fofl
Posted on 03/12/2013 2:55:18 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
A large number of Microsoft customers are in for a rude awakening on 8 April 2014.
With less than 400 days to go, 15 per cent of those running Windows XP are still unaware that that’s the date Microsoft finally turns off all support for its legacy PC operating system, according to a recent survey.
After 8 April next year, Microsoft will no longer make bug fixes or security updates for Windows XP, meaning customers will be naked and vulnerable to hackers and viruses and on their own in terms of code updates and fixes. Support for Office 2003 also finishes on the same date, with the same implications.
The findings come from a survey of 250 strategic IT types by application migration specialist Camwood, which polled chief information officers, technology officers and IT directors at organisations that run more than 2,000 PCs.
Fifteen per cent is a decent chunk of the Microsoft customer base. Windows XP is still used on 39 per cent of desktops – just behind Windows 7 on 44 per per cent.
XP was first released in 2001. Since its release, Redmond has pushed out Vista (2006/7), Windows 7 (2009) and its most recent OS, Windows 8 (2012).
Where there is awareness of the end of support, Camwood found 32 per cent of XPers still have not started migrating to newer versions of Windows.
That means this group will almost certainly end up running Windows XP past Microsoft’s April 2014 cut-off, and be in exactly the same predicament in terms of vulnerability to hackers and malware - and of course won't be receiving any code fixes.
Kevin van Heerden, Camwood’s head of software, told The Reg there’s no chance that those who have yet to begin the process will be able to migrate in time. Even a basic migration of just 1,000 PCs would take more than a year, depending on application and data complexity.
“Windows XP is the hackers port of call in terms of trying to get a foot hold and establish botnets,” Van Heerden told The Reg. “They are opening themselves up to risk. It’s like letting your car insurance expire – the car won’t stop working, but you are exposed to a lot of risk.”
The application migration specialist blamed the launch of Windows 8 and Microsoft’s frenetic push for consumer adoption of the new kit for the fact so many customers still don’t know about the end of support. The same was not true for previous versions of Windows, said Van Heerden.
Some customers are confused about whether to go with Windows 8 or Windows 7. This, of course, has implications from the perspective of the PC hardware that they will buy – whether it’s touch-enabled or not – and application migrations. This is adding another layer of decision-taking to the Windows XP migration debate.
“One customer said if you are going to push a new UI on employees, you might as well go all in and go Windows 8 rather than Windows 7,” Van Heerden said.
The software migration specialist says that in other organisations, there has been a grass-roots rejection of anything that takes end users away from their beloved Windows XP. “In a large percentage, they have had staff resistance – a grass roots saying they want to stay on Windows XP because they are familiar with it,” he said.
Van Heerden also said that there had been an absence of leadership from Microsoft on migrations, which he believed was caused by Redmond’s focus on consumers instead of businesses with Windows 8 - adding that the emphasis on product launches during 2012 had diluted messaging.
“There was a lot more buzz around the turn of the century because people were rolling Windows NT 4 and Year 2000 projects together, and there was an immense amount of IT experience. The move to Windows XP was a huge exercise on Microsoft’s part but last year was largest year in Microsoft’s history.
"With new versions of Windows Server 2012, operating system (Windows 8) and mobile, [Window XP migrations] are getting lost in the confusion,” he said. ®
I liked Vista, preferred it over XP. More stable. I’d recommend switching to 7 though if you’re upgrading from XP.
No. Go to Win 7. Vista is crap, Win 7 is essentially Vista with all the bugs fixed. Pretty good OS.
Stay away from Win 8. You have been warned.
XP is STILL better than Vista, Win7 and Win8.
They don’t need to support it - the damn thing is stable and easy to use.
I disagree. The government has it's tentacles in way too many aspects of your life, and corporations, as is -- that said, I think Microsoft could get some kudos if they released it [XP, or even Win98se] to the general public as freeware/open source.
I agree 98 was a fine system — it’s especially impressive when you look at the minimum requirements for what it is (32-bit OS w/ full graphical-environment).
Unless I'm mistaken, Slimbrowser is a front end overlay for IE. A nice one but still IE under the covers.
Yes it should! The Obama Administration should intervene immediately and tell Microsoft that it cannot stop supporting a 12 year old product because it's still in use by people who are too lazy, stupid, or both to upgrade their computers to a supported operating system.
Yep, the Obama Administration and the Federal Government have done such a good job regulating our economy and business they may as well regulate the operating systems on our desks!
All Heil Obama/OS!
Of course this is sarcasm, does it really need a tag?!
Try File Explorer’s Tools/Folder Items/General/Click Items As Follows... I have 1 & 3 checked. There are other things to try to under that option; maybe you can stabilize there?
I’ve never heard of the “jumpy” problem. Mine are all rock-solid.
Also, have you tried the Win-7 Community FAQ Database to see if other have had and solved the problem.
Wish I had your machines here so I could see exactly what’s happening. Usually, those niggling things have a “fix” buried in a layered menu, somewhere.
I'm using Win 7, and that's my whole suite.
Keep it behind a NAT router, keep your XP Firewall enabled, run the normal protection tools like a good anti-virus/anti-malware program, and run Firefox or Chrome web browsing through http://www.sandboxie.com/ and it’s very low odds of a malware infection taking hold even with no security updates. Still it’s best to get on an OS that can get updates for when there are security issues.
Our business knows. Problem is, they built a LOT of little programs that run on XP and have to be redesigned to run on 7. They’re getting there, but it’s taking time.
I really dislike Linux; the design philosophy of *nix & C is reprehensible to me -- the Worse-is-Better paradigm -- and I hold the opinion that it is a mistake to think of everything as "a bag of bytes."
There are much better ways to design things.
As the years passed and more game updates and Windows updates came about, the performance on the computer game dropped rapidly. (you could do mundane tasks like creating items in the game but any adventuring or fighting was out of the question) Finally I broke down and bought a new machine with the latest hardware and XP.
I used the old box to do what is called duel logging where you used two accounts in the game which enabled you to do a lot more things on your own.
Then one day the Millennium box crashed hard. and I lost the hard drive. A friend gave me an old hard drive he couldn't use anymore and I reinstalled Windows ME but decided not to do any Windows updates because all I would use the box for was duel logging in the game.
I loaded the game onto the box and got the game updated. As the years had passed the game got slower and slower to load on start up and when you moved to different zones in the game.
TO MY UTTER AMAZEMENT THE GAME RAN LIKE A TOP WITHOUT THE MICROSOFT UPDATES. In fact it ran almost as good as the new XP box with better hardware.
Used to be in the automobile industry they had a term for this.
IIRC it was called: Planned Obsolescence
I found that with that XYplorer linked above, it allows much easier access to the show hidden files function.
Ham handed amateur that I often am, keeping them hidden most of the time seems wisest .. lol !
Additionally, XY will show all subfolder sizes in the right pane when desired, rather than PD's annoying properties context route.
fofl
Industrial software running on 32 bit XP Pro, modifying files to create programs within the software to drive about 100 machines doing elaborate, on the fly custom manufacturing, that does not function in XP Mode, I don’t care who says it does, it doesn’t. We’ve tested that extensively. We’re effectively orphaned and will continue to be, until such time comes that the company replaces those 100 machines at about $50k a pop and retrains about fifty people on an entirely different set of software driving an entirely different set of machines. We’re not alone.
I hope our best friend Mahmoud Ahmadinejad doesn't read news. He thinks he owes the USA a practical joke of Natanz size.
Why cant they adapt? My company transitioned to 7 with almost zero hiccups and it is used in a lab setting.
Lab setting is a small pain. But imagine that you bought a CNC mill for $100K a while ago, and some software for it - like, say, Delcam PowerMill or MasterCAM. The total cost is maybe $130K. It all runs on XP, correctly and flawlessly (as far as those things go.) Do you feel lucky to wipe that XP box clean and install shiny new Windows 7? Are you sure that these programs are supported? Are you sure that they actually work correctly, each and every time? Will you be happy knowing that if anything goes wrong you will not be supported by manufacturers of any of these systems? That stuff is not cheap, you cannot just go to Fry's and buy a new USB camera instead of one that is no longer supported. At one place I saw an expensive universal programmer connected to a DOS machine. This is because the software for the box works only in DOS, and nowhere else. Can you replace it? Sure, just pay money. What will your boss say if you tell him that you want to spend big bucks just to stay at the same place?
Or, since you are talking about lab use, consider that often modern test equipment runs Windows XP. All Agilent spectrum analyzers, network analyzers, and such run XP. Do you think you can upgrade it there? You have no custom drivers for the instruments' interfaces, and you don't know even what computer board it runs on. An upgrade is impossible outside of Agilent (and they aren't going to do it anyway.)
There are also industrial controllers that are nothing but black boxes. They have terminals for motors and sensors, and an Ethernet jack. The rest is magic. Often they run Windows. You cannot upgrade this to Windows 7 or 8. Those boxes operate hundreds of thousands of meters, sensors, valves, motors, pumps, heaters, coolers, and everything else that you can find at a chemical plant, like a refinery, or anywhere else to that matter, from nuclear plants to sewage processing facilities. We cannot have a man at every switch and at every dial. Iranian centrifuges were ran by these boxes not because Iran doesn't have enough Iranians to run them manually; it's because you cannot run such machines by hand; control loop problems are too complex for a human mind.
Most WinXP users who have never used a newer version of Windows will find Win8 to be VERY frustrating. I suspect the learning curve for such users would not be as steep if they went to one of the modern Windows-user-friendly Linux distros such as (Ubuntu-based) Mint 14. Similarly, a Microsoft Word 97 user would be lost in Word 2013, but would feel right at home in the current Linux version of OpenOffice or LibreOffice Writer.
Same here. In the eighteen months since I've had my current setup, I haven't had a single security issue that wasn't handled - all with zero effort or inconvenience on my part.
Either I've gotten a whole lot smarter about how I internet, or I've finally got a security suite that works. I ain't all that smart, so it must be the latter .. LOL
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