Microsoft's Ticking Time Bomb Is Windows XP 829
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Shona Ghosh writes at PC Pro that the final deadline for Windows XP support in April 2014 will act as the starting pistol for developing new exploits as hackers reverse-engineer patches issued for Windows 7 or Windows 8 to scout for XP vulnerabilities. "The very first month that Microsoft releases security updates for supported versions of Windows, attackers will reverse-engineer those updates, find the vulnerabilities and test Windows XP to see if it shares [them]," says Tim Rains, the director of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group. Microsoft says that XP shared 30 security holes with Windows 7 and Windows 8 between July 2012 and July 2013. Gregg Keizer says that if a major chunk of the world's PCs remains tied to XP, as seems certain, Microsoft will face an unenviable choice: Stick to plan and put millions of customers at risk from malware infection, or backtrack from long-standing policies and proclamations." (Read on for more.)
"In either case, it will face a public relations backlash, whether from customers who complain they've been forsaken or those angry at Microsoft for pushing them to upgrade when, in the end, they didn't need to." Microsoft makes little or no revenue from customers with old PCs, and desperately wants them to buy a new Windows system of some sort. "It's very easy to say 'just upgrade,' but not all business can do so," says Lawrence Pingree, citing money, resources and mission-critical software. "One of the main reasons why people cannot leave XP is compatibility with other software." Nor is Microsoft blameless. XP has hung around because of the mistakes Microsoft made with Windows Vista, the OS flop that outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer copped to as his biggest regret. If Vista had been more like Windows 7, or had shipped at its original "Longhorn" timetable of 2004, then been followed three years later by Windows 7, XP would not have had the opportunity to lock up the ecosystem for a decade. Pingree has a suggestion for Microsoft. ""If it's such a big problem, maybe they should offer an 'Extended Life' [support] subscription and charge for it.""
The Solution is Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft should extend support for XP...but only on a cash-for-patch basis. Sell patches at $5 a pop for XP user's, or a one Year Security Update Subscription for $20.
It's a win-win situation....
Re:The Solution is Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Solution is Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
The question is: How much does it actually cost them (in dollars) to support XP?
I get the feeling this is just to try and push people to upgrade, not because XP can't be supported.
I own two machines which cannot be upgraded for very good reasons.
(And right now they have auto-update disabled because of the "Windows update uses 100% CPU and leaves the machine unusable" problem which appeared a couple of months ago - a coincidence that this happened just before XP is retired...?)
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"I own two machines which cannot be upgraded for very good reasons."
What are those? I support a couple of XP machines for a friend who is content with his old CAM software because it does what he wants and the post-processor works with his old Fanuc control, but they no longer connect to the internet. Cut the cord, problem solved.
Re:The Solution is Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
Of those reasons, I'm betting #1 is 'No driver support for half the hardware in the system.'
I have tons of equipment that's better than crap being produced today, but drivers for it don't exist past XP.
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Of those reasons, I'm betting #1 is 'No driver support for half the hardware in the system.'
Who wrote the initial drivers? Microsoft or third parties? If third parties, are they still around? If so, why aren't they supporting Win7? Does Linux support that hardware?
I have tons of equipment that's better than crap being produced today, but drivers for it don't exist past XP.
Fine, just don't connect your machine to the Internet and put others' at risk.
Microsoft's big "problem" is "free updates". They shou
Re:The Solution is Obvious (Score:5, Informative)
>> "I own two machines which cannot be upgraded for very good reasons."
> What are those?
Plenty of reasons. Khyber's comment below about hardware drivers is one. If you have a sweet server that's still chugging along, you feel no need to replace or upgrade it. If you did, though, you'd have a time finding drivers for it.
Another reason is if you're using a very expensive software package that simply won't work with anything newer than Windows XP. Then it's not just a simple matter of upgrading Windows, but having to shell out tons of money for other software upgrades at the same time. Until the economy turns around, that ain't gonna happen.
We've run across cases where a software vendor will say, "don't install anything newer than service pack 2." We handle it by completely isolating these machines from the Internet and disallowing the use of external, user-supplied storage (which most smart admins do anyway, on general principle).
Here's a piece of trivia for you: one of the key audio streaming companies* for broadcast radio stations, as late as last year, made it clear in their contract that they would ONLY support Windows XP. We dropped them for that reason, but folks, this was in 2012. That kind of stuff still happens, too, and again, blame the economy.
This admittedly won't affect most users, but it does affect some of us.
(*actually, to be technically correct, they're an ad-insertion company -- they insert commercial inventory in your online stream -- but I figured everyone's eyes would glaze over if I tried to get that detailed.) :)
Re: (Score:3)
If for whatever weird reason you actually need graphical ``remote control'', well, X11 is, you know, designed to be network transparent.
xauth, xhost, $DISPLAY.
Re:The Solution is Obvious (Score:4)
One problem with supporting XP, is the old 32 bit thing. Some of the security features available on 64 bit systems just don't work so well on 32 bit processors, or with 32 bit operating systems. http://www.howtogeek.com/165535/why-the-64-bit-version-of-windows-is-more-secure/ [howtogeek.com] Feel free to Google for more information along those lines - there is plenty.
Worse, XP supports legacy 16 and 8 bit stuff, which is far more insecure than a rational 32 bit system.
Microsoft does indeed push the upgrade cycle for their own selfish reasons, no one can deny that. But, really and truly, XP is so obsolete that no sensible people are going to waste time trying to support it.
As soon as I could afford to purchase a 64 bit Opteron, I made the switch to 64 bit computing. The fact that 64 bit Windows XP couldn't support all of my hardware prompted me to make the switch to Linux. At that point in time, Suse Linux had the edge on AMD 64 bit computing, and everything just worked out of the box.
What 8-bit software on XP? (Score:5, Informative)
XP supports legacy 16 and 8 bit stuff
What 8-bit stuff are you talking about? The only 8-bit software that runs on Windows XP runs in an emulator such as FCEUX. The 16-bit software runs in a virtual machine anyway, called NTVDM (for MS-DOS software) or WOWExec (for Windows 3.x software).
The 8086 is 16-bit (Score:3)
I'm pretty sure it was 8-bit PC XT software
I thought the 8086 CPU in the IBM PC XT was 16-bit. What makes you think it's 8-bit?
Re:The 8086 is 16-bit (Score:5, Informative)
The 8088 in the IBM PC-XT was 16 bit, but it was limited to an 8-bit external IO path. That made it easier for it to use the existing 8 bit expansion chips (8255, 8253, 8251, etc.)
It's the same as the 80386sx, which was a full 32 bit processor interally but had limited 16-bit external IO to reduce cost.
If IBM had used an 8086 processor, they would have either had to use an expensive 16-bit EPROM or twice as many 8-bit EPROMs for the BIOS, as one example of why the choice was made. Back at product introduction (the plain PC, not the PC-XT) the PC sold with as little as 16K of DRAM on the motherboard, with sockets to upgrade to the full 64K.
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And DIP switches to indicate the amount of memory installed.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
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This argument keeps coming up.
"What if something doesn't work after?" Thus less than some small minority of the populous is inconvenienced.
How about What if the world is exposed to increasingly harmful malware infections that threaten financial, systems control, hospitals etc.
Guess what. This is exactly the same ridiculous argument that occurred in the 1970's when seat belts were made mandatory around most of the world. "You can't make seat belts mandatory the pensioners can't afford to install them" An
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There really are only a tiny number of people for whom such a subscription would make sense. Everyone else would be better off just replacing their PC with a newer one running Win7/8. Windows 7 has XP Mode which works pretty well, and people who absolutely need XP for that one bit of ancient hardware that doesn't even work in the VM would be better off retiring their current machines from day-to-day use and saving them just for that single purpose.
People who are still using XP day-to-day are idiots and Micr
Re:The Solution is Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
There is almost no scenario where continuing to use XP as your main desktop makes sense
Take the case of my 74-year-old dad.
His Gateway runs XP, and runs well. Chrome is fast, YouTube vids of his grandkids play fine.
Upgrading to Win 7 will cost him $300 - The Win 7 DVD + a new printer, as his HP 1012 doesn't have a Win 7 driver. If there was a $20 / year subscription option I'm sure he'd take it.
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Needless expense (Score:5, Insightful)
People who are still using XP day-to-day are idiots and Microsoft shouldn't encourage them.
Really? People are idiots for not spending money on new equipment that adds precisely zero additional feature that they need? We should be forced to upgrade to Microsoft's latest software because not upgrading doesn't add to Microsoft's profits? My company uses XP on the majority of our computers and there is nothing whatsoever in Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8 that is necessary for us. So we're idiots for not spending money needlessly? Thank $diety we don't let you make our purchasing decisions.
There is almost no scenario where continuing to use XP as your main desktop makes sense
Except for the millions of people whose actual computing needs are perfectly adequately filled by XP.
Re:Needless expense (Score:4, Interesting)
Your company doesn’t consider security updates necessary?
Security updates are not a feature (Score:3)
Your company doesn’t consider security updates necessary?
Security updates are not features. While (unfortunately) necessary they are fundamentally a correction of a defect in their product. You are looking at it backwards. What you are saying is that I'm supposed to pay endlessly for Microsoft for their defective product.
Now in realistic terms if they wanted to charge a modest (emphasis on modest) fee for security updates to those who want to keep XP in place after a decade of use, I don't really have a problem with that. But I do have a problem with a point
Framing the issue wrong (Score:4, Informative)
No, people are idiots for believing that security isn't a feature that is needed.
No one is arguing that security isn't necessary. HOWEVER, security updates are a correction of a defect in the product. They are necessary in the same sense that insurance is necessary. Security updates could be provided for XP by Microsoft for a (reasonable) fee but that is not an option Microsoft has put on the table. There is no technological reason why I need to "upgrade" to Windows 8.
People are also idiots for believing that a for profit company (like Microsoft) is obligated to provide free updates to a product forever.
Microsoft can do whatever they want. However what they are accomplishing isn't to make me want to upgrade to their latest products. If anything it makes me want to use their systems less. I can get linux security updates for free so Microsoft needs to add more value if they want my continued business. They don't have to make security updates free but that isn't what they chose to do. They want me to buy an entirely new product with new and different defects, additional hardware, software migration and training costs. This instead of merely offering to continue security updates for a nominal fee for the system I already have which I already know works. I'm guessing you've never run a business because only an idiot spends money to change something that is working just fine when the change is not actually necessary.
You appear to be saying that there is nothing in post-XP versions of Windows that is necessary for your company.
That is correct. There is no new feature in any more recent version of Windows that will add to the bottom line of my company. Other companies situations may be different but I do know for a fact that thousands of companies and individuals are in the same situation as I am.
Do you really believe that security of your systems is not necessary?
Wrong question. Of course security is necessary but security updates are nothing more than corrections of a product defect. Security is nothing more than a cost to me. It is like insurance - necessary but it does not ever add a penny to the bottom line. I have zero interest in throwing out a working production system just because it does not add to Microsoft's bottom line.
Do you really believe that Microsoft should spend the money (in either direct or opportunity costs) to provide those updates to you for free forever?
I never said anything about how they should provide updates or whether they should charge for them. Frankly if Microsoft were to charge a modest fee (and I do mean modest) to continue security updates for XP, I'd consider paying it. I have very good reasons why our company still uses XP based machines, not the least of which is that we have some critical software that CANNOT be ported. (not my fault - some idiot before me bought it) While I will fix that in due time, it isn't going to happen in the next 6 months and the expense is considerably larger than a new PC with Windows 8 on it.
Re:Really (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Really (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Really (Score:5, Funny)
Oh look guys, it's Target's CTO posting to Slashdot! Good to see you man, but I'm surprised you found time to hang out with us.
Install Classic Shell (Score:3)
Well maybe if Microsoft would quit fucking with the GUI
Then unfuck it with Classic Shell already.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
I would deploy Windows 8 for the same reason I would deploy the latest Office. They both suck in my humble opinion, but the whole world seem stuck with Microsoft solutions and Windows 8 is noticeable faster than Windows 7, so there is that at least.
Classic Shell is good for personal use, but even the weird Windows 8 interface still does the job. After certain point in your life you realize that you are being a geek for worrying too much about petty stuff like how an OS looks or feel. The world would be a lo
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Re:The Solution is Obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:The Solution is Obvious (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft will never Opensource XP. Mostly because it would be a major liability with no benefit to them. Yes, liability. If you have your programmers going through the code and find a module that obviously didn't work like it was supposed to, and exposed the machines to a 0-day hack, your lawyers would race to file law suites against Microsoft to compensate for the companies losses. Or lets say you figure out what ALL the settings in the registry do, including the ones for exclusive use of the FBI/NSA/Microsoft. Now you know that they were fully able to bypass the Microsoft supplied firewalls, and grab whatever info they wanted. And you would spill that knowledge all over the net.
Where is Microsoft's benefit in all this? It's just not there.
The only project to Opensource XP that I've heard of is ReactOS [reactos.org], and it is STILL in Alpha stage, even after all these years. I suppose if the demand for it is there, some companies could be encouraged to donate time/money and accelerate the project, for their own benefit.
Re:The Solution is Obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
The unfortunate fact is, the majority of these people are home users on DSL. They aren't going to pay, we're lucky if they even update, and once they're infected their machines are used in botnets to attack the rest of us. Microsoft should continue to publish security updates for XP for free to protect THE REST of its users.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:XP is a vulnerability itself. (Score:5, Funny)
And don't even get me started with the piece of shit that is windows 8, linux users are not forced to use a half-tablet OS
Gnome 3 and Unity would like a word with you.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And don't even get me started with the piece of shit that is windows 8, linux users are not forced to use a half-tablet OS
Gnome 3 and Unity would like a word with you.
KDE, Afterstep, Enlightenment, Windows Maker and XFCE would like a word with you.
No such options on Windows Tablet 8/8.1 I'm afraid.
Xubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:XP is a vulnerability itself. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, you can upgrade for free, or damn near free. Simply upgrade to Linux or a BSD. Seriously. I here all sorts of nonsense about how hard it is to switch to Linux, and to Gnu. Screw all of that. Have you noticed that our economy sucks? A common refrain heard by the working class, is that we are now competing with labor markets from around the world. We have to adapt, or go out of business. Do more with less, retrain to do new tasks, yada yada yada.
My answer goes right along with all that other nonsense. If you can't be retrained to run Linux, then you're out of the workforce. And, no, I don't really give a damn that you might lose your home as a result. No one gave a small damn when coal miners were foreclosed on. Or auto workers. Or construction workers.
The "ticking time bomb" isn't Windows XP. The time bomb is America's inability to adapt to a changing reality. Windows is so 1990's. This is the 2010's now.
iTunes Store (Score:3)
it's been a very long time since I've seen a piece of software that runs on Windows XP that doesn't run on WINE as well
You mean like the client for the iTunes Store? You can't buy media in an Internet-disconnected VM, and the last time I checked AppDB, iTunes was rated "garbage". I've already checked Google Play and Amazon MP3, and the song I want to buy isn't there.
Re:XP is a vulnerability itself. (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
If you're talking about security, where there are independent third parties aggressively undermining the stability of your "table" at all times, it's probably better to use a more security-minded analogy. How about locks. Lets say you buy a popular high-end lock for your front door, and a while later the burglar community finds a weakness in the design that lets it be picked easily. Is the lock maker required to upgrade your lock to something more secure on their own dime? Continuously? For more than 12
So upgrade already (Score:4, Insightful)
You can run XP in a virtual machine if you have software you must absolutely run that cannot run under Windows 7 or 8.
If your business cannot support the cost of an upgrade, you really aren't doing it right and probably aren't making much money anyway.
Windows 7 has been out for over FOUR freaking years. Quite the whiny bitching already.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You can run XP in a virtual machine if you have software you must absolutely run that cannot run under Windows 7 or 8.
If your business cannot support the cost of an upgrade, you really aren't doing it right and probably aren't making much money anyway.
Windows 7 has been out for over FOUR freaking years. Quite the whiny bitching already.
This. People are complaining about a version of the O/S that came out 11 years ago.
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also, they are acting like microsoft isnt supporting customers. If you havent purchased something in 11 years, you arent a customer.
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We still run XP on a few remaining machines and we don't really have the money do upgrade the. We aren't really making that much money, because that's not really the aim of the company - we essentially provide serviced offices* for self employed people (including the two directors). In essence, the company's aim it to provide employment for a whole bunch of people. Sure making a bit of money is nice, but at the moment, as long as we break even and the brokers make money, we're happy.
* Not just serviced offi
Re:So upgrade already (Score:5, Informative)
Not if the software you need to run is a device driver for special hardware.
And you still have the issue that the VM may need to talk to the outside world and therefore be as "vulnerable" as real hardware.
Re:So upgrade already (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, Microsoft's Win32 application compatibility via the Windows 6.x kernel is decent for 32-bit and weak for 64-bit (WoW). To add, there's so much 16-bit code floating out there in businesses, written during the Win9x era, especially from vendors that no longer exist. Even trying to get some Microsoft programs working is a chore--e.g. Visual FoxPro 9 SP2. (I don't give a shit how "old" it is, it's still used and doesn't work well with Win7 x64). Microsoft has the R&D resources to figure out how to run 16-bit code on 64-bit Windows (e.g. NTVDM running on WoW--essentially a VM within a VM), and we'd be fully in the 64-bit OS era...
Re: So upgrade already (Score:3, Insightful)
You remove the gateway ip address in the TCP/IP settings. A single entry. Duh.
Slashdot Poll ? (Score:4, Interesting)
I feel a Slashdot Poll might be in our future:
Number of Windows XP security updates Microsoft will release in the first and second year after they said they wouldn't:
- 0
- 1-5
- 5-10
- 11 or more
Can't complain (Score:5, Insightful)
Red Hat 10 year Extended Support (Score:5, Informative)
Red Hat offers 10 years of support. And new versions of Red Hat are generally better than previous versions, so there isn't as much need to hold on to old versions.
Source: http://www.serverwatch.com/server-news/red-hat-extends-linux-support.html [serverwatch.com]
And? (Score:2, Insightful)
Stick to plan and put millions of customers at risk from malware infection
Not trolling, but sticking with XP - even with continued support - is still putting millions of customers at risk from malware infection. Win 7 is much more secure (I assume 8 is too but I won't touch Win 8).
One of my clients is going to stick with XP (it's on about 1/2 their systems) and only upgrade to 7 if the workstation needs to be replaced. Some of their workstations have been running for 8 - 10 years and still meet the needs of their users. If it ain't broke why replace it?
Re: (Score:3)
That's a bit like saying it's ok for one of your clients to stick to a fleet of cars and trucks that lack modern safety features such as seat belts, air bags, engineered crumple zones, etc. Sure it works and they could make deliveries with it. But it be very bad if one of those trucks got into a collision. Also, there would probably be issues finding affordable accident insurance.
When it comes to the cars, you'd be right. But when it comes to the trucks the metaphor breaks down entirely because they aren't required to have any of that shit. It's only passenger cars. Light trucks are required to have some of it now, but not all.
Microsoft isn't Putting Customers at Risk (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft isn't putting customers at risk by not patching what will then be a 13-year old operating system. They had a full life cycle plan in place and customers have had many years advance notice to plan their transition. The lack of resources placed on transitioning legacy software to something other than an end-of-life OS is squarely the fault of the customers. The people in charge obviously don't place a great deal of importance on security or support. They have made their decision, let them suffer the consequences.
Re:Microsoft isn't Putting Customers at Risk (Score:4, Insightful)
On the one hand, quite true, fuck ’em. They brought their problems upon themselves. But on the other, their problem becomes everyone else’s when several million corporate PCs are added to the world’s botnet population.
Re:Microsoft isn't Putting Customers at Risk (Score:5, Funny)
What do you mean you've never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven's sake, mankind, it's only four light years away, you know. I'm sorry, but if you can't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that's your own lookout. Energize the demolition beam. I don't know, apathetic bloody planet, I've no sympathy at all.
Re:Microsoft isn't Putting Customers at Risk (Score:4, Interesting)
It is 13 years since MS started selling XP. Even as late as 2010 when Windows 7 was just released; XP was still offered to enterprise customers since Vista was shit.
Windows 8 does not run many applications developed using tools that came with and later supported XP. And these apps are not even 2 years old.
So please cut out the "13 year old XP" crap. MS is still officially selling XP for some enterprise customers. They better support it for 7 years AFTER they stop selling XP. Say 2020.
patches ? (Score:2)
New features for life on XP - no.
Security features for 5 more years, if it means back porting them - yes.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I working in health care, our PRIMARY robotic pharmacy dispenser runs DOS 6.x ... ?
It works, vendor has not mentioned any intent to replace the code so why should we.
I drive to work in a 14 year old - it works, so
If you think I am joking ask your hospital about ( McK..... )
XP a Time bomb? (Score:3)
No, the time bomb are people still running XP....
An easy choice... (Score:5, Insightful)
The key to this dilemma comes down to one word:
"Microsoft will face an unenviable choice: Stick to plan and put millions of customers at risk from malware infection,"
I don't think that Microsoft actually considers these people "customers." I think MS very distinctly considers them non-customers of their flagship product, since they have not purchased any of the four latest versions (Vista, 7, 8, 8.1). All of Microsoft's customers should have followed its exhortations over the last five years to spend a few bucks and upgrade dump their now-13-year-old OS.
It's indisputable that across the computing industry, the perceived mandate of legacy support for next-gen OSes is increasingly feeble. In non-desktop markets - e.g., consoles and phones - the presumption was never there to begin with (starting with the Super Nintendo!) Web programming exhibits similar tendencies - how many Java applications from back in the day won't run on modern browsers? And won't that include the entire Silverlight platform in a few years? The tendency is that the river of upgrades will carry all projects of significance along in its current, and the projects that gather on the banks (i.e., don't receive newest-OS upgrades) are... detritus. For right or wrong, that's the view.
wga will lose ms 'customers' (Score:4, Insightful)
More of linux shop here but the one remaining ms os pc which had updates until november has just been deemed illegal by somebody last month.
I briefly tried to deal with the issue - the supplier hp told me to get lost, and once through to the right region (hp's website royally sucks) the human blamed ms and gave me a wrong phone number for buck passing.
I have put the machine on a list for debian upgrades for next year.
The craptastic Windows 8 is Microsoft's time bomb (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Almost 3,000 results at Amazon for New Windows 7 Desktops at the moment...
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_p_n_condition-type_0?rh=n%3A172282%2Cn%3A541966%2Cn%3A565098%2Ck%3Awindows+7%2Cp_n_operating_system_browse-bin%3A2287320011%2Cp_n_condition-type%3A2224371011&keywords=windows+7&ie=UTF8&qid=1387734401&rnid=2224369011 [amazon.com]
Re:If you think Win 8 is crap (Score:5, Interesting)
What I would do if MS (Score:5, Insightful)
Become an iFanboy (Score:3)
This never happens to any of the iCult as Apple obsoletes them completely every two years. The iSteve is laughing in his grave.. "13 years of support!?! Are you fucking crazy?"
And not for nothin I had XP until this past year and did not have one virus and did not run any active virus protection. Once or twice a year I would download one and do a full scan only to have cookies removed. I'm still amazed at how some people seem unable to keep their pc clean. Probably a good reason not to have sex with them either!
If Vista had been more like Windows 7 - BULLSHIT (Score:4, Interesting)
If Vista had been more like Windows 7
This is such bullshit! In the alternative universe where Windows 7 was ready on the day Vista came out, software drivers for W7 would have been as unavailable as they were for Vista. All sorts of software that required users to have full admin permissions would have been broken by W7 UAC as it was by Vista's UAC. All PCs sold with 512MB or 1GB RAM would have still be slow compared to XP.
Only 1 or 2 years down the line when OEMs had caught up and released proper drivers, when PCs were being sold with 2GB+ RAM and when people learned to separate normal from admin users did Windows Vista/7/8 become less of a nuisance. It had very little to do with Windows 7 being so awesome.
advice on Linux alternatives? (Score:4, Interesting)
Requirements:
- fast and light: will run fine on a Thinkpad T41 (which doesn't support PAE kernel)
- Windows-like interface (I'm thinking LXDE, definitely not Unity)
- easy to use Wi-Fi manager (some of the Wi-Fi managers in lightweight Linux distros are way too technical for a novice)
- once a year if any on-site maintenance (remote maintenance is fine if necessary)
- auto updates in background but with very low chance of system breaking with an update (maybe no auto updates is better?)
- ACPI support (at least lid closed = suspend)
- printer support
Chromium OS seems like a good option, and it will run on one laptop (Thinkpad T61) but I'm pretty sure it uses a PAE kernel, ruling out the T41. I've been looking at Lubuntu, Peppermint OS, Porteus, Slax, Puppy Linux. All seem like viable options with a 30-minute test drive, but this is where I'm seeking feedback: on how some of these distros might be good or bad choices in the long-term, especially given that I won't be able to be physically present if something goes wrong.
Microsoft should off load to open source (Score:3, Interesting)
of course (Score:3)
> ....says Tim Rains, the director of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it's his job to say that, whether it's true or not. Windows 8 needs a shot in the arm, and upgrades from a bunch of panicked XP users is literally money in the bank.
Built in death (Score:3)
Stick to plan and put millions of customers at risk
People who bought a product once. They've been told their support will end. They've been told it will become less secure (if they understand what that means). It's not Microsoft's problem any more.
It would be better if commercial software was sold with a ticking clock built in. After "X" number of years (or months for Apple), the product just stops. Wont boot, won't run. No getarounds, hacks or fixes - just dies. Obviously there will need to be a totally "in your face" way of reminding customers that this will happen and for the advertising to be absolutely unequivocal before the product is purchased, but you don't expect a packet of cereal to last forever, why should you expect software to, either?
Re:The funny thing is... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is absurd. Yes, Vista was a disaster, but Windows 7 was a huge upgrade from XP.
If your statement is correct... (Score:4, Informative)
If your statement is correct...
This is absurd. Yes, Vista was a disaster, but Windows 7 was a huge upgrade from XP.
then why won't all XP software run on Windows 7, and why hasn't everyone seen the error of their ways, and upgraded their XP systems?
My dad owns a number of companies which all went out and bought extra XP systems and stuck them in a closet for future deployment because of the software compatibility issues between XP and Windows 7 and later. Specifically, they don't want to have to re-buy all their machines, and re-buy all their existing software, and rewrite from scratch all their Microsoft COM component based glue code the next time they hire a new person into the office.
Microsoft is out of its teeny little mind if it believes small cash flow based businesses have the available capital to enable them to do this; the incompatibility is killing adoption of anything later than Windows XP for almost every business I know that has 100 or less employees, which is 95% of all businesses in the U.S..
Re:If your statement is correct... (Score:5, Insightful)
They can't afford the capitol to upgrade their systems, but they can afford to stockpile machines in closets.
Peripheral compatibility (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If your statement is correct... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're conflating compatibility and technology upgrades. In general, considering the usability, user interface, and functionality of 7, it is an upgrade from XP. Compatibility with applications written for previous OSs is a totally different item. If you really want to support an application that works with only one end-of-lifed OS until the end of time, then you're going to have issues to deal with. It's either update the application or embalm the OS environment you're bent on sticking with. Run XP in a VM on new machines with a modern host OS.
There are plenty of reasons to criticize Microsoft, but I don't think OS application compatibility is one of them. You can run DOS apps from the 1990s on Windows 7. If your business can't afford to update that XP-dependant app, you probably shouldn't have written such a specialized app to begin with or used the development environment and libraries you chose.
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You can run DOS apps from the 1990s on Windows 7.
But not complicated mission critical business software from the 1990's. Oops.
If your business can't afford to update that XP-dependant app, you probably shouldn't have written such a specialized app to begin with or used the development environment and libraries you chose.
Yes, I've discussed that with our vendor. The people responsible for that decision have been sacked a while back. They still can't get it to run on Win 7. Nor can they get their new version to do half the things we need it to do. Sucks, to be us, I suppose, but this little problem appears to be endemic in the system.
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Re:If your statement is correct... (Score:4, Insightful)
then why won't all XP software run on Windows 7, and why hasn't everyone seen the error of their ways, and upgraded their XP systems?
Two questions asked, two answers given --
1st -- Some XP software won't run on Windows 7 because the software was not written to be compliant with Microsoft's published security standards. Stuff that's compliant with the standards runs, stuff that isn't compliant, and which relies on some undocumented feature/bug, may or may not run. Or did you mean ActiveX controls? That's a completely different animal, and can still be made to run on a Windows 7 system with the help of XP Mode. You may also want to ask your web designer why they haven't updated the design/layout in 10 years.
2nd -- People haven't upgraded their XP systems because of opportunity cost. Either you need to worry about updating your ActiveX-based corporate intranet to work on a modern browser, or you have to worry about the cost of purchasing a new set of licenses for a more recent version of Windows. While I could forgive a large corporation which may have to pay tens of millions of dollars to upgrade (though my own company has already upgraded its 85,000 employees' systems to Win7), I have a harder time forgiving a home user whose cost would be effectively nil if they were to purchase a new(er) computer. You don't even have to buy a *new* computer any more to get Windows 7 -- it's been out for long enough that I've seen computers in used computer store or on kijiji for the $50 range which would be an upgrade to anything that was sold with XP, and which come with Windows 7 as well. The savings in electricity alone from such an upgrade would probably pay for that within a year -- remember that while the P4 did boast speeds at 3.4GHz, they did it by using several times the electricity that a modern i3 or i5 uses for the same clock speed.
And the re-buy existing software argument doesn't wash. At the absolute worst case scenario, they can run it in XP Mode, which is a full fledged virtual machine which can run anything that ran on XP.
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At the absolute worst case scenario, they can run it in XP Mode, which is a full fledged virtual machine which can run anything that ran on XP.
Except when it doesn't run anything. We have three (3) mission critical software packages that won't run under XP emulation. The vendors have all agreed that they won't run. One of the vendors (our primary EHR) has a fix - their beta level new system that works just fine on 7, when it works at all, which is infrequently. The other two just don't say anything at all. I suppose they will introduce a new version in April that costs another 30K (just like the one last year).
We just love this ecosystem, we
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For varying definitions of "upgrade".
So far, I have not identified any benefits for me from using 7 compared to using XP. But I have trouble with a few pieces of software that refuse to run. Now, please explain to me again why I would possibly WANT Windows7?
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Faster, smoother, better UI, better supported, easier to use... need more?
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So far, I have not identified any benefits for me from using 7 compared to using XP. But I have trouble with a few pieces of software that refuse to run. Now, please explain to me again why I would possibly WANT Windows7?
Just because it seems to be the elephant in the room: How about you'd want Windows 7 for improved security.
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Yes, Vista was a public relations disaster
Fixed that for you. I ran Vista for years.
99.9999% of the bullshit surrounding Vista was just that. Pure, fucking, unadulterated bullshit, spewed by the same mewling retards who still don't understand why their shitty operating system from well over a decade ago needs to die.
XP is over. Fucking deal with it.
Windows Vista SP1 was fine (Score:3, Insightful)
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What an idiotic statement. Windows 7 is superior to Windows XP just as Windows XP is superior to Windows 9x and just as Windows 9x was susperior to 3.1...
I challenge you to name those downgrades you experienced.
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If windows 7/8 wasn't a downgrade from XP in every respect,
Wrong. Windows 7 is better than XP in every way
(For the pedants: "Except size on disk")
Re:The funny thing is... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Except ability to run about 20 years' worth of software and on far older and newer hardware, since it has had such a long service life and represented the pinnacle of backward compatibility before MS decided DOS-based software (Win98) has surely all been retired."
PLEASE! Just give up on all that 20 year old software! All that backward compatibility, and legacy support, is exactly what crippled XP more than anything else! Without all that legacy support, XP would have started out more secure than it did. JUST GIVE IT UP!! I don't want or need 20 year old software running on my system. If you really, truly believe that you need software that old, then rebuild it!!
It's not like software development is a forgotten art from 5000 years ago. Hire someone, or hire a team, to rebuild the functionality that you need. Or, do it yourself.
Stop expecting the world to operate in some twisted time warp that suits your own particular needs.
Re:Mac has superior model (Score:4, Insightful)
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ThinkPad 760XL forever! It's running Windows 98SE, but still running fine.
Re:Mac has superior model (Score:4, Informative)
I have hardware in a cupboard that failed after a year or two or in some cases even earlier but I never bothered to jump through the hoops to get it fixed or replaced under warranty. I also have working computing gear that dates back to the 70s. That fact that some hardware has survived a decade doesn't mean that all (or even most) hardware will do so.
Businesses usually replace a desktop box every four or five years, laptops maybe every two or three. Any five-year-old desktop running XP or similar will have ageing components, hard drives wearing out mechanically, fans dying etc. which makes them ripe for replacement. They also probably don't support affordable amounts of RAM (typically 8 or 16GB) which can make a serious difference to performance in 64-bit operating systems -- nearly all XP installs were for the 32-bit version which limits out hard at 3.5GB. XP also has the 2TB drive volume limit and no TRIM for SSDs. Older boxes have no hardware support for SATA-3 and usually poor support for SATA generally. They may still be AGP rather than supporting any version of PCI-e, no USB 3.0 ports, the onboard video is crude and slow etc. etc.
Re:First... (Score:5, Funny)
to upgrade!
To Linux, I hope?
Re:First... (Score:5, Insightful)
So it's somehow Linux' fault that your IT department wasn't competent enough to at least do some research and testing with the users first?
You do realize that a complete OS and app suite change is not as easy as just downloading a distro and installing it everywhere, right?
Re:First... (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? I've been using Linux on my desktop for years with no complaints. So has my barely computer literate father (and incidentally I get far fewer tech support calls now). No, it's not "just like Windows", but if you really love everything about Windows then you should stick with that, obviously you're not Linux's target audience. Of course if what you really mean is that it's not supported by 100% of the software you need/want to use, and you can't find suitable alternatives... well that's not really anything to do with Linux's readiness is it? Ask the people making your software when they are going to release a Linux version, because that's the only way that *they* will know that anyone in their customer base cares.
Re:First... (Score:5, Insightful)
I see what you did there. "I don't understand the hate" has risen to meme status. I don't waste time hating vista, anymore than I would waste time hating broccoli. Vista and win8 share the traits that they were unusable on first release, vista eventually became tolerable but wasn't truly fixed until win7, and win8 is following a similar path. We have some machines still running xp, but the driving force to upgrade is not some artificial Microsoft deadline, but when there will be something reasonable to upgrade to.
Re:First... (Score:4, Funny)
"AuthenticAMD"
I'm struck by an image of the AMD logo materializing a hand just to give the finger to GenuineIntel.
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Get on with the new world. In fact, do it on a Mac & switch between or run XP, Win7, etc simultaneously. Get real.