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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

#71

Post by chris_wot »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #46
Shivetya wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, that's pretty much the current situation anyway with a lot of folks.

Re: Microsoft ends support for Windows XP and Office 2003

#73

Post by scholia »

andygates wrote: post #65
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...

That works out at about £13,000 for our site, which is £16 per XP box. Our renewal program - like many big public-sector ones - is contingent on budget, manpower, and horrible crufty software for which there is no more modern compatible alternative or update. Or where the update is just broken (gee thanks), so we have to wait out vendors' promises versus a ticking clock.

£16 per XP PC is a big discount on the official rate of $200 for the first year....

Re: Microsoft ends support for Windows XP and Office 2003

#74

Post by scholia »

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.

If their installed apps mean they can't move from XP to Windows 7, it's hard to see how they can move Linux....

In any case, if they have the usual volume licensing deal with Microsoft, they can use any version of Windows without charge.

Re: Microsoft ends support for Windows XP and Office 2003

#75

Post by amits89 »

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...

Windows XP is incorporated so deeply in utility management systems, that it would cost an estimated US$100 million and several years of work to upgrade the outdated system. Research by EHI intelligence revels that 85% of England’s healthcare system IT systems were still using Windows XP. http://www.dazeinfo.com/2014/04/07/hackers-will-pounce-micro...

Re: Microsoft ends support for Windows XP and Office 2003

#76

Post by scholia »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #64
FollowSteph3 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't realize it but Apple does this all the time. Goos luck running most 5+ year old mac on the latest Mac OS X ;)

OS X Mavericks today runs on some machines that are 7 years old. True, that's still not great, but better than you claimed.

Doesn't run on 32-bit machines, doesn't support classic apps. Doesn't run on PowerPC-based machines, obv.

Re: Microsoft ends support for Windows XP and Office 2003

#77

Post by scholia »

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.

Windows 8.1 runs pretty well on XP hardware, and Update 1 will run even better (minimum 1GB). You might have to buy a cheap graphics card. It browses much faster than XP on the same hardware.

Otherwise, if you have people who wouldn't pay for a cheap Windows upgrade (launch offers), they probably don't want to spend a huge amount of time and effort figuring out a "free" Linux with all the other complications you mention. On their own. From scratch.

Re: Microsoft ends support for Windows XP and Office 2003

#78

Post by nyrina »

CodeCube wrote: post #63
jmnicolas wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was speaking about the suppliers : they almost have a monopoly and can do as they want with their customers. This is so bad that one of them shipped us a software upgrade with a hard-coded ip address. Next time the ip change they will have to recompile ...

/barf That reminded me of a company I worked at. We were moving to a new datacenter, and the job of auditing and moving all of the scheduled tasks fell to me. A good 75% of the scheduled tasks were .exes for which we did not have the source code; and they all had connection strings hardcoded. Thankfully, they were built in .NET, so I was able to decompile them, move the hardcoded stuff to .config files, and get it mo…

What did you use to decompile them into a project that was actually good enough to read through, change the needed things and compile it again?

Re: Microsoft ends support for Windows XP and Office 2003

#79

Post by skyebook »

danielweber wrote: post #70
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upgrading an OS OS is a lot cheaper than upgrading a proprietary one.

Yep, if they run into any issues, just post to the Ubuntu forums, and lazer420 will tell you how to fix it!

Or there's always the paid Canonical support. But the thought of David Cameron hunched over a laptop having some tea and getting assistance from lazer420 in saving the NHS from the next heartbleed is priceless.

Re: Microsoft ends support for Windows XP and Office 2003

#80

Post by nyrina »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #46
Shivetya wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For someone that doesn't know what google is, and are barely able to click on that Internet Explorer icon - much less use it once it does open, my mother is far from what I'm worried about.

My sister, clicking everything that looks flashy, though... Her, I'm worried about.

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