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Microsoft ends support for Windows XP and Office 2003

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Re: Microsoft ends support for Windows XP and Office 2003

#41

Post by keithpeter »

kefka wrote: post #36
serge2k wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been more than long enough already. People who haven't upgraded yet fools at this point.

They are either fools or computers are not their lives. I know plenty users who Linux would be an ideal fit: web browser? Check. Office suite? Check. Device drivers for hardware Vista/7/8 dont have? Check. WINE layer for common XP apps? Check. Better security and malware defense? Check. And it's free, and wouldn't require any new hardware. Getting 7 on XP hardware would be mighty uncomfortable, if possible at all.

I teach adults. In my classes, I now have 3 or 4 people out of 20 who rely on tablets for all their Internet use, i.e. they don't own a laptop or PC. About half use a phone/phablet/tablet a lot but also fall back to a laptop/PC for some uses (e.g. Flash based learning materials).

I'd agree with one of the more 'automatic' GNU/Linux distributions for casual use on an XP era machine. I suspect the future will be disposable tablets however. I'm now talking to students about backups...

Re: Microsoft ends support for Windows XP and Office 2003

#42

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

dorward wrote: post #39
jurre wrote: post #6

Except for our government who are paying MS an exorbitant amount of money to keep support up... http://www.zdnet.com/dutch-government-pays-millions-to-exten...

You are not alone. The UK government is doing something similar. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/07/uk-governm...

Looks like Microsoft dropped the ball on this one - it's a government, they could probably have charged billions. Hopefully, the UK government will realise this, and either a) go open source b) get their house in order much earlier next time.

Re: Microsoft ends support for Windows XP and Office 2003

#43

Post by Maakuth »

jmnicolas wrote: post #24

Where I work we still have business specific apps that run only on XP and our suppliers have no plan on upgrading them (unless we fund the entire project, which they will happily resell full price to over companies). This is a clear example of what the lack of competition does

What you should do is to encapsulate these apps to virtual machines with reduced-credential users, tight firewall settings, non-essential services disabled, etc. If possible, create a separate virtual storage medium for the application data and snapshot the operating system & app virtual disk so that any changes to it will not persist.

Re: Microsoft ends support for Windows XP and Office 2003

#45

Post by andrey-p »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #13
aerique wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, that's just what I did for my mother. She got emailed by her bank that using Windows XP would not be safe anymore and worriedly asked what to do: "do I have to buy a new computer?" Since all she basically used was OpenOffice, Thunderbird and Chrome she's now running those three apps in Window Maker on Debian.

>> "She got emailed by her bank that using Windows XP would not be safe anymore" Before switching to Linux I'd recommend checking the bank supports it. I know a couple of banks in my country that use weird security systems that won't run on Linux/Mac.

There's online bank systems in Bulgaria that require users to run IE6.

Re: Microsoft ends support for Windows XP and Office 2003

#46

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

Shivetya wrote: post #20
higherpurpose wrote: post #8

Time to switch to Linux on old PCs.

uh, no. Quite a few people on XP are there because its what they know. It also is all they need. Personal example, I would love to replace my mom's computer but she likes her version of Office which was the version we installed when she obtained her PC, which runs XP. I suspect she isn't alone in not wanting to change something that works. For many people tech is just the annoyance they have to put with to do what th…

So you're going to leave your non-technical mom using an unpatched OS connected to the public Internet? Let me know how that works out.

Re: Microsoft ends support for Windows XP and Office 2003

#47

Post by flixic »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #44

Which versions of Internet Explorer are supported on Windows beyond XP? Is it now 'officially' impossible to support IE6 users anymore?

You are right. Here's wikipedia:

"It is the default browser shipped with Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, and was also made available for Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows Me, Windows 2000, and Windows Home Server (a derivative of Windows Server 2003). IE6 SP1 is the last version of Internet Explorer available for Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows Me, and Windows 2000. Although Internet Explorer 6 was superseded by Internet Explorer 7 in October 2006, Microsoft still supports it in Windows XP SP3."

Re: Microsoft ends support for Windows XP and Office 2003

#48

Post by andrey-p »

Shivetya wrote: post #20
higherpurpose wrote: post #8

Time to switch to Linux on old PCs.

uh, no. Quite a few people on XP are there because its what they know. It also is all they need. Personal example, I would love to replace my mom's computer but she likes her version of Office which was the version we installed when she obtained her PC, which runs XP. I suspect she isn't alone in not wanting to change something that works. For many people tech is just the annoyance they have to put with to do what th…

There's Linux distros that specifically try and look like Windows to make the transition easier.

Last I checked Zorin OS[1] was one of them but looking at their website now it seems they've decided to take a different route. It's certainly gone a lot more, um, sci-fi since then.

[1]: http://zorin-os.com/

Re: Microsoft ends support for Windows XP and Office 2003

#49

Post by gtirloni »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #42
dorward wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not alone. The UK government is doing something similar. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/07/uk-governm...

Looks like Microsoft dropped the ball on this one - it's a government, they could probably have charged billions. Hopefully, the UK government will realise this, and either a) go open source b) get their house in order much earlier next time.

How open source will fix it for an organization that can't bother to move from a decade old operating system? In 10 years we'll reading about the UK govt having trouble moving away from Ubuntu LTS 14.04.

They only have option b) if they won't to avoid this in the future. Open source or not.

Re: Microsoft ends support for Windows XP and Office 2003

#50

Post by m_mueller »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #44

Which versions of Internet Explorer are supported on Windows beyond XP? Is it now 'officially' impossible to support IE6 users anymore?

The IE6 compatibility issue should be mostly a thing of the past now, except for some corporate settings and china. But I feel IE8 will stay with us for a long time with a few annoying percentage points that can't always be ignored - and by now it's almost as bad as IE6 was 8 years ago. The only thing that makes the situation better than before is the much higher adoption of FF and Chrome, which at least keeps IE8 users at single digit rates for consumer websites.
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