It's The End of the Road for Windows XP, Office 2003, IE8

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memadmax

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What's all the hate on XP for? Just because they are not doing trivial "security" updates anymore doesn't necessarily mean it's less safe. And im sure most hackers have moved on to 8 or 7 as well too...
 
Good riddance, it was nice that Microsoft supported XP that long, but it's time to move on. The transitioning period for everyone has passed.

If you cannot pay 100 dollars for Win7 or Win8 for the next 4-6 years there is something definitely wrong. If you really NEED XP for some reason use a virtual machine with your copy, but I really doubt that anyone NEEDS XP.
 
For me XP is no real loss, but I'm still running Office 2003 on my Win 7 PCs. To me it has a cleaner interface and I just like it. I don't see this changing that, I run TrendMirco's AV software and rarely hear of virus' attacking Office apps.

But for XP, after using Win 7 since launch day, I find XP to be clunky. There are several small things in 7 that are so handy and I tend to miss when in XP or even Vista.
 

spectrewind

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What several of you aren't seeing is that there are legitimate business cases where some companies anchored to Windows XP CANNOT move on.

Quck and to the point, imaging running machinery that costs millions to replace that relies on NetBEUI to be programmed and updated. It is cost prohibitive for some of these companies to continue to exist with the necessity if installing IP-compatible hardware based on programming languages that may not even exist anymore by former companies that created them. In a lot of industrial companies, obsolete is how they make their ends meet and pay their staffing. Some of these companies are stuck with XP. The dollar requirements to upgrade would force them to close their doors.
 

holyknight1121

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Gotta buy a new laptop just to switch out of XP kind of sucks. My laptop is over 6 years old with old with Core 2 Duo @ 2.53 ghz and 2 Gb ram really can't handle vista nor 7 because the increased ram and cpu usage.
 

s997863

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"but I really doubt that anyone NEEDS XP"
nobody "needs" anything. I can get by without computers once they've become inconvenient/annoying enough. It's just that XP still has the least of what I really don't need. I don't need UAC, slow USB transfer speeds, insane memory usage just for opening an image in photo-viewer, unproductive touch-screen type explorer (win7). I don't need frozen ribbons, nor false formatting warnings trying to scare me not to save older file types that'll open for all users who have office-97 onwards (office 2007+). I don't need an internet file download dialog that takes 3-steps to save-as, instead of 1-step (IE-9). I don't need fake graphics "features" that are so insignificant that it's hard to compare side-by-side comparison screenshots on die-hard forums (Dx10+).
I guess I'm too old and ignorant on todays systems. I can't stand seeing 600MB of memory being hogged on and idle Win7 desktop vs 80MB for the same on XP, and not knowing where it's all going even after disabling similar services & background processes. I guess I'm too used to the old days when machines behaved like machines. I just hate it when I try to do some file delete/copy/cut/paste/rename work, and often win7 explorer denies access to some file, until I leave it idle for many minutes, as if it's doing a lot scanning or some such garbage in the background, even though I have no indexing, virus-scanning ... etc. or anything. It's a been a sad dark age for computers ever since you can repeat the same steps twice and not see the exact same results every time.
 

s997863

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"but I really doubt that anyone NEEDS XP"
nobody "needs" anything. I can get by without computers once they've become inconvenient/annoying enough. It's just that XP still has the least of what I really don't need. I don't need UAC, slow USB transfer speeds, insane memory usage just for opening an image in photo-viewer, unproductive touch-screen type explorer (win7). I don't need frozen ribbons, nor false formatting warnings trying to scare me not to save older file types that'll open for all users who have office-97 onwards (office 2007+). I don't need an internet file download dialog that takes 3-steps to save-as, instead of 1-step (IE-9). I don't need fake graphics "features" that are so insignificant that it's hard to compare side-by-side comparison screenshots on die-hard forums (Dx10+).
I guess I'm too old and ignorant on todays systems. I can't stand seeing 600MB of memory being hogged on and idle Win7 desktop vs 80MB for the same on XP, and not knowing where it's all going even after disabling similar services & background processes. I guess I'm too used to the old days when machines behaved like machines. I just hate it when I try to do some file delete/copy/cut/paste/rename work, and often win7 explorer denies access to some file, until I leave it idle for many minutes, as if it's doing a lot scanning or some such garbage in the background, even though I have no indexing, virus-scanning ... etc. or anything. It's a been a sad dark age for computers ever since you can repeat the same steps twice and not see the exact same results every time.
 

aznguy0028

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What several of you aren't seeing is that there are legitimate business cases where some companies anchored to Windows XP CANNOT move on.

Quck and to the point, imaging running machinery that costs millions to replace that relies on NetBEUI to be programmed and updated. It is cost prohibitive for some of these companies to continue to exist with the necessity if installing IP-compatible hardware based on programming languages that may not even exist anymore by former companies that created them. In a lot of industrial companies, obsolete is how they make their ends meet and pay their staffing. Some of these companies are stuck with XP. The dollar requirements to upgrade would force them to close their doors.
What several of you aren't seeing is that there are legitimate business cases where some companies anchored to Windows XP CANNOT move on.

Honestly, who gives a damn? I'm most likely gonna get down rated for this but why do people care so much about companies that can't afford an upgrade? 99% of us on here don't run or own a company and XP had such a long support run, it's really time to move onto greener pastures.
 


Dedicated industrial controller systems such as those shouldn't have access to the Internet anyway, so the lack of security updates shouldn't effect those systems anyway. The problem is companies that still have their office workstations running Windows XP, and those systems are connected to the Internet. Microsoft warned that they were pulling the plug on XP 7 years ago, that was plenty of time to either upgrade your software or explore virtualization or emulation options if you did have software that couldn't run in any environment newer than Windows XP.

If you absolutely must run XP natively for some piece of software to work, then your best option now is to run it on a computer in an isolated network segment that can't be accessed from the outside. Otherwise, you can do what some big corporations and governments are doing and buy extended XP support from Microsoft, though that will cost a pretty penny and is really only a stop-gap measure to buy you some time until you can complete your migration to Windows 7.
 
@s997863

600MB is nothing when 8GB is the standard, and to be doubled with DDR4 coming out. You might just be better off switching to a Linux variant if it supports your needs.

As someone who's used Windows extensively over the years like everyone else here I would say it's become easier to use and better over the years(disregarding Windows 8 Metro). Hell, I can run Windows 8 on some of my old computers just as well as XP with some setting changes.
 

ferooxidan

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"The company warns that Internet Explorer 8 users could expose their PC to additional threats if they continue to use the outdated browser." lol MS, all of your IE version is a threat to PC and slower than the competitor.

@holyknight1121:
"Gotta buy a new laptop just to switch out of XP kind of sucks. My laptop is over 6 years old with old with Core 2 Duo @ 2.53 ghz and 2 Gb ram really can't handle vista nor 7 because the increased ram and cpu usage." Wrong, my colleague at work has old lenovo exactly the same spec as yours and running win 7 nicely.
 

s997863

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"but I really doubt that anyone NEEDS XP"
nobody "needs" anything. I can get by without computers once they've become inconvenient/annoying enough. It's just that XP still has the least of what I really don't need. I don't need UAC, slow USB transfer speeds, insane memory usage just for opening an image in photo-viewer, unproductive touch-screen type explorer (win7). I don't need frozen ribbons, nor false formatting warnings trying to scare me not to save older file types that'll open for all users who have office-97 onwards (office 2007+). I don't need an internet file download dialog that takes 3-steps to save-as, instead of 1-step (IE-9). I don't need fake graphics "features" that are so insignificant that it's hard to compare side-by-side comparison screenshots on die-hard forums (Dx10+).
I guess I'm too old and ignorant on todays systems. I can't stand seeing 600MB of memory being hogged on and idle Win7 desktop vs 80MB for the same on XP, and not knowing where it's all going even after disabling similar services & background processes. I guess I'm too used to the old days when machines behaved like machines. I just hate it when I try to do some file delete/copy/cut/paste/rename work, and often win7 explorer denies access to some file, until I leave it idle for many minutes, as if it's doing a lot scanning or some such garbage in the background, even though I have no indexing, virus-scanning ... etc. or anything. It's a been a sad dark age for computers ever since you can repeat the same steps twice and not see the exact same results every time.
 


I'm running a Dell Inspiron 1720 from 2008 with Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2ghz, nVidia 8600m GT 256mb, and 4gb DDR2 667mhz, with Windows 7 64-bit and can run games like Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and Rift, on medium settings. The only upgrades I have done has been from 2gb to 4gb RAM, Windows Vista 32-bit (didn't know i could opt to keep XP at the time) to Windows 7 and a SSHD.

Don't be so quick to discount that laptops capabilities, a few upgrades and you're good to go.
 

gopher1369

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"On Tuesday Microsoft released the last of its updates for Windows XP and Office 2003. From here on out, customers still clinging to the decrepit software will have to rely on third-party products to keep them somewhat safe from hackers."

Not true. FREE support has ended. Several organisations are continuing to get updates from Microsoft, we just have to pay for them (mine included - NHS in Britain. I understand the Dutch government has done similar).
 

jase240

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Gotta buy a new laptop just to switch out of XP kind of sucks. My laptop is over 6 years old with old with Core 2 Duo @ 2.53 ghz and 2 Gb ram really can't handle vista nor 7 because the increased ram and cpu usage.

I have a laptop with the same CPU running Windows 7. Even 2gb of RAM is enough for Windows 7 and if you really need more you can upgrade your RAM.

I'm assuming your laptop uses 2 1GB sticks. Upgrading them with 2 2GB sticks shouldn't be expensive.
 

inanition02

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For those saying they need to get new computers to upgrade, you don't - Win 8.1 (I know, I resisted as long as possible too..but once you install Classic Shell it's pretty good) is running just find on my Atom convertible tablet with a 1.33ghz proc and 2 gb of ram and a 64 gb ssd - and it will even run Office 2013 pro.
 

belardo

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Good riddance, it was nice that Microsoft supported XP that long, but it's time to move on. The transitioning period for everyone has passed.

If you cannot pay 100 dollars for Win7 or Win8 for the next 4-6 years there is something definitely wrong. If you really NEED XP for some reason use a virtual machine with your copy, but I really doubt that anyone NEEDS XP.
Yes, XP is long in the tooth. But for biz computers, they may have issues that are far more costly than a $100 upgrade. Also, since MS is shoving Windows 8 up people's arses, that doesn't help.

At one of our offices, we have a $6000 plotter from HP for which they don't make a proper working driver for it. Its pathetic... so we have two PCs to talk to it, while the rest of the office is W7. Are you willing to buy us a new plotter?
 

belardo

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Gotta buy a new laptop just to switch out of XP kind of sucks. My laptop is over 6 years old with old with Core 2 Duo @ 2.53 ghz and 2 Gb ram really can't handle vista nor 7 because the increased ram and cpu usage.
That's odd.... I run Win7 on my Thinkpad (I purposely bought with XP back when Vista was everywhere).

It has a Celeron 1.7Ghz CPU (Low-end Core2 class CPU) and had 1GB of RAM, but of course has 2GB. Its not as fast as my i7-3570, but it runs fine for what it does.

If it doesn't work on your notebook, its an issue of drivers...
 

back_by_demand

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Perspective:-
Running Windows 95 in 2008 when Windows XP at the time was running a rock-solid SP3 and no reason not to use.

therefore

Windows 8.1 Update 1 and ClassicShell installed there is NO REASON to keep using Windows XP whatsoever
 

K2N hater

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It's all a matter of focus. We as home PC users do care about eye-candy settings, new cool features, security patches etc. Businessman on the other hand treat PCs as tools and most don't even let employees use it for internet, let alone large companies that must take into account specific hardware and software compatibility...
 
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