The XP is falling! The XP is falling!

[Perd Hapley]

Microsoft sets XP adrift on the ice, this coming April. We still have one such box at home, which my wife uses for web-surfing and occasional word processing. Is this anything to worry about? Should we just stick with XP? (She's never virused-up a computer, so far.)

I think it will probably run Win7, but we should probably save new OS money for something else.

I never use my laptop, which has Windows 7, so I may just replace it with that.

Or if there's a *nix flavor that anyone would recommend for hassle-free web-surfing and Hulu/YouTube viewing, on older hardware, we could go that route.

Thanks.

[Brad Johnson]

Get Win 8. It's great. 

(Someone had to.  Might as well get it over with now.)

Brad

[Regolith]

Still have XP on the desktop I'm using at the moment. It has really held up well as far as OS's go.

[Perd Hapley]

Still have XP on the desktop I'm using at the moment. It has really held up well as far as OS's go.

Sure, but it gets no more updates after April-something. Unless someone is going to be making bootleg patches for it, or something. 

[Perd Hapley]

Get Win 8. It's great. 

(Someone had to.  Might as well get it over with now.)

Brad

If it weren't for the money factor, I'd get 8.1 for my machine, and put this copy of Win7 on that other box. Just to learn somethin' new.

[vaskidmark]

If it weren't for the money factor, I'd get 8.1 for my machine, and put this copy of Win7 on that other box. Just to learn somethin' new.

And I bet you upgraded to iOS 7 on your iphone, too.  Just for the experience.  Riiiight. [/Bill Cosby voice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bputeFGXEjA ]

stay safe.

[bedlamite]

If it weren't for the money factor, I'd get 8.1 for my machine, and put this copy of Win7 on that other box. Just to learn somethin' new.

If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is.

[RevDisk]

Microsoft sets XP adrift on the ice, this coming April. We still have one such box at home, which my wife uses for web-surfing and occasional word processing. Is this anything to worry about? Should we just stick with XP? (She's never virused-up a computer, so far.)

I think it will probably run Win7, but we should probably save new OS money for something else.

I never use my laptop, which has Windows 7, so I may just replace it with that.

Or if there's a *nix flavor that anyone would recommend for hassle-free web-surfing and Hulu/YouTube viewing, on older hardware, we could go that route.

Thanks.

Yes. Not immediate zOMG Sky iz Falling! level of worry, but I'd move away from XP when practical after April. You don't want to use an OS that is not patched, period. A good quality AV will buy you more time.

Win7 or ubuntu. They make LiveCDs that you can try before you switch over. Worth trying out, at a minimum.

[Ben]

Yes. Not immediate zOMG Sky iz Falling! level of worry, but I'd move away from XP when practical after April. You don't want to use an OS that is not patched, period. A good quality AV will buy you more time.

Win7 or ubuntu. They make LiveCDs that you can try before you switch over. Worth trying out, at a minimum.

Yup, that.

One idea if you want to save money is to do the OS swap between computers as you mentioned, but on your laptop, install Linux as a host OS, install Virtualbox, and run XP out of that as a VM. At least then if you do get hit through a vulnerability, it's likely it will be limited to the VM.

[cosine]

My main "internet 'n email" desktop is still running XP. I'm planning on replacing XP with Linux Mint and LibreOffice after April.

[BryanP]

If you know anyone who insists on keeping their XP box, for God's sake at least get them to use another browser besides IE.  Firefox or Chrome with Adblock at a minimum.  Adblock & Noscript if you can convince them.

[roo_ster]

Yes. Not immediate zOMG Sky iz Falling! level of worry, but I'd move away from XP when practical after April. You don't want to use an OS that is not patched, period. A good quality AV will buy you more time.

Win7 or ubuntu. They make LiveCDs that you can try before you switch over. Worth trying out, at a minimum.

Linux Mint gets my nod over ubuntu, after doinking around with it a bit.  A bit more ready to roll out of the box.

[Ben]

If you know anyone who insists on keeping their XP box, for God's sake at least get them to use another browser besides IE.  Firefox or Chrome with Adblock at a minimum.  Adblock & Noscript if you can convince them.

That's the other big thing. While I'm not a big IE fan, XP will only run a very vulnerable version of IE. Not using IE is an option for most people, but for instance, I have work sites I have to use that require IE. So if you do anything that requires it, XP is out for you.

[lee n. field]

Microsoft sets XP adrift on the ice, this coming April. We still have one such box at home, which my wife uses for web-surfing and occasional word processing. Is this anything to worry about? Should we just stick with XP? (She's never virused-up a computer, so far.)

I think it will probably run Win7, but we should probably save new OS money for something else.

I never use my laptop, which has Windows 7, so I may just replace it with that.

Or if there's a *nix flavor that anyone would recommend for hassle-free web-surfing and Hulu/YouTube viewing, on older hardware, we could go that route.

Thanks.

How old hardware? 

Ubuntu changed between 12.04 (long term support -- still supported) to 12.10.  The kernel now has a specific requirement that older hardware often doesn't support.  https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EnablingPAE.

How much RAM?  Ubuntu has turned into almost as much a RAM hog as Windows.  Xubuntu might be the ticket here.

[never_retreat]

I was just thinking about this the other day.
I've been spending a lot of time in the last 2 weeks at the hospital (gf's mother) every computer that I've seen is still running xp.

[Perd Hapley]

I was just thinking about this the other day.
I've been spending a lot of time in the last 2 weeks at the hospital (gf's mother) every computer that I've seen is still running xp.

There's going to be a whole lot of unpatched XP out there for the next few years. I guess the Obama will have to give us all free upgrades. To Win 8.0.  Then they outlaw Classic Shell.


I think I probably will put Linux Mint on that box. I guess there will be a new LTS version in April?

[Azrael256]

I was just thinking about this the other day.
I've been spending a lot of time in the last 2 weeks at the hospital (gf's mother) every computer that I've seen is still running xp.

This is a huge problem, actually.  Lots of dumb, or at least not very smart, terminals in healthcare run XP.  Probably half of the workstations still do.

Happily, support for the embedded OS in your MRI/Ultrasound/etc. imaging machine and the like get another 18 months or so.  Heck, NT4 embedded systems are still supported.

[Hawkmoon]

Sure, but it gets no more updates after April-something. Unless someone is going to be making bootleg patches for it, or something. 

It's running the programs she needs to run?

Why would she need patches?

[Fitz]

It's running the programs she needs to run?

Why would she need patches?

Security vulnerabilities are discovered all the time in various OSs. Using unpatched OSs = very bad

[TechMan]

What Fitz said.

[lupinus]

Security vulnerabilities are discovered all the time in various OSs. Using unpatched OSs = very bad

Dis.

Hacker dude finds new back door, in an unsupported OS no ones closing that back door and nailing it shut.

At work we've upgraded every terminal in the place as prep for a move to windows 7. Looks like we will be skipping 8 entirely.

Wife's work...no idea Wtf they're doing. Her computer is a slow POS with XP, so I'm betting it won't do 7. Interested to see what they do.

Sent via tapatalk

[Tallpine]

Will most of the old XP machines even run Win7 

[Jim147]

Will most of the old XP machines even run Win7 

Yes, you have to remember the whole Vista fun thing where a lot of computer with plenty of power to run Vista or 7 were downgraded? to XP by choice.

jim

[lee n. field]

Yes, you have to remember the whole Vista fun thing where a lot of computer with plenty of power to run Vista or 7 were downgraded? to XP by choice.

jim

Yup.  I think I may have sold one or two Vista machines during the Vista era.  The rest were "XP downgrade".

[Gewehr98]

Will most of the old XP machines even run Win7

Surprisingly, yes.

They may not run it very fast, but they'll run it.