Meet the Diehards Who Refuse To Move On From Windows XP 641
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.'"
VirtualBox (Score:5, Interesting)
I still have an XP installation running in a vbox, just because it's easier than trying to get SlingBox to run under wine.
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I still have an XP installation running in a vbox, just because it's easier than trying to get SlingBox to run under wine.
Me as well. I have the internet connection disabled however, only run Photoshop in it with a shared local folder. I revert to the snapshot everytime - no updates, no AV, a lot faster, works for me!
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I still have an XP installation running in a vbox,
My XP laptops (two of them) get used every day and do their job perfectly but they don't have enough disk space for Windows 7/8. Should they become landfill? I don't have an extra $1200 lying around for a couple of new laptops (and even if I did, they don't make them as small as my EeePC 900 any more - it's the size that makes that one useful).
Good for you. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
... and yet his efforts will probably stop 99.9% of the crap that affects "modern" Windows versions with their clueless users.
Installing Windows 7 or 8 wouldn't make his job much easier or make his computer much more secure.
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Installing Windows 7 or 8 wouldn't make his job much easier or make his computer much more secure.
Yea, it sort of would. For one, he wouldnt be stuck with IE8. For another, hed have UAC which solves most of the rootkit threat that XP had to deal with. For a third, hed actually be getting security patches.
I have to wonder whether the folks touting how great XP is have done customer-facing IT support. Actually, I dont really wonder, because if they had theyd know well enough how much of the malware threat is mitigated just by upgrading to Win7 and updating your software.
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Stuck with IE8? How about Firefox or Chrome, both of which still support XP. Why would you be using IE anyway?
Re:Good for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's one theory -- but I'd say previous experience shows it wasn't the case.
For example, there were quite a few people who hung onto Windows '98SE *long* after it was discontinued, yet they never really ran into any new security threats of significance. (The biggest problem for some of them was finding anti-virus software that would still install and run on the platform, after a while. But a few packages still supported it, and downloaded AV signature updates just as well as they did on other OS's.)
In that situation, the hackers quit focusing on anything Win '98 and concerned themselves only with exploiting the more recent code out there, which had an ever increasing market-share, not a decreasing one.
We saw this again with Windows 2000 Server, where security updates stopped -- yet many businesses kept on using it in production, in situations where older and complex applications were already running well on it, and redoing the whole thing on a newer server version was a big and costly undertaking. (I know my previous employer still uses Win2K server for a custom written app developed in the PROGRESS language. It's a virtual machine now, instead of a physical server -- but there's simply no need to go through the hassle that would be involved to move it to Windows Server 2008 or 2012.)
I'm not sure where your 98% statistic comes from, but I suspect you pulled it out of thin air. Many of the old exploits and bugs affecting XP systems had to do with aspects of its design which were changed considerably in Vista and later. (We're talking everything from restricted areas of the system registry that random apps aren't allowed to change anymore, to issues related to Active-X and the older versions of IE which XP users are forced to use since the new ones won't install on it.) I doubt hackers, moving forward, will put a huge effort into finding new exploits for IE version 6,7, and 8 that weren't already patched, or trying to write malware that wouldn't be effective in the first place on any Windows version with UAC?
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You'll notice my first sentence echos the GP's almost word for word. I'll readily admit that as hyperbole, but I didn't start it.
As for those old win98 and 2000 systems you mention - I have had the "pleasure" of helping people upgrade from them, years after they went EoL. One word: Ugly. These things pick up so much malware (not even counting the viruses you can't see, just the obvious shit that doesn't even try to hide) you may as well just publish yo
Couldn't agree more (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Good for you. (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Good for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed.
'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...
Thing is, that does sound crazy to me. It sounds compulsive and anal retentive. I wouldn't be surprised if he also only operates his computers while wearing a tinfoil hat inside a Faraday cage that he built in his basement.
You know what I do? I install a modern operating system and pretty much leave it alone. I have never been infected, simply by keeping up to date and not engaging in high-risk behavior. I'd rather spend a few dollars now and then than sit around re-running security checks, but I guess I'm not retired and I don't have the time to be a kooky security nut. I know, someone is going to bash this post because Slashdot has a lot of kooky security nuts, as well as a strong contingent of people who like to hack together weird solutions for what may be non-existent problems. And that's fine as long as you're doing that because you like doing it. Just don't go pushing it as a good idea. You're making everything more difficult for those of us who have to support these things for a living.
The best strategy for most people, especially in terms of doing work for your business, is to stay relatively up-to-date with supported hardware and software.
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For suspicious email attachments, I deploy private proprietary bioware (me!) to analyze before opening.
IOW, "im smart enough to ignore common IT wisdom".
Run out of date software, pay the price. Ask the Debian guys whether using "private proprietary bioware" protected their OpenSSL keys-- clearly those updates dont matter THAT much, right?
Re:Good for you. (Score:4, Insightful)
I see dozens of computers a year running modern operating systems with up-to-date anti-virus software and firewalls installed that are full of viruses and other malware. User behaviour is the major problem here and his paranoia and your wisdom are probably what protect you the most, not the version of Windows you do or do not run.
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I deal with the same thing, but the reality is that it is very often a result of (A) user behavior; and (B) outdated software. That outdated software isn't always the OS, but often it's Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash Player, or the Java plugin. If I can make sure all the software on your system is completely patched and up-to-date, I will drastically cut your chances of infection. Don't even try to claim that having the latest patches for Flash/Java don't help your security. And how long will Adobe/Oracle su
Re:Good for you. (Score:5, Interesting)
My father in law runs windows 98SE. He says he doesn't have problems with viruses anymore
as all the viruses are written for the newer systems. It's not worth people's time to infect an OS
with a small userbase.
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You got that right. I do absolutely nothing to stay secure; I fool with computers enough on the job.
I've got XP SP3 installed with no updates, and only Avast protecting it. It finally occurred to me that my home computer is really just a Chrome & Warcraft display appliance. I bet the same is true for a lot of folks.
Re:Good for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
Energy Usage of 12 PCs per Person Adds Up (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Energy Usage of 12 PCs per Person Adds Up (Score:5, Interesting)
That's just wasteful. At least while doing things in the Cloud, there are efficiencies of shared resources.
I have my own cloud. My home network of machines have had Wake On Lan support since the 90's. When I get updates, I download the data ONCE than mirrors it to the others internally.
You can run a computer efficiently or not, just as you can run a cloud efficiently or not.
IMO, that we do not have OSs inherently focused on decentralization and interoperability is the primary reason both "upgrades" and management of our multi-device lives is needlessly painful.
Software doesn't wear out. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Software doesn't wear out. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not worried about the folks on Slashdot. I'm worried about the Maaco shop up the road, which had an XP computer the last I checked. I'm worried about my husband's aunt and the photos of her grandkids. I'm worried about the ATM in the gas station.
Re:Software doesn't wear out. (Score:4, Insightful)
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and I can still use updated versions of Firefox or Chrome for browsing the web
For now. Many open source projects are starting to drop XP support. For example XBMC just dropped it for their next version. I expect vista is up next. It is 8 less combinations to test for as XP had a few flavors out there. Most acted the same but some had a quirk or two.
Look its ok you run an old OS. No really it is. But do not plan on the open source guys to have your back. They will get bored or will not be able to fin
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Pretty much this. And frankly, even without NAT, you're still safe as long as your software firewall is functional.
Functionally, you need two things to infect a machine. A weakness you can exploit on target machine and a vector through which infection goes in. If you lock up the latter, having former doesn't matter.
My grandpappy done left me this XP (Score:5, Funny)
And I ain't leavin'!!! Ya hear that gubmint?!?
Re:My grandpappy done left me this XP (Score:5, Funny)
Your wrong.
Hardware requirements (Score:5, Informative)
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).
Re:Hardware requirements (Score:4, Insightful)
This isn't a new problem. We still have Windows 95 and OS/2 boxes that can't be upgraded. The only difference with the XP end of life is that XP is easier to continue to support yourself.
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I've got a DOS machine behind me that we use frequently. Need it to run special software that runs ISA boards. Couldn't be easier to maintain. My only fear is the motherboard dying and having to find a PC with ISA bus.
Re:Hardware requirements (Score:4, Insightful)
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That's why (if they're smart) there are three spare ISA cards on the shelf, or more, preferably already installed in identical machines.
I work with a group that has ISA-based cards for research data acquisition (EEG variant, if I remember correctly) with a study that's been running for 20+ years on the same subjects. They can't swap the hardware, because the output data wouldn't be directly comparable -- newer equipment is "better", but in terms of continuity for the research, they need the same, not bette
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Everyone running old specfialized hardware which is not compatible with windows 7 or later feel the pain of the XP end of life.
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.
It is a shame, but I have no sympathy for those who embrace planned obsolescence. [archive.org]
Re:Hardware requirements (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes! I'll make sure to pass on the message to that company that closed down 3 years ago and to the guy who retired 8 years ago.
Its a shame indeed, all the self inflicted toture they are causing me.
But I'll bet they answer that themselves find it a shame that non of the companies producing the hardware respecting the requirements for the sub-components themselves only supported windows. In that sence, I guess on could say it's a second level indirectly self inflicted toture.
Or they will remind me how there is a real world, with real problems, real limations and where you do not have the control on everything.
Re:Hardware requirements (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
It is a shame, but I have no sympathy for those who embrace planned obsolescence. [archive.org]
Alright wiseguy, then tell me what the "open source" solution is to my companies key fob system that periodically runs a hash against itself to protect against code injections, checks against VM's by dialing out of the system to an external client and only runs on XP? Is someone handing these systems out? Are we going to organize a flash-mob to come in and rip apart our walls and rerun the cabling to and from the locks on all of the doors on two separate floors and through concrete flooring while replacing the proprietary locking mechanisms? Who is it that is going to be so generous with their time and reprogram this thing for our 200+ employees? There are in fact some things that your precious open source community does not provide and that are necessary for businesses to meet certain industry standards
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Bullshit. The free and open source software frequently simply doesn't exist for specialized hardware. Period. Not to mention, I find it very unlikely that free and open source will long continue to support XP - Firefox, for example, has already dropped support
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Wow. Way to embrace ideology rather than reality.
What do you say to the business that has a $1M+ printing press, which has software that only runs on Windows 2000 Server, and interfaces through a physical PCI card? Fuck you, replace your $1M perfectly functional hardware because GPL?
Good luck with that. I'd personally tell them to get a $50 NIC and plug it into the box they use for imposition and stripping, and put that RIP server on a second private network with no routing whatsoever.
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Re:Not available (Score:4, Funny)
There are several accounting solutions out there, just a quick search found:
http://www.gnucash.org/ [gnucash.org]
http://turbocash.net/ [turbocash.net]
http://frontaccounting.com/wb3... [frontaccounting.com]
http://www.sql-ledger.com/ [sql-ledger.com]
http://ledgersmb.org/ [ledgersmb.org]
Her is a list of replacements for AutoCAD:
http://blog.cometdocs.com/10-g... [cometdocs.com]
Besides GIMP there is Krita and Cinepaint, and GIMPshop provides a Photoshop like interface. GIMP does have plugins if one needs CMYK. Inkscape does Vector Graphics. Scribus is more of a replacement for Illustrator.
There were some lack of features years ago. The options have matured since then.
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Everyone running old specfialized hardware which is not compatible with windows 7 or later feel the pain of the XP end of life.
Or high-priced software they got through warez channels which won't run on 7, and which they can't "renew" because DRM got better...
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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... A clear solution has still to be found...
I think this is actually a good argument as to why those people shouldn't be using Windows in the first place. There may be other arguments, e.g. "On a practical level, they had no choice," but I just want to point out that this is exactly the kind of thing FOSS advocates are talking about for years, while most of the world dismissed them as being paranoid.
If you're dependent on specialized hardware, and you will need ongoing support over years or decades, you might want to look for a system that uses an
Outlook Express? (Score:2, Insightful)
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I use Thunderbird for Email, I have never used Outlook, Express or otherwise
Email, online banking, and some games that won't run on 7 are mainly all I use my XP box for these days.
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Difference (Score:3, Insightful)
"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"
Re:Difference (Score:4, Insightful)
Not about greatness (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Not about greatness (Score:4, Insightful)
We have a custom app that won't work right under 7 or 8 and we're kind of stuck with it. It's been a thorn in my side for years. We had an opportunity to migrate it to a more modern technology years ago but the guy in charge wasn't comfortable with the idea and I didn't have the clout to push it. Now it's not worth the expense.
Anyway, after much trial and error we've decided the best thing to do is just run it under a virtual machine. It's a pain but it's workable.
"Normal" People (Score:5, Insightful)
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".
Personally (Score:4, Informative)
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 [dabs.com] (£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.
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If you consider that a horrific sum of money, I'd hate to see what you think of my monthly grocery bill, or gas for two weeks. I paid $35 for a Windows 8 license when it first came out... I still use Windows 7 for now, but I have the license to upgrade to once I'm convinced 8.1 has the bugs shaken out.
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When Windows 8 first came out, an upgrade license was $40, although there were various promotions that would let you get anywhere from $5 to $15 off. I used it to upgrade from Win 7 Ultimate to Win 8 Pro, found that some of my video drivers weren't available for Win 8 yet (when it was brand new), so I went back to Win 7. The deal lasted from launch until Jan 31, 2013.
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Windows 8 is even more expensive to buy a worthwhile edition of.
Windows 8 Pro costs less in fact (£110 [dabs.com]), and if you can live without Hyper-V or Bitlocker (which you obviously are living in XP world) you can go with normal Windows 8 for (£72.99 [dabs.com]). This is all besides the point that calling ~£100 for an OS that will last ~10 years [microsoft.com] "horrific" is a pretty gross exaggeration.
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Except that it isn't the lifetime of a decade, is it? Microsoft will want you to "upgrade" and pay them more in a year's time, like they did with Vista -> 7 -> 8. And as I mentioned elsewhere, changing my PC hardware means I have to go through some stupid reactivation process.
If only there was an update tool from xp to win 7 (Score:5, Insightful)
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 ;-)
What DOESN'T run on WindowsXP? (Score:2)
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
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Anything that requires a 64-bit OS and, by extension, anything that needs more than ~3.5Gb of RAM to run (well) as well as anything that needs DX10+ and any new hardware that doesn't ship with XP drivers. This might not be that much now, but it will start to increase dramatically from today onwards.
And no, XP 64-bit does not count, it's a bastard hybrid of XP & 2003 Server and nothing really supports it properly.
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
No, they won't, at least not in statistically significant numbers. The cost and hassle of an
What a waste of time (Score:5, Insightful)
I prefer to use my computer for actually DOING something else than spending all that effort on just keeping it running.
Stop making it difficult then (Score:2)
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.
what a clueless idiot (Score:2)
bullshit (Score:2)
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.
Re:bullshit (Score:5, Funny)
Webmail loads slower?
Not that I am aware of. From the summary:
the Start menu will return to Windows sometime in the coming months
It appears that they tested it on a really slow computer. On my computer, the start menu appears just after I have clicked the button...
If it ain't broke... (Score:5, Insightful)
XP still in use in many technical environments (Score:5, Interesting)
Wrong way of looking at it (Score:3)
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.
Hittites (Score:2)
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I used to run DOS3.3 on an Apple ][+
I got that in '81
PR#6
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Would like some of that malware with sprinkle of virus with that XP patch from best-patch-torrent.ro?
Re:Viva La XP! (Score:5, Funny)
I have a 1984 Tandy 1000 that does exactly what I need it to do - give me bragging rights in Internet threads about how my niche usage case is relevant to all users, everywhere.
Re:Viva La XP! (Score:5, Funny)
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I have a conch that does exactly what I need it to do - To hear the lamentations of their women.
Re:Viva La XP! (Score:5, Insightful)
Do people really not get it?
Short version: They have a perfectly working computer with all their stuff on it. Why should they have to throw it in the trash and go through all the pain/expense of an "upgrade"?
(Not to mention all the printers/scanners/etc. that will stop working if they do...)
What about all the essential software that won't work except on XP because it's attached to some hardware? (eg. at my local car repair shop)
You'd have to be stupid to think all these people are just "whiners who need to get with the program".
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I'd upgrade right back to WinXP if I could. Win8 is currently blocking access to all my apps, the WinStore won't load, and the store broker loads in the background and uses up half the system resources. Microsoft's "support" response? Go back to the days of Win95 and format/re-install because they can't be bothered to figure out what broke it (oh btw, 4th time this has happened)
What's the point of getting support from a company who doesn't actually want to support you?
Re:Viva La XP! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Viva La XP! (Score:5, Funny)
I'd upgrade right back to WinXP if I could. Win8 is currently blocking access to all my apps, the WinStore won't load, and the store broker loads in the background and uses up half the system resources. Microsoft's "support" response? Go back to the days of Win95 and format/re-install because they can't be bothered to figure out what broke it (oh btw, 4th time this has happened)
What's the point of getting support from a company who doesn't actually want to support you?
I think what you're supposed to do is just bear with it until you can buy Windows 9. And then just bear with that until you can buy Windows 10. See, the problem with XP was that it actually worked. Microsoft has since solved that problem.
Re:Viva La XP! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention that, for many people, Windows XP is the only desktop operating system they've ever known.
XP has been around for 13 years. In consumer technology, that's an incredible length of time. After so many years of consistency, of course there are going to be people - millions of them - who don't want to face change.
Re:Viva La XP! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly. I bought a high-end desktop five years ago with XP on it because the only alternative was Vista. It's no longer my primary machine, but I use it for occasional gaming and desktop publishing.
If I chose to upgrade to Win7, I would probably need to add RAM to keep it running at the same speed it does now. Add on the cost of 64-bit Win7 and I'm well over $200, just to keep a machine running that is ALREADY running just fine.
Not to mention the headache of making sure everything is backed up and then re-
Re:Viva La XP! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention that, for many people, Windows XP is the only desktop operating system they've ever known.
Yep.
The night watchman downstairs asked me yesterday what this message was that appeared on his computer (he'd copied Microsofts "XP is over" popup message onto a piece of paper to show me).
He's an old guy, probably about to retire, hasn't got any money for a new computer. What exactly is it that makes him an "XP diehard"? Maybe he's just an "ordinary person".
Re:Viva La XP! (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a XP based oscilloscope - 20Gs/s, 3.5GHz, deep memory. The vendor won't upgrade it. A replacement is probably >$20K. One of its features is that it can run on the network, but that requires security. Our lab has other expensive XP based hardware as well.
I don't think Microsoft should be *required* to keep supporting XP, but there are a lot of people who are using it because it is the most practical choice for their application.
For normal desktop computing I upgrade hardware and software on a reasonable schedule. Laboratory equipment tends to have a much longer useful life than desktops and is much more expensive. Most of the computers I use are modern, but most of the $$ value of computers are expensive specialized lab equipment.
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I have a $100,000 digital cinema projector. (I own an operate a movie theatre.) The projector runs on Windows XP. Fortunately, it's not connected to the Internet; the server and associated hardware are a self-contained network. I load ("ingest) movies onto the system from CRU hard drives that arrive by courier or bus.
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Going from XP to 8 is like trading in your American Standard for a porta potty. Because, you know, porta potties are portable.
Re:Viva La XP! (Score:4, Interesting)
XP is more than capable enough for real world computing usage. I hate to admit it, but it's become kind of a shining example of how derelict this upgrade cycle is.
Vista Capable marked the point where computers outperformed the needs of the operating system and the applications, in a huge way. It was bad enough that Vista never grew out of the reputation. Windows 7, while more efficient, still suffers the same issues if you limit its RAM to 1GB. That sounds reasonable coming from the perspective of using Windows 7 as a base point, but it's completely unreasonable when you take into account the fact that you can run 99% of the same software on a system that takes a fraction of the resources. The security issue is a real and nasty one, it's fact that you can attach an un-patched Windows XP computer to the internet raw and it won't last long enough to perform the updates. But that risk disappears when you add even the most basic NAT router to the mix. Every attack vector beyond the remote service exploits requires enough user interaction to DISAPPEAR if not for the human element of people throwing in all kinds of untrusted crap and pretending like their problem doesn't exist.
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Who posted this obvious price of Microsoft propaganda on Slashdot?
People have lots of valid reasons for not upgrading from XP. They may have a piece of mission critical hardware for which there are no Windows Vista drivers. This happens a lot with laboratory equipment and medical machines. They may have a collection of software which does not run on Windows Vista or later. Fact is Microsoft broke compatibility with a lot of software especially games and multimedia apps. When Vista came out they changed the
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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 suspect that it won't actually help them much (except in that the XP-bots will presumably make spewing malware even cheaper, as if that is what we needed...)
Anybody still running XP now is either some sort of cheapskate/eccentric (unlikely to be a good customer), or running a special-purpose application (more likely to airgap/firewall/deepfreeze than to introduce a new variable on a probably antiquated machine), or running some sort of ghastly legacy mess where keeping everything exactly as it was is w
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Re:Viva La XP! (Score:5, Funny)
I have a 1987 BBC Micro in my sitting room which does everything I need it to do, which is be a 1987 BBC Micro in my sitting room.
Re:Viva La XP! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Viva La XP! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Didn't we used to call this "speed reading"? (Score:4, Funny)
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 :)
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VB6 programs run on Windows 7 as well.
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When XP came out, most hard drives were under 10GB. 20GB was considered large. When Windows 8 came out, 500 to 1000GB was the norm and 2000-3000GB wasn't uncommon. It was rare to see any drives under 250GB. SSDs were only starting to become mainstream, but they still really aren't.
So if we do the math, XP itself would take up 20% or more of a normal hard drive at the time. Windows 8 would only take up 4% of a normal hard drive or 8% of a small hard drive when it came out. If you give developers more hardwar
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