Windows XP Unsupported from April 2014

[Roy Sletcher]

The problem that XP users face if they don’t upgrade then they will eventually get hacked (Infected), not right away but later rather than sooner.

That said the biggest problem they have is what do they upgrade too, Win 7 would be the most obvious and best choice but it’s not on sale anymore except for corporate users.

The next step is Win 8.1 but that presents another set of problems like your hardware more in lightly won’t support this newer O/S and the only way out of the dilemma is a new computer !

Now Win 8.1 is no more harder or difficult to use than XP is, it’s very much like the old Win 3.1 (Program Manager) and it does support drivers for most printer and scanners, if you install them correctly (Plug & Play).

The most alarming thing about this change over is the corporate sector, I know here in Ireland, 2/3 of the country are still happily using XP, like banks, Hospitals, Government Depts. and large multinational companies !

It’s going to be very interesting when one or more of these large organisations get brought down by a dedicated hacker and you then find you can’t access you bank account or worse, the power utilities shut down.

The is much speculation as to who’s going to be effected, a little a lot who knows till later in the year, it may turn out to be a damp squib only time will tell..

Remember the Y2K fiasco.

Consultants in North America made millions defending us against that non existent threat.

The naysayers were spreading the same FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) about the impending doom of the year 2000 roll-over, as the present day XP doom pontificaters (spl)

What was is Shakespeare said, "Much ado about nothing" or something like that.

RS

 

[stratman]

Windows XP still has life in it However, there are a number of reasons to upgrade the OS including but not limited to:

1) If the XP machine is used for internet access then future exposed OS exploits that will not be fixed by MS may be used to gain access to your machine. Just because you have internet security software - antivirus, anti-trojan, firewall, etc - does not mean you are protected. There is a reason MS updates.

2) Application software will eventually become outdated and not supported by the developer/company. This could mean money lost to a business.

3) Hardware has a definite lifetime and failure of a component(s) can mean even costlier days of downtime than a smoother and controlled migration to new equipment while potentially running the old and new system side by side while working the kinks out.

 

[stratman]

Remember the Y2K fiasco.

Consultants in North America made millions defending us against that non existent threat.

The naysayers were spreading the same FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) about the impending doom of the year 2000 roll-over, as the present day XP doom pontificaters (spl)

What was is Shakespeare said, "Much ado about nothing" or something like that.

RS

I did some computer consulting back then for a friend who owned several stores. One, or maybe two?, of his Point of Sale computers with their old BIOS failed testing and were replaced. The majority of his computers were fine on testing.

While the Media-spread fear far outpaced the reality after the fact, there were computers affected by the Y2K rollover that had the potential for lost days of business (AKA income).

 

[Emulator]

Apart from turbguy, no one has said much about 32bit versus 64bit. What are the fors and againsts, penalties etc?

 

[The Hat]

Yes the Y2K dilemma was overstated quite a bit so long as it didn’t effect you or your business and the many of us who were effected just took the necessary easy steps to correct the problem in time (No panic) as mentioned by our own @stratman example.

I did some computer consulting back then for a friend who owned several stores. One, or maybe two?, of his Point of Sale computers with their old BIOS failed testing and were replaced. The majority of his computers were fine on testing.

But this time it’s different because the problem isn’t the computer itself but rather the owners of these machines who have relayed on an aging O/S for far too long and believe they are perfectly safe and it can’t affect them !

Shakespeare said, "Much ado about nothing"

Joe public is blissfully unaware that this is going to affect them directly is some way or another because it’s not going to happen on a certain day of the week like the Y2K did but more so over a period of months, one day everything is fine the next day you could be broke !

Now nobody wants to tell their 100 or 20,000 customers that their personal date has gone (Erased) or been nicked and if it’s your data that has been comprised what will you have to say then.

This is going to be a real big headache for organisations that don’t take the necessary steps to stop this from happening, it’s not going to be the Consultants that’s making the money this time, instead it’s going to be the spotty faced kids who will be spending YOUR money.

Those of you who are still undecided can just sit on the fence and wait for nothing to happen and you won’t have too long to wait either, or you can start NOW to do something about it before this nothing to happen stops you in your tracks !

I passionately hated using Microsoft O/S and their applications for years because it was useless for publication work and I enjoyed using the Mac computer but slowly that all changed and I got used to its quirky ways and now like most other users use the Windows platform daily and frankly could do without it.

I do use from time to time Win 98, Win 2000, Win XP for backward compatibility conversions only (No internet), Win Vista 64 and Win 7 64 but this year I am going to give Win 8.1 a trail and am looking forward to it.

Apart from turbguy, no one has said much about 32bit versus 64bit. What are the fors and againsts, penalties etc?

The differences between 32 bit and 64 bit are minimal and it would be hard to judge between the two for everyday normal stuff, however if you use a machine with lots of RAM which is a great aid in Photo editing then the 32 bit sys will let you down because it’s limited in what it can see and use, security wise 64 bit is almost bullet proof (Far Better).

Now one final note on the question whether you should retire your faithful aging O/S or not, why not take a leaf out of @stratman book because when he decided to buy a new computer with Win 7 on board, he instead got a Win 8 up-grade and hasn’t look back since..(Pure inspiration)

http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/windows-xp-unsupported-from-april-2014.8651/#post-68643

 

[PeterBJ]

Apart from turbguy, no one has said much about 32bit versus 64bit. What are the fors and againsts, penalties etc?

I found this explanation: http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/32-bit-and-64-bit-explained.htm

A 64 bit OS will also run 32 bit programs, due to backwards compatibility, but some old 32 bit programs also contain 16 bit code. These programs will not work with a 64 bit OS.

Before deciding to buy a Win 8 64 bit computer it might be a good idea to check that your expensive hard- and software for profiling will also work with Win 8 64 bit.

 

[stratman]

Joe public is blissfully unaware that this is going to affect them directly is some way or another because it’s not going to happen on a certain day of the week like the Y2K did but more so over a period of months, one day everything is fine the next day you could be broke !

True. And some may never realize they have been compromised, at least until their financial data has been exploited. When MS stops updating with fixes/patches then hackers will exploit known flaws and end users will be vulnerable.

Now nobody wants to tell their 100 or 20,000 customers that their personal date has gone (Erased) or been nicked and if it’s your data that has been comprised what will you have to say then.

Oh boy. You have hit the bullseye here. I know someone who is responsible for the IT and accounting at a corporation just had his server with RAID 1 break. There was no warning that one of the drives went bad. Then another drive went bad. The most important file required for business corrupted beyond data recovery (major $$$ spent for nothing). The server was ~20 years old, though the hard drives were newer. The owner had been consulted on purchasing new equipment for a while but had not given permission yet. Now there will be new equipment and software including the OS. (Similar to XP no longer being supported). This will cost much more money than if an orderly transition were done.

The moral of this story is that it MAY be better to bite the bullet early on and upgrade rather than find yourself in a catastrophic position later on. Obviously this is more important for businesses to consider.

Those of you who are still undecided can just sit on the fence and wait for nothing to happen and you won’t have too long to wait either, or you can start NOW to do something about it before this nothing to happen stops you in your tracks !

True. The dogs bark but the caravan moves on. MS does not care, but the hackers do.

this year I am going to give Win 8.1 a trail and am looking forward to it.

That's the spirit, Uncle The Hat! But do keep plenty of liquid spirits on hand while you transition.

 

[Smile]

the IT and accounting at a corporation just had his server with RAID 1 break.

Yes I have many same model WDC hard drives break, so I know what you mean. Then again stupidity should not be the cause for any upgrades IMO.

 

[The Hat]

Yes I have many same model WDC hard drives break, so I know what you mean. Then again stupidity should not be the cause for any upgrades IMO.

+1

 

[turbguy]

I recommend that Windows 7 be used by all, rather than Windows 8. I like Windows 7...a LOT!!