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Meet the Diehards Who Refuse To Move On From Windows XP
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Nearly every longtime Windows user looks back on Windows XP with a certain fondness, but the party's over according to Microsoft. 'It's time to move on,' says Tom Murphy, Microsoft's director of communications for Windows. 'XP was designed for a different era.' But Ian Paul writes in PC World that many people around the world refuse to give up on XP. But why? What's so great about an operating system that was invented before the age of Dropbox and Facebook, an OS that's almost as old as the original Google search engine? Bob Appel, a retiree based in Toronto, says he uses 12 PCs in a personal Dropbox-like network—10 of which are running XP. 'I use a third-party firewall, a free virus checker, and run Housecall periodically,' says Appel. 'My Firefox browser uses Keyscrambler, HTTPS Anywhere, Ghostery, and Disconnect. I also have a VPN account (PIA) when traveling. For suspicious email attachments, I deploy private proprietary bioware (me!) to analyze before opening. All the "experts" say I am crazy. Thing is, I stopped the security updates in XP years ago after a bad update trashed my system, and yet I have never been infected, although online for hours each day. So, crazy though I be, I am sticking with XP.'" (Read more, below.)
More from Pickens: "Mike Merritt uses an XP PC to run his online business in rural Ontario and cites Outlook Express as one of his major reasons for sticking with XP. The once-popular email client isn't available with Windows 7 or 8.1, and for Merritt, alternatives such as Thunderbird or webmail clients like Outlook.com are a non-starter. 'Webmails have a slower load time than a desktop app like Outlook Express and they would have their own learning curve and modification to my current workflow,' says Merritt. 'The upgrade path for me would require replacing a bunch of things that work just fine as far as I'm concerned.'
The same day that Windows XP reaches its end of support on April 8, Microsoft will roll out a major update to Windows 8.1 that will make it easier for traditional desktop users and the company recently announced that the Start menu will return to Windows sometime in the coming months. Mike Eldridge says that since his computer is currently on its last legs, he's going to cross his fingers and hope for the best until it finally dies. 'I am worried about security threats, but I'd rather have my identity stolen than put up with Windows 8.'"
The same day that Windows XP reaches its end of support on April 8, Microsoft will roll out a major update to Windows 8.1 that will make it easier for traditional desktop users and the company recently announced that the Start menu will return to Windows sometime in the coming months. Mike Eldridge says that since his computer is currently on its last legs, he's going to cross his fingers and hope for the best until it finally dies. 'I am worried about security threats, but I'd rather have my identity stolen than put up with Windows 8.'"
This should be a golden age for the antivirus companies.
I still have a machine from 2002 that I sometimes use that has XP Pro on it. 900MHz and 512MB of RAM. Enough said.
I still have an XP installation running in a vbox, just because it's easier than trying to get SlingBox to run under wine.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Everyone knows the only true OS is Windows 3.1, I see no reason to upgrade from that.
But 99% of Windows users can't/won't go to those lengths to stay secure. But congratulations on making life hard for yourself.
That's just wasteful. At least while doing things in the Cloud, there are efficiencies of shared resources.
Software doesn't wear out. I'm still running XP on an old desktop in my basement. It works fine for what I need it for. Upgrading to a new version of Windows would cost more than what the machine is worth, and I'm reasonably sure that all the hardware wouldn't have proper drivers because the machine is so old. I have no problem getting Windows 8.1 (or whatever the current version is) when I replace the computer, but there's nothing wrong with the machine right now. It's behind a router with NAT turned on, so there's little chance of attack from the outside, and I can still use updated versions of Firefox or Chrome for browsing the web, so there's not many security problems there.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
If you don't want to think (like most people) it's safer to always update. But this guy is obviously much safer than anyone with just the newest software. Because he thinks about security and has taken measures to protect against every threat to him.
And I ain't leavin'!!! Ya hear that gubmint?!?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Real men run DOS3.3
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Well not for me, Microsoft software is the easiest software to pirate in the world.
But for the Fortune 500 company I work for, we have hundreds of PCs running critical operations and it's not worth the hassle and expense of upgrading them.
Everyone running old specfialized hardware which is not compatible with windows 7 or later feel the pain of the XP end of life.
Its not about refusing or not. Some simply don't have the choice and must stick with XP.
We migrated 100% of our windows-based computers used for typical applications (office work, CAD, data analysis, etc.) to windows 7 or 8. But some machines working with specialized hardware, that is either too expensive to replace or for which simply no replacement exist, can't be migrated. They must remain with XP.
This actually creates a lot of frustration and administrative problems, as after the end of the XP support, those computers are not allowed to remain on the institution network anymore. A clear solution has still to be found (hint: ghostery and co. are not part of the solution).
Premise of the Story: XP is older than Dropbox and therefore is useless. Let's go find some people who use XP and then talk about Dropbox.
In other news: This so-called story is a thinly veiled ad for Dropbox that finds interesting ways to drop the word Dropbox into a completely unrelated story!!
P.S. --> DROPBOX BITCHEZ!!
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
If you are so in love with Outlook Express and your "workflow" that you cannot upgrade your operating system to something from this century then you have bigger problems then having XP on your desktop. If that kind of minor change is too upsetting for you then you will probably have difficulty if your toaster gives out, and you have to get a new one with a different dial for setting how done your bagel is. Breakfast is a bitch, baby.
"and yet I have never been infected, although online for hours each day."
There is a great, big difference between "have never been infected" and "have never been infected that I know of"
This topic has been beaten to death but if Hugh Pickens wants us to talk about it, I guess we have to.
The XP machines that are still around aren't here because they are great. They are still used because their life cycle has not expired. We tend to keep computers for about five years. So when we were buying computers 4.5 years ago, our choice was XP or Vista. Obviously, we weren't going with Vista.
So now Microsoft is punishing us for their fuck-up. They are trying to force us to buy a new version of Windows before the current equipment is due for replacement.
I expect to have the same issue in a few years because I'm still buying Windows 7 and they think I should be buying 8.
I use Windows XP for playing my crusty old games (e.g. Rainbow Six 3, Falcon 4 Allied Force, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights). I use Lubuntu for development, productivity, surfing - basically everything else.
Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. - John 14:6 NLT
It's just that Microsoft is no longer delivering most updates directly to anyone who asks.
Many public and private sector organisations will continue receiving updates. For those who aren't involved with any of them, rest assured that patches will be made available by good citizens.
The person quoted in the summary appears to have a relatively solid grasp on how to go about being safe on the internet. By that same metric, a large percentage of Slashdot could also be just fine using XP. The problem is that everyone _else_ keeps using XP, and they _don't_ have that same skillset.
I'm happy that Microsoft finally pulled the plug. My goal is that things get bad enough for the small office that I provide support to on a volunteer basis requires them to upgrade. I've had to re-image a bunch of computers already this year because people click things, and companies are taking XP drivers away. Soon enough, I'll be able to say "Too bad, you have to upgrade this time".
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
I stick with XP for one of my desktops because I put my own hardware together (no OS preinstalled), and I don't want to pay horrific sums of money (£135) for a new operating system - Windows 8 is even more expensive to buy a worthwhile edition of. It's behind my free Debian install which acts as a router+firewall. Works for me.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
I bet the NHS is really upset that it isn't upgrading its 10's of 1000's of computers just so that it's staff can use Facebook or Dropbox.
Because it does what we want.
Also, we stole it. We stole it a lot.
-=The Dissenters
I am the IT guy in our family, and currently have 8 family members on a waiting list, who wants to upgrade to windows 7 or 8, but since there is no upgrade tool, I have to make full reinstalls and find all the software that was installed over the years etc.. which means that each machine takes days to upgrade..
If MS truly want us to move to a new OS, they should have made it easy, it it was just an hour or twos work, there would be 8 xp boxes less in the world already ;-)
While Microsoft has unquestionably slowed XP down over the years, it still runs on machines which compensate for the software's lack of performance.
When there is software which "only runs on Windows 7" then people might give additional pause. But right now, there just isn't that much incentive. And Microsft has clearly painted itself into a corner by supporting legacy code for extremely aged software.
Microsoft should have done what Apple did when moving from OS9 to OSX. Provide some flakey compatibility kludge to encourage people to run OSX native software and then drop support for 9. People were angry at Apple and eventually got over it. Microsoft could have invested its billions and billions into a whole new OS and then assigned a VM to run old Windows apps until things are ported. People would have done it 15 years ago. They would have done it 10 years ago. But the longer they wait, the more other alternatives become valued. And WINE is impressively advanced these days. If forced into it today, business just might adopt Linux and WINE to run their apps and find out they are safer and more stable because of it. Microsoft has hesitated for more than a decade, arguably two decades, before doing what they know they should have done. Now it can be argued that it's too late for that now.
Would it surprise anyone to know that banking still runs LOTS of *NIX based systems? Sure, desktop consoles are running Windows. But that's just the user interface systems.
I prefer to use my computer for actually DOING something else than spending all that effort on just keeping it running.
"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." - Mark Twain
That's an OS that doesn't come with an online habit. It doesn't have an "app-store". It doesn't upload everything if you just look at it wrong. It doesn't foist a "touch UI" on mouse-and-keyboard users.
The Windows 7 UI was a step back from XP, which was the last OS that can be configured to properly use the Windows NT window decorations. The Windows 7 start menu is a bleak shadow of the Windows XP start menu. Windows 8 is much much worse. I don't want a 23" phone. It's a desktop computer. I will not touch the screen. Microsoft can suck it. I am seriously considering Linux on the desktop.
Offer a free upgrade and a reliable compatibility layer for stuff that won't work on NT6.x and XP will be gone within the year.
Many companies are still using Windows XP because they have very basic needs. A Windows XP PC with barcode scanner, scanning data and sending the data to the database server. These PC are not connected to internet so they are quite safe from malwares. There are also many VB6 programs that run on XP. It is difficult to convince the management to spent money to upgrade the system since it doesn't really improve productivity or help the company save cost.
Out of my mind. Back in 5 mins.
I don't buy the "good today, crap tomorrow" mentality. XP still has a massive installed base. This will open the door for entrepreneurial geeks to create their own security and stability patches.
Diid Symantec or Macafee say they were dropping XP support? Nope, it's a huge cash cow for them.
Trolling is a art,
None of those steps are good enough and he's going to get absolutely destroyed.
Everything in this is bullshit. Webmail loads slower? You've never been infected? Really? If you're running XP you could have all sorts of malware and not have a clue. Notice linux clients aren't even mentioned.
"...I stopped the security updates in XP years ago after a bad update trashed my system, and yet I have never been infected..."
That he knows of!
I've been with Windows since the start and ended up loving WinXP.
I was forced to move on to Win7 64 bit for the extra memory, but after a couple of years I still hate it.
It's just so full of irritating little bugs which catch me out every day. And M/S shows no interest in fixing them.
I swear I'll never buy another M/S product.
If only Linux wasn't worse.
If it isn't broken--Don't fix it.
Why change what already works?
Despite what 99.9999999% of the assholes on /. think, civilians aren't going to "change their lives" because a computer product is obsolete.
"Experts" are shown to be alarmists, news at 11.
Honestly if the computer is used by someone that has at least some REAL knowlege about computer operation and safety it really is not a problem.
Sadly this does not help "experts" get paid, so spreading fear is far more profitable.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
... many people around the world refuse to give up on XP. But why?
"If it ain't broke why fix it?"
Win8 is pure crapware and Win7 is buggier and more bloated than XP. My roommate runs Win7, it almost always crashes on searching (it's also MUCH slower searching local files than XP) and it won't run some older programs I still use (games mainly). The one time I got hit by a virus was my own fault. I have no intention of upgrading until XP no longer works for me.
"I'd rather have my identity stolen than put up with Windows 8."
Any victim of identity theft will deny this.
Why is it that people seem to think when the support runs out, the viruses and hackers have a free access to any XP box?
Do they think, that XP updates have been the only line of defense?
I'm confused!
I have VMs of windows XP which I use to access legacy hardware and software.
Best of both worlds.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I used to love Outlook Express for usenet (NNTP). I preferred to every other newsreader I have tried. Thunderbird even today is terrible for NNTP. The only problem with OE was that it didn't do quoting correctly. But there was a free 3rd party fix available for that. The Outlook Express Live (or whatever else it's called) which is available with Windows Live Essentials is just not as good as Outlook Express.
BTW, I used XP till March 2011 before moving to Windows 7.
Appease the masses and release Windows 2014-XP, a light weight, backwards compatible operating system with a fucking start menu. Not because start menus are important, but because it's part of your brand. Vanilla ice cream is boring, but if you take away the vanilla, you have frozen milk flavor, which is worse.
The reason it isn't easy is because a lot of old drivers and software do not work on it. Otherwise you could have just reinstalled everything on it again. Or Microsoft could have made a migration tool.
Certainly I utilize this now to skim Slashdot in seconds....
You may want to slow down enough to at least make sure you are commenting on the right article :)
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
How does he know for sure that he hasn't gotten malware? It's like saying your spouse has never cheated on you because you never verify anything said to you.
I'm still on XP and probably will be for some time. The fact is there is no reason to change. It works and it's stable. Plus, all my software works with it, not to mention that replacing the OS is a major pain in the ass. And finally, here's a clue for Micro$oft: ** A DESKTOP WORKSTATION IS NOT A GODDAMN SMARTPHONE! QUIT TRYING TO TURN IT INTO ONE! **"
When all else fails, run.
There are people who refuse changes. Some people still drives a 15 years old clunker even though it costs them more to keep the piece of crap than getting a new car. Some people still use a 15 years old laptop even though the battery does not last more than 2.5 seconds and the keyboard keys are all worn out. Who cares.
I'm not going to upgrade to something that takes 25+ GB of disk space just to exist. (Not sure where I got that number from, but it's been in my head since Vista. MS says 16 GB for 32-bit, 20 GB for 64-bit, but that doesn't make me more friendly towards upgrading).
XP fits nicely in less than 2 GB. I use XP in a Virtualbox once in a blue moon, when the stuff I need to run won't run in wine and there's no Linux alternative to it and there's no Mac alternative to it either - usually 3rd party setup software.
There are systems and processes that we run on a 24x7 basis on equipment that was built when NT was current, for which XP has been the final upgrade. The company is unlikely to replace a 25 million dollar machine so that its controllers can be front-ended with Windows 7 or anything of the kind, given that it still does half a million dollars worth of work for us a day. Some of the specialized software to drive the components and controllers is still 16 bit, and nothing beyond XP supports it. I've heard all the well meaning advice, and the folks that betray their lack of experience and understanding by declaring that we should have made these changes ages ago - the costs of designing new controllers for systems that were designed and built in the late 80's is prohibitive and the expertise and understanding of the processes necessary to replicate is for the most part lost to the ravages of time. Maintaining the most stable alternative is the only choice many companies have. I don't see the exceptions as to running desktop configurations like the one described as essential- there are current alternatives and it is only personal preference that keep people using systems like that; the desktop environment has progressed and there is little reason to stay behind. The control and process environment however, will probably keep XP running well into the 30's just because there are no solid, universally supported alternatives to running 16 bit systems for essential processes.
The internet is responsible for this biological change.
The whole XP debate actually exposes a deeper Microsoft problem; which is that if Windows XP were to have been kept up to date and it was easier to transfer the old data and OS to a newer machine that most people wouldn't have updated. In reality all the versions since XP offer as their primary feature software that no longer works with XP.
But at the same time if Microsoft hadn't tried to gouge people for every upgrade and simply autoupgraded the entire OS as part of the regular update process then the whole XP debate would not exist. There would be like 20,000 people still running XP.
That is not the pain of XP EoL, it is the self inflicted torture by those who refuse to use free and open source software.
Refuse? Find me accounting software that is open source and functionally equivalent to even something as basic as Quickbooks or some 3D CAD software equivalent to Solidworks or photo editing equivalent to Photoshop. (I'll save you some time, they don't exist and GIMP is not a replacement for Photoshop) Open source is great and all but it doesn't solve every problem and there are some very important bits of software that quite simply do not have open source options available. Are you planning to write them?
Believe me, if I'm an accountant and if there was an open source version of something like Quickbooks out there that worked well, I'd be all over that like stink on a skunk. Unfortunately no such thing exists. Exactly how do you propose a business do their accounting without using proprietary software? Enlighten us.
Throw in an esx i7 server with 32gig ram, and you can dozens of linuxs with dozens of XPs, and a few Win8s, all together in one, one XP per person.
Gee, its so flipping easy!
Setup a virtual network, with a linux firewall protecting the XP boxes in a subnet.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I don't recommend this for the technically challenged but I plan on sticking with XP for as long as possible. Unless of course MS removes the babysitting, the pretty shiny things and the massive bloat whenever they release NT7 or a scaled down NT6..
Pointing out the age of XP merely emphasizes the lack of significant improvement since. When this happens to a technology, it is called maturity.
XP was the first Microsoft PC OS to be what all its predecessors aspired to be.
What about all the 3rd-party device drivers that simply don't exist?
No sig today...
I guess I'm not the only one who decided to give "Housecall" a whirl
Just another second banana
...That he knows of.
> Thing is, I stopped the security updates in XP years ago after a bad update trashed my system, and yet I have never been infected, although online for hours each day
Thing is he might not know he's infected. Apart from adware, it seems like a good goal for spyware and virus writers to remain unfound.
There is one for 8.
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
I'm sorry, you had some sort of excuse?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Maybe the VPN or firewall, but once you set it up, you're done. As far as day to day maintenance goes, it doesn't sound like any effort at all.
I also have not updated XP in years due to an update that trashed my system. I also use Outlook Express, which fits my needs, and last time I checked there was not a drop-in replacement for 7.
For the last 10 years, simply being behind an ADSL router completely defeats all incoming attacks, and my private proprietary bioware prevents random programs from being run. (I do download torrents, and cracks, but I'm not stupid, so I don't get infected.)
I also have my email set to text only, and don't open spam anyway, and flash and java are disabled in my browser. (Chrome, btw, because Firefox is a bloated piece of shit that immediately uses 500mb of ram to open a single page)
I *don't* run a resident virus scanner, and the only time I turn my firewall on is if I want to use a program that I know will try to phone home.
I'm not aware of any avenues of attack to which I am vulnerable, (I have been infected twice in the last 10 years, both through firefox, both of which I removed manually.)
and I'm not aware of ANY reason I *need* to upgrade from XP. (I stayed on 98SE until I felt I needed to upgrade, and that was mostly due to new hardware.)
I have windows 7 on my netbook, because it came with it, but I prefer XP, primarily because it is faster than Windows 7.
Incidentally, while I'm an "advanced" user, I dislike linux due to the short lifetime. I would prefer a stable system with periodic patches + extensions.
I've never quite understood the logic behind it being "trendy" to constantly upgrade, Apple certainly uses that trend as their basic business model, and it's worked well for them, but I don't upgrade unless I *need* to. The only people who use the latest gadgets are trend-whores.
So, to any corporate wankers reading this: You need to make people *need* to upgrade if you want to force obsolescence, like Apple do with arbitrarily making their programs require an OS upgrade, which in turn needs an arbitrary hardware upgrade because $$$. If apple get into home appliances, the first thing they would do is start making bread wider or longer so you need a new toaster. (As opposed to real life, where they just manufactured a trend for waffles once everyone owned a toaster)
Windows XP works great, because it is *not* obsolete - also Microsoft are certainly trying with that DirectX bullshit. My response to "This game requires Direct X15 is "well, then that's a game that doesn't get my money", and the trend of always needing to play the latest games is certainly helping Microsoft milk gamers.
All three of my installations of Windows are completely legit, and I intend to keep it that way. However, I don’t use Windows enough that I feel any urge to upgrade. Two are in VMs, and one is on a super-old laptop that I let my kids use. The two in VMs may be upgradable, the laptop probably not. But why do I want to spend the money to upgrade something I don’t use much? Actually, one of those XPs may get upgraded, but only because I’m getting a company I consult for to pay for it.
If you take inflation into account, it's cheaper the XP was.
You don't want to spend the money, that's fine. By no measure is it 'horrific'
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
is obvious.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Microsoft had a cheap upgrade path for the first few months after the release of Windows 8. I paid the same amount he did for my copy but I use it.
The idea that a hammer has a life cycle is ludicrous. The only time you replace a hammer is if it breaks... or if you need a bigger hammer.
Tech is used until it stops working, until you need a bigger one, or until it's not "trendy".
My XP laptop from 2006 is still working (although it has a few replacement parts), I do not need a bigger one (although it has a few upgrades), and fuck trends. (One reason I would upgrade to 7 and not 8 is purely because of their attempts to make Windows 8 "trendy".)
Seriously, there's many people at MSFN.org forum running Windows 9x, Win2K that have been out of support for ages and I've yet to see someone post about a security issue.
Why did Microsoft hold the price of XP up high for so long if their later OSs were so great and wonderful that no one in their right mind would want to use old obsolete XP?
I have 2 XP gaming machines running fairly hot hardware (as of 6 years ago) which still run most of the newer games just fine (and all the applications I actually need as well). I even still run classic mode Windows (I did that with a dozen machines I used at work - why have to doublethink everything you do on different machines?) Why need I change? Eventually I might buy some new machine to run something that needs more than 4GB, but no need yet.
Seen Win 8 ? Sorry I need a OS I can get actual work done with, not a dumbed down interface.
Like the poster above I turned updates off years ago and havent had any problems with virus's.
Win 7 came out on October 22, 2009.
FTFY.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The problem with this is that often there are no obvious signs of infection. While it's possible that he has successfully avoided infection, he may very well be part of a bot-net and just not know it.
I had a coworker once who said the following:
"Anti-malware applications make the system sluggish, why bother when simply being careful and diligent will keep you equally safe?" I laughed and said "ok... good luck with that".
This person is an expert in the field of computer security. He was confident that he would be able to identify any problems before they occurred. He was very careful about not downloading things from unknown sources, he even applied all the patches Microsoft released. yet **still** no more than a month after he made this statement (I'm not kidding, just a month). We noticed some weird email traffic on our network and traced it back to his PC.
My point is, everyone gets hit with malware eventually, and often we don't even know it right away. I would have no problem with Pickens running un-patched Windows XP if it didn't effect other people... but it DOES. If he hasn't got infected yet, he will eventually. And he probably won't know it right away. At that point his 10 PCs will make someones bot-net that much more annoying for the rest of us to deal with.
Thanks Pickens
Software doesn't rust - and there's no intrinsic difference between WinXP's UI and Win7's.
And frankly I'd rather pay for continuous updates than pay more for OS versions just because the company wants to feed off my wallet.
Merchants have to serve their customers, not the other way around.
Until we can get an Iron Man's JARVIS and holography, I don't see a need to switch GUI's.
Is the fact that the users run in limited accounts by default.
If you setup a limited user in XP and use the "runas" context menu, or command line utility to escalate privileges you get the vast majority of the "security" improvement in vista and newer.
That is because now an application not only has to exploit your browser/whatever to gain control of the machine, it has to exploit the kernel to get outside of the limited user sandbox. Further using something like sandboxie further lessens the likelihood of that.
Once you have a few levels of protection like this (javascript blocks, flash blocks, browser sandbox, limited user, etc) then it becomes pretty unlikely that any given piece of malware actually gets through all the layers.
(posted from an XP machine!)
c:\attrib +r +a +s +h *.* /s
Enabling "rash mode" makes dos 3.3 much faster. (I hope you keep a boot disk.)
"What's so great about an operating system that was invented before the age of Dropbox and Facebook, an OS that's almost as old as the original Google search engine?"
It does everything newer operating systems do, with a smaller footprint, and without so much goddamned annoying DRM.
Only exception? No support for anything higher than DX9. Which isn't important for anything but gamers.
Of course, the same could be said about Windows 2000.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
people who have 'fondness' of XP don't actually remember what it was like when it came out. The change from the 95/98 back end to the NT one threw off drivers, applications, and set things back for a while. Most of us clung to 2000 while they hammered it out. Hell, i had ME on a computer and refused to update because of the issues.
Did they work them out? you would expect over 7 years that these things would be fixed. but it didn't start with unicorns and rainbows.
"Meet the Diehards Who Refuse To Move On From Windows"
Can't help but think that all this "resource" wasting is just a wasted opportunity.
Microsoft should capitalize on the old electronics and offer a "cash for clunkers" windows XP PC trade in program.
Let Microsoft take the lead in e-waste management or re-use! Let grandma do the "right" thing and upgrade in a manner that she can.
Or anyone?? Clearly there is a "??Profit" angle here somewhere....
Seriously? Mozilla Thunderbird is probably the easiest bloody email client on the planet to move to. Anyone still using Outlook Express is simply the height of stupidity. Enjoy your automatic virus infections that run simply by previewing an email, chum.
Bob Appel recommends Windows!
I don't understand the nostalgia concerning Windows XP. It was always a mediocre version of Windows in comparison to NT and 2K. It's main claim to fame was that it was a major leap from 3.11 and wasn't as bad as Windows ME.
Win 7 is a huge improvement, once you disable the user access control (UAC). I agree that Win 8 is a mess with the touch UI. Once you get past it with Start8 or some other utility, it too is a huge improvement over XP. I also understand the frustration with settings, etc., being move around in the menus, but you get used to it after while.
The only thing that I re-enable in newer versions of Windows, that was enabled by default in XP, is the quick launch tool bar. Personally, I have been very happy to leave XP in the dust.
These examples aren't really very illustrative of the still remaining XP users. I believe that most will be completely oblivious to "end of support" or whatnot (mostly the parents and grandparents population) that know what "Windows" is ("it's the computer!"), and think that "Internet Explorer" is the Internet. A lot of then will be part of a small business where the IT literacy is low, and nobody really cares about the computers, as long as they work.
Something that worries me in all this is the quote "I am worried about security threats, but I'd rather have my identity stolen than put up with Windows 8.". Well, if you don't mind having your identity stolen, then you are not worried about security threats at all. Replace "have my identity stolen" with "became a part of a botnet" and the users starts to look a bit fundamentalist. A good analogy would be someone saying "I am pro-life but I'm fine with kill doctors that perform abortions". Dude, if you are pro-life / security concerned, you *mind* about killing another human being / having your identity stolen.
"A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"
And frankly no, I'm not fired up to change them.
I'm uninterested in buying another license or 3 for antiquated hardware running a Minecraft server or a fileserver.
Plus, if I wanted to run win7, I'd have to (at least) double their RAM, and still expect pokey performance.
I really don't understand why the whole blogosphere is getting on the "let's all make sure we pay microsoft again for the new version of something that works perfectly well" bandwagon.
I like Win7 a lot, on my new machines.
That doesn't mean, ipso facto, that I want to upgrade all the old crap that I use and serves their functions perfectly well.
-Styopa
Nope:
From the associated doc in your link:
"To upgrade to Windows 8.1 from Windows Vista or Windows XP, you'll need to install it from a Windows 8.1 DVD and perform a clean installation. This means you won't be able to keep any files, settings, or programs when you upgrade."
That's definitely not an "in-place" upgrade, which is what the OP wants, I'm guessing. (I know it's what I want.)
While sitting in the terminal last week waiting for a flight out of Las Vegas, I noticed at one of the Slot Machine pits a desktop system that's used by the Slot Technicians and Game Attendants. It's was running XP. This was on Thursday of last week and there dancing on an old Dell Flat Screen was the XP Logon Screen Saver. Since the Games in the pit were Wheel of Fortune and others from IGT and Bally's I'm curious as to what the implications are for these kinds of discrete non-embedded systems? Considering how regulated gaming is across the US, I was surprised to see this really. I would have thought the Nevada Gaming Control Board would have come up with some edict or recommendations on getting away from XP since any person touching or interacting with games or game support systems must be cleared by the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
There IS an upgrade tool from xp to win 7 -- it's name is "vista".
Perhaps you don't like the price that Microsoft charges for that upgrade tool (more likely you don't like that they charge anything for the tool), but Microsoft did release an upgrade tool and it does work.
My computer had enough download-only SW for which the vendor (Intuit) has turned off the download server that I saw value in Microsoft's xp to win 7 upgrade tool. For all the crap we gave Vista over the years, it performed excellently in its role as an upgrade tool. The downside is that it restricted me to running 32-bit Win 7, but when you're upgrading only to continue receiving security fixes that's not really a problem.
EDIT: just a note, sure, they'll have end-of-support life issues, but if they ever reach a point where that's a serious problem, they're all going to move to linux anyway.
-Styopa
OS X only gets mildly more annoying once a year, as opposed to Windows, which is a monumental fuckup every few years.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Let's be honest here. The biggest problem with the Windows XP installed on your computer is that Microsoft is not receiving any more revenue from you. If you buy an 'upgrade' Windows 8, they receive a new licensing fee. That's the problem that Windows 8 fixes.
I think most budget computers that come with Windows 8 are $400. decent price if you are middle income family.
I often see people say things like this... they don't visit "risky" web sites or open unknown attachments.
I guess there is some value in this but there really is no way to protect yourself since you don't know what is infected and where. Today the NYTimes had an article about security which told about a company which was infected by a hacker who planted malware on the server of a Chinese restaurant which was popular for lunch takeout.... How do you protect against that?
Windows 7 and 8 may be better than XP but there are still thousands of ways malware can get into the machines.
I just think that anyone who is really concerned about security wouldn't use Windows. I know that OSX and Linux are also theoretically vulnerable but the real world numbers for infections are much lower (several orders of magnitude) than Windows.
Clearly the people still using XP have accepted the risks or are stuck with it for some reason (some old proprietary software which they just can't get rid of).
"Safe computing" is impossible.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
> But why? What's so great about an operating system that was invented before the age of Dropbox and Facebook, an OS that's almost as old as the original Google search engine?
Because it works. Because we're up on the flat end of the curve as far as operating systems go, and as users we're not desperate for the next version in the (vain) hope that it'll stay out of our way and let us get our work done. Microsoft's first big mistake with XP is that as a program loader and resource manager, it was good enough, meaning there really was no motivation to switch.
It seems like with Win8 Microsoft is trying to harken back to those days of yesteryear where users were desperate for the next release hoping against hope that the serious bugs in the previous version are finally fixed. (And the crushing disappointment when you realize they're not -- it's a fake start button, instead of layered windows you get two apps side by side, etc etc.) Their prime business model has two main factors -- (a) users MUST use Windows (for whatever reason), and (b) the current version sucks but maybe the next version will be a little better. They lost that paradigm with XP and are now trying to regain it. Hardware that only boots Windows, deliberately screwy design decisions, tiny incremental improvements. But will it work this time? Non-Microsoft choices have never been more attractive.
Microsoft's second big mistake is to base a business on the idea that people would crowd into stores for the next incremental set of OS improvements that the company deigns to crap out. OS upgrades are no longer a thing. Apps are. And that's the way it should be.
> 'XP was designed for a different era.'
If you wish. But if you stipulate that, so were PCs. They keyboard/video/mouse interface is still the input method of the majority of PCs (not phones or tablets but real PCs) in use today, and you screw with that at your peril.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Why did you stop at Windows 7 Ultimate, why didn't you compare it to the price of Windows 7 Datacenter, or a customized version of Windows 7 for Supercomputing clusters? Your copy of Windows XP doesn't have any of the added features in Ultimate, so why choose that?
Here, you go, saved you about half: http://www.dabs.com/products/m...
Of course, you could have upgraded when it first came out and saved yourself a ton of money, but you procrastinated. Maybe you should wait for Windows 9 and see if they have a deal when it launches.
IIRC, there was a special $40 upgrade from Win7 when Win8 first came out. $35, $40, something like that. I upgraded one of my laptops since it was so cheap.
It just seems that with faster hardware come OS upgrades that essentially use up all the speed gains from the hardware. I have particularly noticed this will OSX. On my older iMac with a Core 2 duo processor it strains to keep up with the OS if I'm running the newest OS. Yet it ran really nicely on Snow Leopard. So now I'm stuck with an older machine with a newer OS that doesn't run well with no easy way to go back to Snow Leopard.
To my surprise, I found that Windows 8 actually runs better on my iMac than Mountain Lion does. I paid a lot of money for that iMac and I'm not about to chip it out just because Apple seems to think I need all these new wiz-bang features (spoiler alert - I don't). So it has become a perfectly good work-from-home PC.
The other thing that bugs me about these OS upgrades is how they just casually drop support for hardware and software. All of a sudden your older printer doesn't work or some old program that you have been using no longer works (or you have to pay for an upgrade). This happened to me with VMWare Fusion. I had to pay for an upgrade to have it continue to work on the newer version of the OS. Thanks Apple. The irony, of course, is that I'm now back to using Windows basically full time for work related stuff anyway so I rarely use VMWare anymore. Lesson learned.
Unless you've got specific Windows based programs I would advise people to start switching to Linux. For most everyday stuff (email, web surfing, Skype, Dropbox, etc.) Linux is perfectly good for that. And it's faster. And it runs really well on older hardware. And you're not likely to even need any Anti-Virus software as long as you're sensible about how you use the Internet. And it's free.
That was the communication today. Any XP nodes identified on the corp network will have their network ports shut down and desktop support will be by to remove the host.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Given all of the hoops that the users in the article describe what they have to do to stay on XP, that sounds like a whole lot of work. If you want real security on any computer, don't run as the Administrator.
'I use a third-party firewall, a free virus checker, and run Housecall periodically,' says Appel. 'My Firefox browser uses Keyscrambler, HTTPS Anywhere, Ghostery, and Disconnect. I also have a VPN account (PIA) when traveling. For suspicious email attachments, I deploy private proprietary bioware (me!) to analyze before opening. All the "experts" say I am crazy.
And this is less work than installing and learning a modern Linux distribution?
I understand people not wanting another learning curve, but this guy might be better served by spending his copious amounts of free time learning something current.
As a Windows 95 security administrator, who needs an upgrade?
My parents are having me upgrade their desktop to Windows 7 right now, and I haven't talked to anyone who has used 7 that would rather go back to XP. 7 seems to be the most popular version of Windows ever, judging by users' opinions of it, and MS will feature extended support for it until 2020.
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
Or starting with a fresh new PC can be a really refreshing experience.
...pretty clearly has his life all figured out. Dude's got 12 machines!
Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
My ancestors used an outhouse from what I understand. It worked fine. Why should they upgrade? If they still used it today they would be the equivalent of people who use XP in 2014.
Bad analogy. Windows 8 is the equivalent of the basement of an outhouse. At least XP is on the first floor.
...so you're an asshole.
"XP PC to run his online business"
What an astounding advertisement for no one to ever use your services ever.
Seriously Outlook Express? You have a problem transitioning to "webmail", but you are OK using 900 3rd party solutions to patchwork your system into a somewhat secure environment. Not to mention if you ever spring a leak, the whole thing will be compromised within about 1ms.
When I went from Vista to 8.0 I did it just with the tool and most everything was kept.
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
Perhaps ReactOS could be an alternative?
Couldn't agree more, with your comment, and with the submitter's point.
Interesting that my non-patched XP system is and always has been clean, whereas the Win 7 systems I support...that receive all patches and have current & working A/V...get infected regularly.
PIBKAC.
I come here for the love
'I use a third-party firewall, a free virus checker, and run Housecall periodically,' says Appel. 'My Firefox browser uses Keyscrambler, HTTPS Anywhere, Ghostery, and Disconnect. I also have a VPN account (PIA) when traveling. For suspicious email attachments, I deploy private proprietary bioware (me!) to analyze before opening. All the "experts" say I am crazy. Thing is, I stopped the security updates in XP years ago after a bad update trashed my system, and yet I have never been infected, although online for hours each day..." gawd, comparing THAT to my BORING crunchbang usage on the daily; one would have to be a hacker (slash) uber paranoid to run such a set as a daily driver.. & people tell me gnu/linux is hard to use.... man up fukin grade! or switch up from MS.. it'll do wonders for the high blood pressure, head aches, kneck aches, etc..
A clean install of the OS is usually needed anyway. I haven't trusted upgrade installs for quite a long time. There are usually problems that can be hard to fix afterwards, plus all the cruft from an old Windows install that can slow the machine down.
Fvck win8,7,vista. NEVER "up"grading.
I don't plan on upgrading the XP machines until necessary. They run third-party anti-virus and firewalls, and weren't configured to download updates anyway. They are backed up daily and do their job very well. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
.
Why are people getting so worked up over the fact that lots of people are deciding not stick with XP? Everyone has heard about the issue by now, and in the end it's their choice to make. It affects nobody else. So why do people care at all?
"Moving on", in the words of Tom Murphy, means throwing out a computer, loaded with the software you use, that does exactly what you want it to.
A system originally built with XP was bought more than 7 years ago, and due to OS bloat, er, "enhancements", the currently available OS offerings from M$ will not run on it. Your only option is to toss the computer, and buy a brand new one. And right now for your average user that means having to "upgrade" to Windows 8, which a confirmed XP user is probably not that keen on (yeah, I know they put the "start" button back, but that ain't fixing a broken GUI).
I have a perfectly good XP desktop that, since it will no longer get security patches, I am going to have to abandon. Since I hate Windows 8, that means a custom build on which I can install Windows 7. I had hoped to wait for Windows 9, but the end-of-life on XP now forces my hand.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
Thinking that holding on to XP is saving you money is a misnomer. If a business can not budget gradual technology refresh in a reasonable time frame then they run their business in a high risk fashion or they are hanging on to software that they bootlegged over time. Switching out means having to now buy what was one stolen.
My thinkpad I picked up for over 2K back in 1996 has about 16 megs of ram and boots into DOS, but will run Windows 3.1. Both Word and WordPerfect runs okay on it, and I have a floppy disc that runs off USB to move files around. A friend installed a bunch of text based e-novels on it. I may consider installing early versions of Slackware on it though. The battery is shot, but the thing still works. This was pretty much my computer until 2006. Then I got internet at home...
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
He complains that one bad MX patch trashed his system. wait til he sees what the hacking community has in store for his private proprietary bioware’s crappy system. Just admit you’re too cheap to move to the next Windows and too dumb to pick up Linux.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
people are not throwing away there desktops anymore why do you think sales are down. its a mix of a shitty economy mixed with the fact other then hi end games the old hardware still does the job does it still play you tube netflicks hulu etc yeo. does it still get email and social site and chat yep. fact is a goo single core box still does the job so why have the expense of replacing it when many simply cant afford it. now on the other side of thing's Microsoft has caved twice now on extending support but lets face it all things do come to a end there now 3 operating systems ahead supporting a 13 year old os. no Microsoft os has had that long of a run.
Ubuntu is completely free to download, use and share. ref
XP was never a good OS to begin with. After 2-6 month's of use performances degrades pretty damn quickly and everything just chugs along. Windows 7 has better performance but the aero causes eye strain and classic just sucks. Windows 8.1 has even better performance but to me it causes a little bit of nausea from looking at the plain color scheme of the desktop and metro. OSX is actually very easy on the eyes even with the eye candy. Ubuntu, all versions was always easy on the eyes but the unity performance struggled with an amd six core@800mhz(cpu power management) but improved at 2700mhz.
There is one. Pcmover by laplink (not the free version) says that it can migrate apps as well as data.
If you only want to migrate the data and profiles, use USMT (free), it's a command line tool but works fine.
If you are migrating to 7 instead of 8.1, use windows easy transfer, it's a GUI to usmt that comes with it built in, download for XP and then format and double click on the .mig file to get the data back.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
If you aren't doing those things, you're a moron.
That's why we still have two computers on XP at home. They just keep working. The throw-away mentality is poisoning our environment.
but since there is no upgrade tool
There is already an "upgrade tool" from XP->7. Unfortunately, it's called Vista.
When we migrated our ~150 workstations at work from XP to 7, we first upgraded to Vista then immediately to 7. Obviously, this added much time to each upgrade but it was definitely less than having to take care of all our custom installs and settings.
A while back I noticed a port open on my work computer. Sure enough it was an infection. Symantec didn't catch it.
The best solution is both silicon and wetware. Those guys saying "I just run the latest os & patches and don't worry about it" are not doing due diligence.
Every response I have read is from someone who knows what to do about the XPcalypse, and what to do about it. So do I. I switched to Mac when it ran 0S 7.5.3 and haven't looked back. Mac-based and side-armed with Lenny, I repurpose and provide Windows computers to a variety of people with disabilities. I don't give away many printers because the clients of this non-profit can not afford ink. I rely on donations for my stock of computers, on free software like Open Office, and free anti-malware. 90+ % of the donated PCs have XP systems. I nuke/reload the OS and tailor each PC to the client's needs. These computers enable the clients to be more independent and some use the systems in their work. Upgrading or a new PC are simply not options (until we start getting Windows 7 or 8 donations) and the clients often get into various operator-error or "virus" issues. Two or three times a month I get a call from a client with a "sick" PC.
For clients with cognitive issues, changes in where things are located, or how they look onscreen are huge impediments to successful computer use. I could go on But a blind lady just called. IE won't open a web page, she's on XP, and been hearing reports about MS on the radio. She thinks maybe MS disconnected her, even though her email still works. (yes, I have offered her Firefox)
Slashdot is an interesting 'hood to hang in, have not posted before, been too lazy to make up a cool ninja-name and get an account. Just wanted to share how some of the rest of us live. We return you now to our regular diet of technical knowledge.
I am still running XP without any problems at all. In the past, I disabled and enabled functions on my XP machine, because it worked better for me, but Microsoft updates, reversed many of those settings, even though they were not even listed in the patch. For that reason, I have not done any updates since SP3 and I have full control over my system, MY data, MY intelectual property, and MY personal information. I have not had a single infection in years, and at least once a year, I try a bunch of the latest anti-virus software, just to check it.
Windows 7 and on, take so much control away from us users and put it back in the hands of Microsoft, and I'm sorry, but that is not acceptable. I'm not switching to a cloud version of MS Office, and I will not let the OS call home for ANY reason, including registration and/or activation.
My primary systems are Linux, and they will probably stay that way for many years to come. When I can heavily customize Windows 7 to be completely under my control, without any acytivation or registration, then I will install that, but not until.
Hey, lets just include my 83 y/o mother. Because she doesn't want to learn anything else.. and lord knows I don't want to try and teach her!
Too messy to do OS upgrades. It's better to do clean installs and then go from there even if it is tedious. However, drivers are a problem.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Die Hard with a Vengence, XP
If you are unhappy with what the company is doing to you, switch brands. What? You. Can't? WTF! When I'm unhappy with Ford, I go to Chev, or VW or someone else. Unhappy users of microslush tired of being hearded toward the cash register 1. Complain like bloody murder when they are fleeced or left with a poor running system or get cut off and have to pay and pay, yet: 2. They refuse to leave the vendor causing them such grief. Like crack addicts "Oh noes, I can't leave, its everything I noes." 3. Seeing no change in revenue, and no reason to change, the company goes back to doing things that cause customers to go back to 1.
The reason it isn't easy is because a lot of old drivers and software do not work on it. Otherwise you could have just reinstalled everything on it again. Or Microsoft could have made a migration tool.
This is a really shitty reason, to be honest. Apple puts a lie to Microsoft's rigidity and inflexibility by showing how (nearly a decade ago) it's possible (using Migration Assistant) to move from a PPC system to Intel - clearly drivers won't work there, but it all happens, and works well (yes it's a migration, but the tooling works and is well supported). If it's a newer version of OSX (i.e., younger than 6 years old), then you can upgrade in place.
I never understood why Microsoft didn't work harder to make this possible - maybe because they don't actually do much of the driver work - that's done by the manufacturer or part
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Thunderbird + Lightning extension. You won't miss Outlook Express - it even looks almost the same and has the same (IMO) user interface glitches. Which Real MS Outlook (even on web) also does. I liked Notes better, and Groupwise was even easier to use than that. But Thunderbird+Lightning just works. Oh yes - and get OpenPGP too...
I have an abacus which has a well-tested touch interface, and doesn't generate so much heat or waste so much energy. And part of the energy comes from milk from the goat in the backyard.
I never thought I'd see the day that anyone would claim Windows Vista was the pinnacle of OS innovation...
Looks to me like the claim was that XP was the pinacle of OS innovation AT MICROSOFT.
After that they jumped the shark with creeping featureitis and failure to support (or provide an adequte, clean, easy upgrade path for) important functionality.
Nothing was said about OS innovation OUTSIDE of Microsoft.
There's also the issue of whether OS innovation was even a Good Thing (TM) for the users of the functionality of the time. (It can still be enabling and yet be a net loss if its costs outweigh its benefits.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Stop being a bitch and tell them to spend the $$$ at Worst Buy or take the USB/CD-ROM you'll give them with a live Linux distro.
However the only reason to upgrade from XP is to get support for more ram or get trim support for a SDD. Basically the only reason to ever upgrade your OS is to enable new hardware. The applications that run on the OS is what should be kept current. If you think obsoleting windows xp was hard...I can't imagine what it will take to obsolete windows 7.
Well, there is absolutely no evidence that I have been infected.
There are no strange processes running, there are no programs trying to phone home, there is nothing in any of the startup locations, there are no strange crashes, there is no suspicious lag.
Maybe something did infect me and it's doing absolutely nothing.
How you can be "part of a botnet" if no traffic is getting through?
My computer does not make any unknown connections.
Or, they could have backed up the important files, bookmarks, and e-mails and then created a list of software that was previously installed and needs to be re-installed or upgraded.
Cloud computing makes that much easier, since I don't need to worry about e-mail, calendars, and a bunch of other stuff. It will just repopulate on the new OS.
Upgrading to a new computer with Windows 7 may be the best idea overall, but it doesn't mean it's the best solution for everyone.
...and even if all anyone gets out of it is another year of use, they'll be able to get a better computer for their money a year from now than they can get right now. Who knows, maybe a year from now Microsoft will have given us our start menu back in Windows 8 and so they can get Windows 8 instead of Windows 7. If nothing else, waiting a year to buy a computer means that the computer you buy will likely still be working a year after one you might buy today ceases to be useful. The simple fact is that not upgrading makes more sense than upgrading because it doesn't make sense to upgrade until you have to.
My mother has an old computer with XP on it. We were at the store one day and she asked if she should look at getting a new computer since XP support was ending. She really doesn't have the money for a new computer. I told her we'd just keep it as it is, and if in the future it becomes unusable, we'll just install Linux on it and see what she thinks of that. I suspect she'd be just fine with it. She does have a few games she's bought that require Windows, but given the choice between paying $400 to keep playing those games, or paying nothing and being limited to games on the internet, I suspect she'd rather keep her $400 and just play the games that are available on Facebook.
Indeed, waiting to see what happens before you spend your money is usually a wise thing to do. For example, a friend once told me of his plans to replace the tires on his car. I told him he shouldn't replace them, but instead wait until one of them goes flat, because "planning ahead" tends to often just waste money. He and another friend of mine insisted I was insane and that the tread on the tires was to the point that the tires needed to be replaced. So he replaced them, and a month later the car broke down and he never drove it again. Even if that hadn't happened, by replacing the old tires, he was throwing away a portion of their value. If they were 90% of the way to the point of being unusable, he was throwing away 10% of their value just because they were almost to the point of needing replaced and he wanted to think ahead and replace them now.
The same could easily be true with the end-of-life of Windows XP. Maybe it's doomed to be infested with malware within a year, but it might also be perfectly usable a year from now.
I did try Win7 when it launched. Disk check ate every byte of my 4GB RAM and windows reported the error... Boot times doubled. The UI is counterintuitive. The up one directory button in widows explorer (which I use) has been removed. Many windows utilities are renamed/relocated. Post XP versions of Windows are a productivity kill for legacy users. There is nothing here of value excepting new DX versions and TRIM commands either of which are of dubious value.
My Nlited version of XP has an install footprint of less than one gigabyte and cold boots in about 22 seconds from an atom based laptop. With enhanced write filter protecting my OS and program files partition the only thing exposed is my profile directory where I do NOT store any important data. I ripped the update service and BITS out of my install along with every other bit of non-critical M$ malware in 2005. I use ghost on a bootable DOS USB flash drive to re-image periodically. These measures collectively obviate the need to run any sort of AV as long as there's no PIBCAK.
I have a similarly configured version of XP X64 on an old NF4UTD for applications that require more RAM or native 64bit executables.
Why would I downgrade to a slower bloated version of Windoze? My new desktop runs Linux Mint. As long as I'm relearning a new UI I may as well make it FOSS. Legacy apps will run on my legacy OS.
Why would I reward M$ with more of my cash when they've denied me access to TRIM and DX10 on my legacy OS even when it was still supported?
The worm has turned an Microsoft has nothing of value except their patent portfolio which benefits the end user not at all.
Dropbox? dafuq? I have a remote fileserver. My family and friends can exchange whatever we need.
Facebook? Ya, that's the new MySpace right? MySpace was the new AOL... Eternal September indeed.
I might surprise you, but such kind of legacy hardware is so common, that there are hardware manufacturer specialising into making motherboards for such niche case.
You can even find motherboard that can use modern processors (Intel Core 2 and/or more recent) but still have ISA slots.
You can even manage to install MS-DOS or old Win9x on them.
So you can be sure that, 10 year from now, you'll still be able to buy brand-new hardware able to run WinXP so you can still use your legacy hardware. It will be expensive, and will come from some specialist brands, but it will still be possible.
(As an anecdote, we had to install Win98 on a ISA-slot-sporting modern motherboard because of a lab measuring equipment - a calorimeter - that relied on a pair of ISA DAC cards with MS-DOS TSR-drivers. The original computer got fried, but given the extreme price of the equipement, it was cheaper to build such a new custom computer than buying newer equipment)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Outlook....Express....
The guys runs a business - an online business - and is dependent on ... Outlook..... Express?
Am I missing the irony here or what?
Seriously, is this a late April fool submission?
I am the IT guy in our family, and currently have 8 family members on a waiting list, who wants to upgrade to windows 7 or 8, but since there is no upgrade tool, I have to make full reinstalls and find all the software that was installed over the years etc.. which means that each machine takes days to upgrade..
If MS truly want us to move to a new OS, they should have made it easy, it it was just an hour or twos work, there would be 8 xp boxes less in the world already ;-)
you can upgrade your files (use easy transfer wizard on your XP install before you install 8, and then let 8's ETW read the backup you made and it will transfer files/settings, docs, etc.. the only thing u have to do is install your programs over. Upgrading from xp to vista/7/8 always required a fresh install....
...sent an E-mail that there is no urgency to move away from XP in the four coming years.
"XP is an OS that has been used for many years, and one where most errors have been removed during its lifetime."
So this guy actually seems to have a list with the errors in XP.
Driver support.
x64 had shit for driver support. It was like putting together a Linux system in the bad old days. You had to have specific hardware, especially where printers, scanners, etc. were concerned - because the majority of manufacturers didn't even bother with x64.
I've been a Windows user since 1991 and I greeted every advance with praise, b/c everything is better than the current version of Windows.
Windows XP wasn't all bad for 2000, but it wasn't particularly good either. Vista was a great advancement over XP, and Windows 7, and now Windows 8/8.1 are even greater advances. I don't understand why people still want to use XP, they certainly wouldn't want Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 either.
For that matter, I don't understand why people still want to use Windows at all, since we have such powerful Linux distributions nowadays that Windows pales very much in comparison.
Linux is in my future because I am tired of upgrading hardware just so I can run bloatware. But then, I don't use my computer for entertainment, I use it for work (which means I am VPN to a real linux cluster and only use local machine for email and browser, except for those nasty printer drivers and scanner drivers and music and CD burning and (hmmmmm, never mind)). So my hardware can't handle Windoze next upgrade and my bank account can't handle a hardware upgrade. Adios.
"There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.
- XP is optimized for the period when it was made. Its bloody fast.
- Its faster than 7/8. Why upgrade to slow down your machine?
- It just works, with minimal bullshit running in the background.
- It wasnt designed with market control in mind
- It was designed to be a OS for the user.
Why replace something that is clearly better than every OS afterwards? The reason, because MS want control and your money, regardless the cost to what is good for you.
Agree, I could not lose my work computer for several days while I do the rebuild of programs, drivers, and preferences. A friend, who computer literate, spent two weeks getting his machine back to functioning.
You know.. I think one aspect of the problem that a lot of folks are just missing.. especially if they work for Microsoft.. is that a lot of the reason why people are fond of XP isn't because they're explicitly "fond of XP" or that they need it for particular hardware/software that isn't supported on anything newer.. Although I'm sure that does happen to be important for a sizeable percentage..
I think a lot of it is that there really hasn't been anything compelling on offer in any post-XP version of Windows. That statement alone is pretty damning of the Management of Microsoft's Windows division.
The last version of Windows I personally *owned* was XP.. although I worked for a year at an office computer with 7 on it. Friends and family have had Vista and Windows 8.
XP worked. It did what it was needed to do without much bullsh*t... a rarity for a Microsoft product. And look at what replaced it. Vista. (that should almost be a "'nuff said" in and of itself) Bloated, slow, overfocused on bling and underfocused on actual usability... (I swear, it's like every other release of Windows is designed by the Marketing department, and then on the alternate releases they let the engineers in to try to repair the damage to the brand...)
The Windows 7.. and it's a *decent* OS. Improves some things.. makes other things kinda needlessly complex.. Most of the "new features" however.. are just things that I couldn't care less about. The only thing I particularly took away from a year of using 7 was that it was "a more complicated version of XP with weird eye-candy stuff that I turned off."
Windows 8? The words "Flaming pain in the ass" come immediately to mind anytime anybody mentions it. I don't know what the bigwigs in Redmond were smoking when they thought these UI changes were a good idea, but it's certainly not anything you can buy where I live. Even the druggies look confused when sat down in front of a Win 8 UI. It's like the same "UI Zombie Virus" attacked the Windows Dev team, the guys behind Unity at Canonical, and the Gnome 3 people all at once.
Because honestly... it's the *height* of idiocy to take a device that operates almost exclusively on one input format and try to make it identical to a whole class of devices that use an entirely *different* input format. This. Is. Braindead.
The lack of particularly useful *benefits* from any post-XP release for the average user, even though we've now been through 3 such releases is the elephant in the room nobody's talking about.
"My computer does not make any unknown connections."
You can't prove that to be absolutely true. There are lots of things that a firewall does (and should) let through which could be used for C&C traffic. Malware could easily choose to make a single web service request once a day to a seemingly innocuous URL over HTTPS to get instructions for the following day. Unless you are strictly white-listing your web traffic (doable, but has limits to practicality), then a typical firewall configuration would let that through just fine.
Are you suggesting that you look at all of the unique URLs that your computer connects to every day to ensure that non were suspicious? If so, good on you, I respect your dedication and time commitment to security... but I doubt that's what you do simply due to the expected amount of time needed to do it.
"Nearly every longtime Windows user looks back on Windows XP with a certain fondness, but the party's over according to Microsoft. 'It's time to move on,' says Tom Murphy, Microsoft's director of communications for Windows. 'XP was designed for a different era.' An era where we made good money, but the party's over and we're not makin' no stinkin' money off it no more though it's a perfectly usable OS since we screwed up initially and put a a bazillion updates. Still, it's time to move on to Metro, oh excuse me, Metro with a Task Bar (now). See we've revamped this whole thing. It's all about mobile now and since we're no where to be found in it, we decided to make a desktop OS that looks like it. That way we can feel like we're in the game, though we're not. See it's quite complex but if you really think about it, none of this makes any sense. That's why we're leaving XP behind.
Nothing, thats what.
Tons upon tons upon tons of garbage is piled on the OS and some how its "new" and "Modern". The OS is basically unchanged, its just the stuff thats not really a part of the OS and that nobody wants changed that is changed (launcher and file manager) and more crud is added. (OK, there are some new API's but there is not reason they could not be added to the older OSs... and most of those aren't used anyway and atrophy before the new "big release")
No virus no malware no adware! running GEOS on a c64
If you do this for free, learn Linux and install it on all those PCs. it's easy, and you will save a lot of time, not only on the install but not-fixing things. Oh, and money.
I have a 2004 Compaq r3000z running QuoteTracker - that's all it does. At some point I'll add an Ubuntu Partition and run QuoteTracker under WINE (it has one or two issues but it would work for what I want). In the meantime, Windows XP x64 is good enough. I can afford to toss the old laptop but I refuse to pay for another Windows license on this old machine. I don't even know that the current version of Windows would run on it.
I have a Sony Vaio desktop (PCV RZ71) that is 8 years old and was built for XP. Sure I should upgrade to W7 (not 8!) but Sony is very proprietary and changing the OS might render many of the capabilities of this desktop useless as it was built for XP. Sure, the machine is 8 years old but IT RUNS GOOD. Why should I discard it?
I think there are MANY individuals and enterprises in the same situation. So, I will go to W7 or whatever is the best OS, when this desktop dies, but until then, I will keep my AV and other security protections up to date so I can keep using XP until I am ready to discard the machine.
PS: I have another desktop and also a laptop running W7 and W7 seems to be a combination of the best of VISTA and XP. W7 is a great operating system. W8-NOT! It the next utterance of Microsoft (W9?) is also a piece of crap, then it may be time to go to LINUX. Definitely not MAC because APPLE locks their systems down. They work good but you can't tailor them to your own needs, or upgrade the hardware, and so on. MACS are for people who want something that works and do not care about improving system and hardware performance.
Aside from productivity, there is nothing more rewarding than upgrading your system's memory or storage or whatever and seeing the difference.
I am NOT posting as 'Anonymous Coward'. Somehow I missed (or was not given the option) to post using my handle: joerog55. If you want to know my name just ask. My post is not provocative so there is no need to post as 'anonymous'.
I also have another XP laptop and a VISTA laptop.. Both are perfectly reliable machines with outdated OSs. So, again, why discard them. Microsoft has a business plan that relies on selling new OSs to individuals and enterprises, but that company should also understand that excessive OS changes will drive away customers. Also users in 'third World' countries usually cannot afford to changes OSs as often as Microsoft should want. It thin Microsoft should make new OSs in these 'economically deprived' countries free or at a greatly reduced rate.
joerog55
Windows has support? I never knew that. Does it actually help?
since you don't need that many gigs of ram to run porn?