Microsoft: Windows XP Users Are Missing Out

[rolli59]

New OS is not always the answer when people are still running legacy hardware that does have little to none driver support in the newer OS's. The hardware gets just as obsolete.

 

[masteroftheuniverse]

Linux is free and way better than windows 8.

 

[rokit]

"Companies still on Windows XP are missing out on tangible benefits of modernizing their IT investments from dramatically enhanced security, broad device choice to meet the needs of a mobile workforce, higher user productivity, and lower total cost of ownership through improved management capabilities," the representative said.

But Mikes, the best thing is that they don't miss anything. In fact they transcended to the new level of enhanced security, broad device choice to meet the needs of any workforce, higher user productivity, and lower total cost of ownership through migrating to Linux based servers and workstations.

 

[smelly_feet]

+1 to just disconnect from the web. But add lock down those pc's. The should be treated as appliances and run only the legacy software. There are plenty of cheap refurbished pc's suitable for running xp, so xp compatible hardware replacement shouldn't be an issue for a while. xp compatible pc's will be available long after the lifetime of the hardware they're controling, imho

 

[coolitic]

Honestly, just stop using xp. If you don't keep with the times, you lose, not any1 else.

 

[capt_taco]

While I'm in no way in favor of being forced to pay Microsoft, it's long been understood that if you want to run software from 15 years ago, you're pretty much on your own. I've got a bunch of PCs from XP all the way back to DOS 2.1 that I use to play old games sometimes, and while it sucks that they're not supporting XP any more, eventually it happens and you move on. It was 13 years ago - I mean, a lot of software companies from then aren't even still in business anymore.

 

[DA_Maz]

Well MS needs to understand that Win7 and Win8 bring nothing new to office PCs, but in fact only has disadvantages.-) Many companies use custom built software they payed for being developed on WinXP. If they upgrade they have to pay once more to build the same software for Win7 or Win8. -) Many periphel manufactureres have gone out of business in the last 7 years and while their hardware works fine, they sure as hell won't release new drivers for windows7+. Buying new hardware just because you are upgrading the OS is sutpid and unefficient.-) Office PCs are built as low spec as possible. The fact that Windows 7 needs nearly 5 times the RAM to just run is the biggest problem with it (265MB vs 1.3GB). I still don't understand why MS doesn't try to optimise their OS in this regard.Easy solution would be Windows XP mode for every new Windows and an option to start Win7/8 in minimum mode that would ditch all the unnecessary graphical stuff while freeing more RAM. But MS is going in a different direction as Win8 shows. They are emphasising easy to use/"intuitiv" one size fits all design. They are forgetting that the insane customizability and multifunctionality along with a passable gui was always Windows strongest selling point. If people wanted to buy a PC for one thing only they got consoles or apples the rest got PCs.

 

[ta152h]

I find it entirely disingenuous that Kevin is telling us what we should be telling people. If someone is using XP, or any computer that does what they want, I tell them to use it until they need something better, and to back up anything important. Of course, I've worked in IT for 30 years, so actually have a base understanding of how things work. People who write (poorly) about things, instead of actually do, are easily influenced by big company propaganda. The biggest security hole is always the user. The OS is the least of the problems. I was running on Windows 2000 for 10 years without ever getting a virus, and really only moved from it because of driver support was problematic. I have XP, Windows 7, and Windows 8.1 now, so I speak from experience. Windows 7 is the worst, as it's just so god awful slow. 8.1 is faster, and has more features, and once you basically make it behave like Windows 7, is far superior to it. XP is still my favorite (except for Win 2k), as it's so fast, light on resources, and so simple. Telling people they need to upgrade to Windows 8.1 isn't my role in life, I don't work for Microsoft. I'd rather give them good advice that will save them money, allow them to work with what they are comfortable with, and hopefully help them avoid malware they could just as easily pick up on any OS. But, I don't subject myself to Microsoft brainwashing.Besides, why not just move to a more modern system like a Chromebook? It's pretty much idiot proof, and much more secure than anything Microsoft has. For a very casual user, it saves money, and is easier to use and maintain. For anyone else, they should know how to avoid viruses.

 

[wiyosaya]

I've upgraded 3 of my family members computers to win8 and it has been nothing but headaches. From simple things like using email, opening up pdfs (onenote goes fullscreen and they can't exit out) to printing a simple doc, win8 is so counter-intuitive for non-tech savy people and just mucked things up for those who are familiar with the decades old windows interface (that wasn't broken and working just fine). Personally, I have no problem with win8 but don't like having to waste my time on unnecessary headaches. For those that just want to run 1 program at a time (browse web and check emai)l, a p4 with 512 ram does everything just fine. I'm curious if M$ has run all the costs of forcing people off a beloved OS, I mean so many software companies would kill for that market penetration, but making an OS ain't easy.

Exiting out of all apps in 8.1 Metro is easy enough - Alt+F4 - just like it used to be - or, at least in 8.1, just switch to the desktop and run apps from there. It is almost identical to the previous desktop user interfaces complete with the X in the upper right corner.

I am completely with everyone who thinks it is very costly to upgrade. Almost certainly, new hardware will be required to run 8.1 as fast as XP, and non-technical people have great difficulty with 8.1.

 

[jimmysmitty]

I find it entirely disingenuous that Kevin is telling us what we should be telling people. If someone is using XP, or any computer that does what they want, I tell them to use it until they need something better, and to back up anything important. Of course, I've worked in IT for 30 years, so actually have a base understanding of how things work. People who write (poorly) about things, instead of actually do, are easily influenced by big company propaganda. The biggest security hole is always the user. The OS is the least of the problems. I was running on Windows 2000 for 10 years without ever getting a virus, and really only moved from it because of driver support was problematic. I have XP, Windows 7, and Windows 8.1 now, so I speak from experience. Windows 7 is the worst, as it's just so god awful slow. 8.1 is faster, and has more features, and once you basically make it behave like Windows 7, is far superior to it. XP is still my favorite (except for Win 2k), as it's so fast, light on resources, and so simple. Telling people they need to upgrade to Windows 8.1 isn't my role in life, I don't work for Microsoft. I'd rather give them good advice that will save them money, allow them to work with what they are comfortable with, and hopefully help them avoid malware they could just as easily pick up on any OS. But, I don't subject myself to Microsoft brainwashing.Besides, why not just move to a more modern system like a Chromebook? It's pretty much idiot proof, and much more secure than anything Microsoft has. For a very casual user, it saves money, and is easier to use and maintain. For anyone else, they should know how to avoid viruses.

I never tell people they have to upgrade but in a case where security holes, vulnerabilities and exploits will go unpatched and people will be at a much higher risk of having a malicious piece of software destroy their system, I will.

Recently there was a virus that would encrypt files. It wasn't that bad as the key was stored on the computer locally so you used an app that would decrypt them. Then a evolved version came that not only attacked local files but also attacked any networked drives on the system. To top it off it also took the key and encrypted it and stored the decryption key on a private server.

If the user removes the virus, they are screwed. If the user did not have a backup and say disabled Volume Shadow Copy (in Vista or newer) or had XP where it didn't act the same and thus file recovery was not capable, they are screwed. I had this happen to a business and we had a backup but VSC was disabled on the machines and the latest backup was a day old meaning any work done, hours worth, was gone all thanks to one person who got the virus and didn't tell anyone.

That is why XP is no longer "good enough". When it was being patched, it was. When it got the latest software and driver support, it was. It will no longer get any of that meaning people on XP will not only have to deal with the holes that are found in XP itself but also with older software that will also have holes and issues.

Anyone who allows a friend or family member to stay on XP after April is allowing them to risk their safety.

I've upgraded 3 of my family members computers to win8 and it has been nothing but headaches. From simple things like using email, opening up pdfs (onenote goes fullscreen and they can't exit out) to printing a simple doc, win8 is so counter-intuitive for non-tech savy people and just mucked things up for those who are familiar with the decades old windows interface (that wasn't broken and working just fine). Personally, I have no problem with win8 but don't like having to waste my time on unnecessary headaches. For those that just want to run 1 program at a time (browse web and check emai)l, a p4 with 512 ram does everything just fine. I'm curious if M$ has run all the costs of forcing people off a beloved OS, I mean so many software companies would kill for that market penetration, but making an OS ain't easy.

Exiting out of all apps in 8.1 Metro is easy enough - Alt+F4 - just like it used to be - or, at least in 8.1, just switch to the desktop and run apps from there. It is almost identical to the previous desktop user interfaces complete with the X in the upper right corner.

I am completely with everyone who thinks it is very costly to upgrade. Almost certainly, new hardware will be required to run 8.1 as fast as XP, and non-technical people have great difficulty with 8.1.

If you have a system that runs 7 or a modern system, 8 will actually run a bit better as it is less resource intensive.

If you have a asinine old XP machine, well you need to upgrade anyways.

 

[soldier44]

Those that still use XP probably don't care what they are missing out on...

 

[Oldschoolfool]

W7 works great and W8 was a ploy to make some extra cash to show off to hey Apple look what we can do. That is why Microsoft is walking away from W8 and going to W9 sounds familiar?

 

[InvalidError]

W7 works great and W8 was a ploy to make some extra cash to show off to hey Apple look what we can do.

I do not see where the cash is with Win8: many people got it for $0 due to a bug in M$ upgrade promotion, many more got it for ~$15 through an incredibly permissive new-PC/laptop-owner promo and the upgrade price for Win8Pro was only $40 instead of the usual $100. I got my Win8Pro upgrade (from Vista Ultimate) for $15. IIRC, they even had an offer to "legitimize" pirate keys for $25 when upgrading to Win8.

To me, that looks like Microsoft was desperate to push Win8 in the market at almost any cost. I bet many M$ execs got surprised that so few people actually jumped in on what probably was the cheapest Windows upgrade ever.

 

[jessebb]

Windows XP is barely acceptable in terms of hardware and applications support.

The only reason that is is because they don't see themassive aamounts of users and devices using xp. Not only that but Intel has forgotten many 2idly used drivers includes in computers and laptops especially and their hardware that almost all computers in there prime had. And so many people are outraged at this and no one has the sence to bring up the facts that way WAY more people are outraged and otherwise pissed about it than they even realize. And the fact that 30% of all computers are running the single gateway (not the brand) in unbelieaveable os' s (xp) and there saying were making out!!! That's just fucking rude!!!!!!! And somewhere I uploaded a huge rant and It got sent somewhere is these articles.

 

[nss000]

No Luddite here! I **have** recently built-out a XEON workstation ... it runs UBUNTU/GNOME naturally for which I can use FOSS utilities or write my own C-code analytics. But, for a hardware controller & data-appliance which any decent I-486 could power that Celeron + WinXP serves admirably! Best to use-what-works-now and watch trinket-pushers, squint-boiz, cartoonists & M$ suffer.

Oh yeah when I write lubbydubby notes to my galpal I use cotton paper & a 1949 Shafer silvertip ink-pen. Retro = hottsietottsi she sez ...

My 10-yo celeron COMPAC and WinXP run my science datalogging software just fine. Zero value to me in upgrading either OS or HW. Yeah yeah M$ codebois and WallStreet flipster$ need the loot. Scr*w them!

Good grief. If everyone took that attitude, MS would go under and then there would be zero support for the 87% of the world that runs variants of Windows on PCs. Nobody is FORCING

 

[therealduckofdeath]

If you can't find at least windows 7 drivers, probably time to move on.

Yup! Feel free to purchase that new laptop for me. This is probably the only thing I don't like about computers. I've got an X1800XL All-In-Wonder TV Tuner Card that became useless when Vista came along. Now I've got a laptop which I use primarily for finances that is about to become much less secure.

I get it, that some people can't even afford buying a new-ish used laptop at $100. But, does that mean Microsoft should turn into a charity for longer than they have? It's absolutely unprecedented to support a commercial desktop operating system release for nearly 1½ decades. All that service costs money on Microsoft's end. If your computer really isn't powerful enough to support Windows 8, or if you really are so strapped for cash that you can't afford a new $20 TV tuner, I think it's simply up to you to not connect that PC to the internet if you want to keep it free from malware. Personally, I think Microsoft were far too lenient when they extended the support period the last time, and still, after extending it up to this year, people still find reasons to complain about it.

 

[nss000]

Better to just admit there's a battle between M$ and generic computer lusrs. The more we fyuck them in the *zzwhole by squeezing new value from old product the tighter our own *zzwhole stays. M$ has no **right** to profit from us and we have every right to scr*w them at every turn. It's called ... "the market".

If you can't find at least windows 7 drivers, probably time to move on.

Yup! Feel free to purchase that new laptop for me. This is probably the only thing I don't like about computers. I've got an X1800XL All-In-Wonder TV Tuner Card that became useless when Vista came along. Now I've got a laptop which I use primarily for finances that is about to become much less secure.

I get it, that some people can't even afford buying a new-ish used laptop at $100. But, does that mean Microsoft should turn into a charity for longer than they have? It's absolutely unprecedented to support a commercial desktop operating system release for nearly 1½ decades. All that service costs money on Microsoft's end. If your computer really isn't powerful enough to support Windows 8, or if you really are so strapped for cash that you can't afford a new $20 TV tuner, I think it's simply up to you to not connect that PC to the internet if you want to keep it free from malware. Personally, I think Microsoft were far too lenient when they extended the support period the last time, and still, after extending it up to this year, people still find reasons to complain about it.

 

[azz156]

Why does Tom's keep running these Microsoft PR press releases? Microsoft doesn't care in the least if your PC gets infected by some scary "virus". What it does care about is whether those 26% (which account for several hundred million people) buy sparkling new copies of Windows 8 at $100+ a pop.

so? i think 14 years of support free of charge is pretty dam good of them and all you had to pay was the initial $200 for a oem copy or nothing if u got it with your new pc (yeah yeah i know they add it in the price but you don't have to buy it separately). name one other company that has supported a single piece of software for so long.just end the madness and upgrade, ubuntu, win7, chromeOS anything lol

 

[Paulb47]

^ My nearly 30 years in Enterprise IT would tend to contradict the contention immediately above. First of all I've NEVER worked in IT where PC's where anything but workstations for email and other like tasks. Never had the pleasure of a Development or Deployment environment PC based. That said, even if it's just employee workstations, there's seldom much of a rush to jump on board with MS's timeline. I remember how long it took to migrate from NT to 2000. IT prefers to have most of the bugs worked out Well before "upgrading". For that matter, no IT organization I've ever worked with or for handed PC's. That was typically done by in-house "tech support" and they were well qualified to keep the PC's running very smoothly and without any calls to Redmond. From a more personal perspective, though I have machines with 8.1 and 7 Pro, my workhorse Personal computers remain XP based.. Granted as I get more and more into connectivity issues and streaming Win 7 IS clearly better at all things networking than XP but-- I'm not hurting. MS should probably have given more thought to a smoother transition from XP to 7, which wasn't THAT much of a paradigm shift. Surface, is still very much a work in progress. BTW, MS is in the business of writing and hawking mostly junk OS's so if over a quarter of their customer base is still XP based, it's not hard to figure that they're going to be making an increased marketing push to SELL more product. Ultimately it will be lack of driver support that pushes this cart forward--as it was going from 2K to XP. XP was NOT significantly better than 2K, but once even 3rd party stops gening out drivers it's game over. Whole thing reminds me of the Auto Industry and their new models every few years.

 

[littleleo]

I started telling my customers to start an upgrade plan back in October. They should remind their customers about the end of support for Windows XP and give them a plan to upgrade a few computers per week, month or what ever time frame works best for their customers. The idea is not to wait and have to upgrade an entire office at the last moment that makes it very disruptive and expensive.

The biggest issue is the legacy software and hardware that only runs on Windows XP. Special hardware equipment cost can top $10K, and customer software can be equally expensive plus the time to train staff on the new version, loss of productivity during that period. The lack of compatibility with the new versions of Windows makes many very reluctant to upgrade. By building in better backward compatibility MS could have reduced this problem. The lack of recognizing this issue shows the problems that has plagued MS for years; lack of vision and poor leadership.

 

[jaslion]

Sure windows 8 has benefits (SARCASEM) however windows 7 and vista did hve some good benefits (vista from sp2)

 

[Ahumado]

XP is old and tired and looks pretty bad but it is fine for where I work

 

[techguy911]

I don't think the NSA will be happy about this they are still running XP Pro so is most of millitary and the Government as a whole they are already on a tight budget.

 

[littleleo]

A lot of the Government and even NASA has gone to Linux its more stable and less viruses and malware.

 

[j2j663]

I don't see how people can complain about having to upgrade. This should not be a surprise to anyone and everyone should have plenty in their budget to cover the upgrades, you have had 10+ years to plan and save for it.Lets take the car analogy. You don't buy a car and then piss and moan at Ford, Chevy, whoever when it dies after 300,000 miles (thats about the equivalent to XP right now). From the first day you buy the car you should be saving for a repair fund. Eventually those repairs become too costly and your repair fund should be large enough by then that you can look at purchasing a new car. Of course a mechanic is going to be able to get a few extra years out of a car that he/she owns but for the majority of people its a better deal to get a new a reliable car than stick with the old money pit.Long story short, if you don't have it in your budget to upgrade your machines you aren't very good at budgeting.