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Why Microsoft Shouldn't Patch the XP Internet Explorer Flaw
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: "Sebastian Anthony argues that Microsoft is setting an awful precedent by caving and issuing a fix for Windows XP. 'Yes, tardy governments and IT administrators can breathe a little easier for a little bit longer,' writes Anthony, 'and yes, your mom and dad are yet again safe to use their old Windows XP beige box. But to what end? It's just delaying the inevitable.' Lance Ulanoff argues that Microsoft can't turn a blind eye the security of XP users, even though the company ended support for the 12-year-old operating system on April 8, a fact that Microsoft has been warning about for, literally, years. But this won't be the only vulnerability found in XP, says Dwight Silverman. 'If Microsoft makes an exception now, what about the flaw found after this one? And the next? And the one after that, ad infinitum?' Even though Microsoft has released a patch for the IE flaw, and Windows XP is included, it's time to move on – really. 'I don't want to hear that tired "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" line. Hey, XP IS broke, and it will just get more so over time. Upgrade to a newer version of Windows, or switch to another modern operating system, such as OS X or Linux.'"
MS did everyone a service supporting XP as long as they did, Unlike a fruity company I won't name but after 2 years old OS stop getting updates even if a massive security flaw.
Right. What would you consider a "non faulty OS, Linux? Then I guess Torvalds should be shot because when it comes to bugs here they come! . Oh and don't forget which OS it was that gave us heartbleed. Was it Windows? No no no no, was it OSX? No no nooo no, was it Linux? yeah yeah yeah yeah! BTW you should try to play the "how many year old Linux bug" game, its fun and easy! Simply type into any search engine " (X) year old Linux bug" with (X) replaced by a random number, see how far back you can go! I doubt you will be able to top 20 years old but single digits are easy peasy!
Anybody still on XP deserves what they get, they got 12 years of support, which just FYI is 10 years longer than the average Linux distro LOL, unless you consider the bi annual death march to be "support", and they have had more than enough time to switch over to a newer version of Windows. They can't even use the hardware excuse as the average XP box is a power piggie P4 and for less than $100 you can toss that P4 board for a Bobcat or jaguar board that will run rings around the P4 while using less power under load than the piggie P4 does at idle. they can even keep their old IDE drive using a $7 IDE to PCI converter so there really is no longer any excuses, anybody who hangs onto a thirteen year old OS (XP was released in 2001 and has more in common with NT4 than it does with a modern OS like 7/8) that is three and soon to be four versions behind? Deserves what they get.
Out of the hundreds of boxes I moved to 7, how many problems did I have? A grand total of THREE, and one of those doesn't count since the software in question (Quickbooks 07 IIRC, may have been 06) was "broken by design" and tied to a VERY insercure version of Flash (V7) and would refuse to install if ANY version of Flash other than 7 was on the system, but it took less than 30 minutes to turn the XP install into a VM and run it on Win 7 via Virtualbox. The other 2? A scanner from 2000 that was so low res a $35 all in one printer gave the guy a 300%+ increase in quality and an old ATI IGP that ran but was flaky, it cost a grand total of $8 to replace the IGP with an HD2400. That system was a first gen C2D with 2GB of RAM and was recently traded back in on a new quad, I turned around and sold it to my landlord who runs it 6 days a week and it purrs like a kitten. If a 8 year old system can run Win 7 so well the customer who buys it in 2014 says "I just love this machine,it runs my stock software and surfs like a dream" there really is no excuse, let XP die already.
Oh and just for shits and giggles I tried the "hairyfeet challenge" using that box before I reloaded Windows, since it would probably be considered high end of the XP era hardware and thus would give Linux a performance advantage over some dusty P4, result? Ubuntu crapped the video first update, PCLOS crapped out on the second, no point in continuing after that since it had already failed the test.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.