Posted on 04/11/2019 3:44:04 PM PDT by dayglored
Welcome to Day One of the post NT 5.1 era
Windows XP has finally reached the end of the road, as the last supported variant - POSReady 2009 - is supported no more.
Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 which, as its name suggests, is designed to run apps that shriek "Unexpected item in the bagging area" at shoppers as disinterested staff look on, finally reached the end of support yesterday, marking an impressive run for the veteran operating system.
As recently as last month, readers were sending us images of XP getting poorly in places such as UK aspirin-flinger Boots while one of our own Vultures was thrilled to spot the aged OS fiddling with its disk in our local grocers.
Microsoft emitted the last update for the poor old thing on 5 April, in the form of KB4487990, which tinkered with the time zones for São Tomé and Príncipe, and Kazakhstan's Qyzylorda.
After that, there was only silence.
Support for Windows XP memorably ended back in 2014, amid much wailing and gnashing of teeth, as enterprises realised that they would have to finally migrate off the platform. XP had already been around since 2001 but, with many skipping the disastrous Vista, plenty of XP workstations lingered on.
Some users, such as the British government, kept the flame alive by paying cold, hard cash to Microsoft for updates while others discovered that switching their machines to POSReady mode via some registry changes would keep the trickle of fixes coming through.
While it's true that elderly Windows XP machines remain a fertile ground for miscreants, machines running the OS actually foiled miscreants during at least one recent malware outbreak, at the NHS in 2017, when they were memorably found to have rolled over and played dead too often to effectively spread the WannaCry ransomware.
Poorly patched Windows 7 computers were the main attraction for the hackers, who were notably foiled by WannaCry ransomware killswitch hero Marcus Hutchins.
As a reminder, Windows 7 is due for its own appointment with the Microsoft axe-wielder in 2020.
While Microsoft cheerfully suggests that a move to Windows 10 or Windows 10 Pro is in order for POSReady 2009 machines, the hardware is unlikely to enjoy the experience, so those with the devices might be better just swapping out the equipment.
The aforementioned pharmacist, Boots the Chemists, told us it would be upgrading to a newer version later this year.
For the rest of us, it is time to gather around the campfire of blazing XP EULAs, hold hands, and sing songs of green field backgrounds and irritating yellow search dogs.
And then install ReactOS. ®
Wait, did they just call Windows a "POS"?
Fine by me, I still use it.
At least, I THINK it means Point-Of-Sale....
XP forever unless I can install 7 and dual boot between the two. Thats a question. I tried to paste my system properties screen but forgot that you can’t paste. Guess I have to store the image somewhere and then reference it. Oh well.
Me too
My dentist’s office is still running Windows XP.
At some point you’ve got to put the thing out to pasture.
What about the HMS Queen Elizabeth?
Sadly, my XP box died years ago. It’s the only AMD machine I ever built, and the only one to have died. Hence, I think I will be sticking with Intel.
I should boot up my 98 box at some point and play some Duke Nukem for old time’s sake, though...
I have an older XP box sitting right along side of my Win7 machine. I have some 20 year old DOS software that supports a very expensive and irreplaceable piece of hardware that refuses to run properly on anything but an actual 32-bit XP system. No emulation allowed.
Anyway, every time I fire up that old dog, I am reminded how great XP really was. OK, it’s not as stable as Win7, but it is up and running long before Win7 even begins to wake up on a machine that is theoretically faster.
I’m NOT a computer guy, but I know I really liked XP.
Good Hunting... from Varmint Al
The only improvement I've seen with W10 is saving screen shots.
I can't stand the W10 tiles and the start menu tiles. I delete things and they reappear and new tiles appear for sites I have no interest using.
I have used the program to restore the old start menu but W10 keeps reverting to the new tile system.
One of the worst new W10 functions is the Search.
With XP when I did search it searched for what I was looking for on my computer. Now it searches the internet.
That's not what I'm looking for with the search function.
Do your search in Windows Explorer (the little file folder on the bottom of your screen). It’s not rocket science and it works just like the stupid dog in WinXP.
My humble opinion- After Microsoft being involved in Chinese AI, it should be barred from any defense related platform.
I got XP and 7 dual booted on my machine. It’s easy.
I got XP and 7 dual booted on my machine. It’s easy.
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Thats not what I wanted to hear,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
cause now I gotta think/see if I can do it. My computer programming/building days are long behind me. I once wrote a cache to be used instead of MS cache. The company measured its effectiveness against MS cache and it was faster. But those days are gone. I got 200GB free space on C:. HMMMMMMmmmmm
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