeared, despite the horseshit that the press shovels (who all seem to sleep with their iPhones) there are still hundreds of millions of PCs being sold and still a LOT of room for growth...what the fuck?
I swear the new attitude at MSFT seems to be just giving the finger, from Windows 8 to the X720 supposedly being online only and banning used games it seems like Ballmer thinks if he burns the company to the ground and says "No we ONLY are a premium brand like Apple" that this will magically give them Apple's market...which just ain't happening folks, it took Jobs 20+ years to build the Apple name into a premium brand, whereas Ballmer is sticking a new paintjob on a Pinto and expecting it to beat Porsche in sales, just complete fucking reality disconnect.
The sad part is it would be crazy simple to make PCs explode again, all it takes is a teeny tiny bit of common sense which sadly seems to be lacking at Redmond. Never before has it been easier to plug a PC into a TV, damned near every desktop and laptop coming out today has HDMI which is piss easy to set up and never before has 1080P capable computers been so damned cheap, so why the fuck aren't you promoting that MSFT? Hell you could even use it to get your foot in the door of mobile by adding cool features that make the WinPhone easy peasy to use as everything from a remote to a streaming media player with the PC as the central hub, you could then make deals with the media companies to make any PC, Vista-9 that has WMC into a powerhouse that is soooo simple to work it isn't even funny.
In a way I find it kinda sad, I really do. they could make something truly fucking awesome, you have all this power with the desktop PC that when tied together with the X720 and the WinPhone/WinTab could do some truly incredible stuff, but because Steve Ballmer is such a shitty CEO and has such an Ahab like focus on being just like Apple they are just pissing it all away. The death of XP will be IMHO a milestone worth noting as MSFT will NEVER have those kinds of numbers again, not because they didn't jump into the "ZOMFG smartphone!" market in the right way, not because they can't make a decent product, but because the company ONLY cares about a single niche that frankly will never ever EVER be a big deal on X86. Touchscreens on laptops and desktops is like putting handlebars on a pickup truck, while handlebars may be great for biking it just doesn't translate to anything with wheels and is worse than what we had before...too bad MSFT is too blinded by iMoney to see that.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You discredit with a false assumption. Android can't be compared to windows as they are different platforms with different qualities for malware.
Sensitive files, large bandwidth for DDoS attacks, processing power for bitcoin mining etc is a desirable trait for malware writers exclusive to the PC. Android may be bloody popular for the end users but it still is lacking in the same way as OSX is to the malware writers, namely it's not as profitable.
How is this +5 insightful? Windows XP is Windows NT 5.1. It is not half-way to Win9x/DOS, and Microsoft had a proper security model for ages even before it was released.
Yes, it's outdated in many other ways, and it would be nice if the default security settings were even more aggressive, but it is not fundamentally broken.
The main issue with sandboxing in the style of Android is that it doesn't actually work. Any application that needs to be able to modify documents has the 'access SD card' permission, and that gives it access to all other documents. There is an inherent problem with this approach, in that you either give such coarse-grained permissions that they leak like a sieve, or you have such fine-grained ones that 99% of users don't understand them.
Currently, the most common way of deploying Android malware is to find a fairly popular app in the Market (sorry, Play Store), download it, add the trojan, reupload it with a different name and a price of zero, download it a few dozen times and rate it 5 stars, and then wait for users to install it. You can usually even keep the same permissions as the original, as it is pretty much the norm for applications to ask for far more permissions than they actually need.
If you did this on Windows, you'd have screensavers saying that they needed full access to C: to run, and users would just click 'yes, show me the kittens'.
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The NT family was designed from day one for multi user access and security.
If that is true (and it may well be) I wonder why so many applications require administrator rights to run, not just to install. I suspect that is because historically applications always did have administrator access, and so developers expected this to always be the case. That is why I think Windows (even the modern, multi-user aware versions derived from NT) is still hobbled by its single-user history.
Oh, that's right--weren't they too busy trying to create and hype up their own proprietary "Internet" at the time or something? The Microsoft Network? That damn passing fad... it just won't go away!
Hindsight is always 20/20 isn't it? At the time, the Compuserve and AOL models of the internet were the dominant ones, i.e. walled gardens where you didn't really ever venture out into the wild internet. It would have been natural for Microsoft to think they could provide an alternative version of this, and it would have been a real money spinner (imagine if every Windows user had to pay MS $20 a month or whatever).
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
No - just that yet again MS produced a crap version of Windows. *If* history repeats itself, then Windows 9 will be considerably better than Windows 8
They are resistant to the average malware. They are not resistant to a targetted attack from a hacker practiced in social engineering, and sufficiently skilled to look up one of the old exploits, or to write their own trojan.
So what? No system is resistant to things like that.