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Millions in Asia still on Windows XP

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Re: Millions in Asia still on Windows XP

#41

Post by kunai »

harshreality wrote: post #40
bruceb wrote: post #3

For the avg user that only needs internet, office, and music/movies Windows XP is good enough. What does Vista/7/8 offer a person using a Pentium 4 level computer? Nothing really worth paying for. I am surprised MS doesn't get more credit for XP which could be seen as a relativity dependable workhorse. Problem is for MS of course they ended the need for the users to upgrade.

Windows XP extended support ends in April (2014). Having your computer hacked due to unpatched OS and browser should be worth paying to avoid. If you don't feel like paying, there's always linux distros, *bsd, nexenta OS... http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/default.aspx?LN=en-us...

This notion that there will suddenly be 5000 gazillion 0days as soon as XP loses support in April, and that as soon as you go on the Google homepage on May 1st, is ridiculous and absurd.

I've been running unsupported XP SP2 on one of my older machines for over a year now. It's connected, runs applications, email, and internet services. No hacks, no worms, no rootkits, no nothing.

Just use a good antivirus and you'll be fine. AFAIK there hasn't even BEEN a 0 day patch for XP in more than 3 years.

Re: Millions in Asia still on Windows XP

#42

Post by cpeterso »

ck2 wrote: post #5

Not just Asia, I've yet to find something that I need beyond XP for, and the US government uses XP everywhere. (though Firefox lack of mpeg4 support is annoying because we don't have windows media foundation on XP) Will grudgingly look at Windows 7 in 2014 when security fixes cease.

I also see Windows XP on a surprisingly number of POS machines (point of sale, not the other ;)

I also see OS/2 on some ATMs.

Re: Millions in Asia still on Windows XP

#44

Post by mmagin »

namecast wrote: post #32

South Korea's dependence on Windows seems to continue; I wonder how much is related to SEED, the weird crypto-via-ActiveX implementation that's held them hostage all these years. ( http://kanai.net/weblog/archive/2007/01/26/00h53m55s )

That post is from 2007, are they STILL stuck with this?

Re: Millions in Asia still on Windows XP

#45

Post by hrjet »

kunai wrote: post #41
harshreality wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows XP extended support ends in April (2014). Having your computer hacked due to unpatched OS and browser should be worth paying to avoid. If you don't feel like paying, there's always linux distros, *bsd, nexenta OS... http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/default.aspx?LN=en-us...

This notion that there will suddenly be 5000 gazillion 0days as soon as XP loses support in April, and that as soon as you go on the Google homepage on May 1st, is ridiculous and absurd. I've been running unsupported XP SP2 on one of my older machines for over a year now. It's connected, runs applications, email, and internet services. No hacks, no worms, no rootkits, no nothing. Just use a good antivirus and you'll…

Just curious. How can one be sure that there is no worms or rootkits installed?

Re: Millions in Asia still on Windows XP

#46

Post by cpeterso »

Mozilla continues to support Firefox on Windows XP precisely because of XP's huge install base in Asia. It is a struggle, though, because Microsoft would rather not spend any time or money supporting XP with Visual Studio's toolchain.

Re: Millions in Asia still on Windows XP

#47

Post by bgroins »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #26
xutopia wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean "all of it"?

All of the custom internal applications written over the last decade or so that provide vital business functionality, I'd have thought.

Yep. I work at a hospital so switching to Linux would impact 100% of our applications.

I understand the desire (especially on HN) to switch to Linux, but it's just not a plausible solution for most institutions. It sounds great in theory if you don't think about how all of our end user applications are running on Windows, have specialized hardware and drivers, not to mention people love the shit out of MS Office.

Re: Millions in Asia still on Windows XP

#48

Post by kunai »

hrjet wrote: post #45
kunai wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This notion that there will suddenly be 5000 gazillion 0days as soon as XP loses support in April, and that as soon as you go on the Google homepage on May 1st, is ridiculous and absurd. I've been running unsupported XP SP2 on one of my older machines for over a year now. It's connected, runs applications, email, and internet services. No hacks, no worms, no rootkits, no nothing. Just use a good antivirus and you'll…

Just curious. How can one be sure that there is no worms or rootkits installed?

I'm not quite a security expert, ask tptacek for confirmation, but you can never be sure. However, signs do start to crop up, and I haven't had any of the supposed "symptoms" of something like TSS/TDSS.

Re: Millions in Asia still on Windows XP

#49

Post by mmagin »

The simple truth is that corporate users tend to be very cautious about upgrading (and who can blame your average IT department for its conservatism) and many individual users only upgrade when they buy a new PC.

In my feeling, by analogy, Windows 2000 was like when they first put modern electronic ignitions and truly reliable fuel injection in passenger cars (making a whole class of maintenance and problems a thing of the past). Now it's just like buying the latest boring mid-sized sedan with slightly different styling.

For me, Mac OS X, ten years ago, was like getting a Tesla. Desktop OSes have become such a commodity since then though.

As much as I don't like the iOS model and its restrictions and business model, it's probably the first serious innovation in "desktop" OS products in a while.

Re: Millions in Asia still on Windows XP

#50

Post by scriptstar »

I just finished a project where I worked as a front-end lead developer using HTML5, CSS3, jquery, bootstrap, backbone.js and all I had was a trusted XP machine provided by my employer. It was fine and I don't see any point in this argument. Unless you are doing an earth shattering and mind numbing things. Honestly developers can live and work well with XP machine. I am the living proof.
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