I will be out of the house all day. This will probably be my last ping for today.
Posted on 03/29/2014 4:30:04 AM PDT by Las Vegas Dave
Windows XP is dying. On April 8, Microsoft will stop supporting the ancient operating system that was released in 2001 — and at one point was used by 400 million people.
You might think that an operating system that was actually engineered in the late 90s would be fully obsolete and unused by now. After all, since XP came out, Microsoft has released several major replacement versions: Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 (recently upgraded to Windows 8.1).
But there’s something about Windows XP. It’s basic, stable, fast enough, and good enough for a lot of people. It’s still running on more than 10 percent of the world’s computers, and it’s huge in China.
Still, it’s time. It’s hard to keep an operating system this old up to snuff in today’s online environment. XP works, but it’s not built to the same security level as modern operating systems. Microsoft doesn’t want to keep writing new security upgrades for it, so on April 8, it’s stopping. No more security updates. No more support. Your XP computer will still work, but Microsoft won’t help you anymore. Microsoft is pretty harsh about it: “XP cannot be considered safe to use after support ends.”
ends.”
Microsoft urges you to upgrade. There’s even a site that tells you when your XP world will end: AmIRunningXP.com. Microsoft also has more info on what "end of support" means. To be fair, moving off XP would be a smart thing to do. Newer operating systems are easier to use (at least most of them), they run the cool new apps, and they’re definitely safer. But how do you move from an old computer that’s running XP into the modern era? I’ve heard a lot of advice on how to make the transition. Not all of it good.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/still-on-windows-xp-heres-some-bad-advice-80911845810.html
“Ancient”, as in around 15 years old. LOL
I will be out of the house all day. This will probably be my last ping for today.
Microsoft urges you to upgrade. I wonder why? me thinks its not for your benefit only
FWIW, Microsoft is still going to provide support for XP in China.
I’ve been using Linux for the past 5 years . I do have a dual boot for those few times when I HAVE to use Windows but I’m never going back. I LIKE tinkering under the hood!
“Better idea #1: Upgrade to Windows 7”
Agreed. If you like XP, you will like 7 just as well.
Yep. Windows 7 is a better alternative. Staying with XP is asking for trouble.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I don’t like having to learn new tricks just to be trendy.
My old XP computer has been running Windows 7 with no problems for the past several years. This is a 2003 desktop that I built and has had several hardware changes (more ram, new video card, new dvd rom) but is using the original motherboard and cpu. windows 7 runs flawlessly on it.
My WinXP HP Media center m1070n is used for storing family photos (and also backed up on DVD’s). I see no reason to update it. (Any suggestions or comments are appreciated.)
My primary unit is a WINDOWS 7 HP Pavilion Slimline s5710f PC, and it works fine. I will be giving that unit a FREE PC checkup + Tune Up from OfficeMax. (I have had minor issues with it.)
Get a laptop or desktop with four i7 CPU cores.
From the boot time set up (BIOS, EFI, etc) ...
Turn on hyperthreads.
Turn on turbo boost.
Turn on Virtualization support.
I would disable secure boot for the Linux system, as it’s not really needed. Not yet.
Install Linux - RHEL, Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint, whatever. You can configure the new Gnome3 desktop to work like and even look like the Apple desktop. I’ve never done it, but one guy I know has.
Install W7 or W8 in a virtual machine running on your Linux system. I use VirtualBox, because it provides a “seamless desktop”. You have the Linux and Windows taskbars and apps sharing the same desktop.
Thoroughly firewall the Windows machine and run it without virus software. It’s only a virtual machine, so you can reinstall if by some chance it gets infected. Keep your data in a separate partition. There are tools to clean up your data if your Windows OS partition gets infected.
Best of both worlds.
If you want a trifecta, get an Apple. Big money, yes, but you can have virtual Windows AND Linux systems on the Apple, if you need to do development on those systems.
I am not an Apple fanboi, so please don’t flame me. I despise the fact that they do not allow you to buy their OS and run it as a VM on any other platform.
Well the thing is that it is broke and will continue to become even more broken.
The people that insists on staying with it like it is a TV or radio, are opening themselves, and others, to malicious malware because Microsoft rightfully will not spend any more of their money keeping some people’s goofy attachment to old software safe. It’s software, not a classic car.
If they are never going to connect to the internet again, then whatever. Somehow judging from the ignorance and cockiness of many of the XP holdouts, your average low-level hacker may do the job for MS and render those computers unusable.
Kinda funny, considering that a major part of Windows 7 operates on the XP base!
However, lately, I have seen that there have been no major updates, only optional ones, for Windows 7, too.
1) Stay off porn sites.
2) Keep your virus software current.
3) See #1.
And you’re fine to run XP until your machine physically dies. If you insist on visiting porn sites, do what the porn pros do and go to Linux.
If your XP machine is only used for storage, then there’s really no reason to update it. If you connect to the internet with it for browsing or email, then you’re potentially exposed going forward, as hackers are going to go into overdrive trying to roll out new exploits.
An alternative would be to take the drive out, and put it either in your Win7 PC as a second drive (assuming an open bay), or into an external case that you can hook to the Win7 machine via a USB cord. That would give you access to the photos.
A better option, assuming you’d be devastated if you lost those photos, would be to upload them to a web-based file storage service (DropBox, Google-drive, SkyDrive, etc.), where you can access from anywhere, and not risk a hard-drive failure and loss. Then you could “decommission” the XP machine.
If you don’t want to have your photos out on the internet, regardless of assurances about privacy, safety and security, then buy a USB back-up drive (1TB drives can be had for $60 or $70) and take copies of everything you want to keep. Encrypt and password-protect your backup drive, and store somewhere away from your main PC. You’d then have the original drive AND a backup, just in case.
but Windows 8 sucks.
Does XP contain provisions to be an Internet Server?
Windows 8 is not that bad once it was upgraded to 8.1.
The big problem is whether you have a touch screen or not. I do not, and I got use to it. And that big problem really isn’t much of a big problem because all you have to do is know where to click to find your desktop which looks just like windows 7.
I hated Windows 8/8.1 at first. Now it’s fine, especially since they added the start menu/touch screen button to the bottom left hand corner, that was my major complaint. You couldn’t find the darn thing. Now I enjoy using the apps on the start menu/touch screen for things like eBay, email, and Netflix.
However, I would buy a new computer with Windows 8.1 not try to upgrade something that is 4 years old, like the article says.
It’s like I told someone else who was trying to get used to Windows 8.1: You have the old desktop world everyone knows, and the touch screen world everyone hates. All you have to do is learn how to flip back and forth between both worlds and it begins to become very easy.
The other part that can be annoying is if your in the desk top world, click a photo to view, it pops up, next then you realize you’re in the touch screen world in a photo app. So there are times that you’re pulled into the touch screen but if you understand that you can instantly flip back to the desktop these annoyances just go away. It becomes intuitive like anything else.
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