London's Metropolitan Police Still Running 27,000 Windows XP Desktops (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader writes: London's Met Police has missed its deadline for abandoning the out-of-date operating system Windows XP, as findings reveal 27,000 computers still run on the software two years after official support ended. Microsoft stopped issuing updates and patches for Windows XP in Spring 2014, meaning that any new bugs and flaws in the operating system are left open to attack. A particularly risky status for the UK capital's police force – itself running operations against hacking and other cybercrime activity. The figures were disclosed by Conservative politician Andrew Boff. The Greater London Assembly member said: 'The Met should have stopped using Windows XP in 2014 when extended support ended, and to hear that 27,000 computers are still using it is worrying.' As in similar cases across civil departments, the core problem is bespoke system development, and the costs and time associated with integrating a new OS with customized systems.

Comments

Re:It's not as simple as "just switch over"

[ZeroPly]

We actually do that for our accounting software, but that opens up another can of worms. For example, the software opens up reports in Excel and needs an email client available. That means we need a copy of Office running _inside_Virtual PC. Now all of a sudden we're looking at licensing two copies of Office per machine - not chump change. Export to PDF functionality? Sorry - even though you have a full blow Acrobat DC subscription, it won't work inside your Virtual PC.

And of course, it's possible to get malware inside the Virtual PC. So now we're looking at two antivirus licenses per computer.

Re:retail support ended

[Anonymous Coward]

What you believe is true, despite the click-bait article's allusions. Proof? Here's the Premier Support Agreement that provides support through 2019.

https://www.london.gov.uk/site...