Windows XP End-of-Life Boosts PC Shipments

The end of support cycle for Windows XP is having an effect on the sagging PC market. Since its support ending, the PC market sales have reversed the long-time spiral and experienced a five percent rise in market share.

PC shipments have been boosted by the demise of Windows XP with shipments up by five percent compared to the previous year.

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I'd be willing to bet that most of those sales due to computer illiterate people who really have no clue what's going on. They heard on the 5pm news that XP was end of life and as soon as that happens their computer turns into the wild west of viruses and hackers trying to steal their CC info (because those guys in russia really want access to that high rolling 500 dollar credit line of yours.

Both my mom and my aunt called me freaking out about this sort of thing - truth of the matter is they use the computer for email and web surfing... that's IT. Nothing mission critical, nothing involving financial information. Me telling them they are fine as long as they are using chrome and a generally up to date virus scanner.

The biggest danger to their PC is actually them. We've all seen friends or relatives computers that have 8 fucking toolbars in IE, useless "pc tuneup scamware". the idiot relatives/friends who quite litererally click every "okay" or "download" button they see even if it's just a gateway for spam.

What nobody took the time to tell the less educated is unless they are running an ATM, or mission critical software you are probably going to be fine if you already practice proper etiquette.

Now anytime a company or industry needs a boost they will just scare the public into buying the latest model or version... why? because they are fucking dumb enough to buy into such "news"

Or more likely people are finding out that new shiny table is no substitute for a full blown PC.

collegeboy69us said:

Now anytime a company or industry needs a boost they will just scare the public into buying the latest model or version... why? because they are fucking dumb enough to buy into such "news"

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This is overly cynical. The end of XP support was announced years ago there is a risk to running it online if it's not getting patched. Microsoft did go back and patch XP this time for that last big IE flaw. My guess is that they will probably have to do this kind of stuff for a while with issues that bad and with XP use still so high. But in time as XP use drops, it's certain that Microsoft won't patch even big holes.

Plus if one has an XP era machine, PCs have come a ways since then. There are some nice devices and good prices that many would probable enjoy much more than something 5 plus years old or even older.

Hmmm, just read the article, they actually are counting tablets, so Apple is showing up as the #1 vendor in the survey because of iPad sales. Not sure really what that means for desktops and laptops as tablets are the single biggest part of the mix in this.

collegeboy69us said:

Now anytime a company or industry needs a boost they will just scare the public into buying the latest model or version... why? because they are fucking dumb enough to buy into such "news"

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Win7 is better than XP right? Then why stay in the past, just because is works?
Win7 works better.

collegeboy69us said:

I'd be willing to bet that most of those sales due to computer illiterate people who really have no clue what's going on. They heard on the 5pm news that XP was end of life and as soon as that happens their computer turns into the wild west of viruses and hackers trying to steal their CC info (because those guys in russia really want access to that high rolling 500 dollar credit line of yours.

Both my mom and my aunt called me freaking out about this sort of thing - truth of the matter is they use the computer for email and web surfing... that's IT. Nothing mission critical, nothing involving financial information. Me telling them they are fine as long as they are using chrome and a generally up to date virus scanner.

The biggest danger to their PC is actually them. We've all seen friends or relatives computers that have 8 fucking toolbars in IE, useless "pc tuneup scamware". the idiot relatives/friends who quite litererally click every "okay" or "download" button they see even if it's just a gateway for spam.

What nobody took the time to tell the less educated is unless they are running an ATM, or mission critical software you are probably going to be fine if you already practice proper etiquette.

Now anytime a company or industry needs a boost they will just scare the public into buying the latest model or version... why? because they are fucking dumb enough to buy into such "news"

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While you are right you are exaggerating a bit.
First of all the hax0rs targeting your CC info are not mainly Russians... They can be from anywhere. And the ones going after CC are nothing compared to black hats who will torment you and just F with your system knowing that the law will only get involved if money is stolen. I know because this has happened to me and may still be. As for chrome, Its a piece of crap by google and we all know google tracks everything and then hands it on a silver platter to the NSA. Firefox or even IE 11 are better, IE when tweaked right can have good security, and the latest exploit found in IE that MS is trying to fix I mean come on, hackers are targeting big companys not me and you at home with that exploit.

But where you are wrong is claiming one will be fine as long as you know what your clicking on, yes I understand how idiots click next next download download and fill their rigs with spyware and 40 useless toolbars. But malware can get in many ways, Ive even seen viruses scripted into jpg images, something avira caught and this was on a legit site Id rather not mention. Educated or not you still need protection, that is my point, and the nincompoops even more.

But of course this is in the MS world, if we all ran Linux we really would not have to worry. Although I have seen malicious scripts on pr0n pages even get into Linux so....

Max Mike said:

Or more likely people are finding out that new shiny table is no substitute for a full blown PC.

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I doubt anyone could go through modern life with just a tablet. At some point you'll need to sit in front of a PC. Every time I use a tablet, I look at it thinking "I wish I had a real PC". I just find web browsing on a tablet to be exhausting.

collegeboy69us said:

I'd be willing to bet that most of those sales due to computer illiterate people who really have no clue what's going on. They heard on the 5pm news that XP was end of life and as soon as that happens their computer turns into the wild west of viruses and hackers trying to steal their CC info (because those guys in russia really want access to that high rolling 500 dollar credit line of yours.

Both my mom and my aunt called me freaking out about this sort of thing - truth of the matter is they use the computer for email and web surfing... that's IT. Nothing mission critical, nothing involving financial information. Me telling them they are fine as long as they are using chrome and a generally up to date virus scanner.

The biggest danger to their PC is actually them. We've all seen friends or relatives computers that have 8 fucking toolbars in IE, useless "pc tuneup scamware". the idiot relatives/friends who quite litererally click every "okay" or "download" button they see even if it's just a gateway for spam.

What nobody took the time to tell the less educated is unless they are running an ATM, or mission critical software you are probably going to be fine if you already practice proper etiquette.

Now anytime a company or industry needs a boost they will just scare the public into buying the latest model or version... why? because they are fucking dumb enough to buy into such "news"

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This has to be the dumbest thing I've read on this forum in a long time. Well published vulnerabilities are now being left unfixed. They're not going after the small guys? Hello, have you heard of the FBI virus, cryptolocker, etc..? Sure those things hit modern systems, but using XP is just begging for it to happen over and over again. Tell Grandma to save that $200 moneygram and replace the nearly 13 year old OS.

People have been hit by malware going to Yahoo.com, hardly a seedy part of the internet. Hell, even [H] got hijacked once a few years ago. Advising anyone to stay on XP who doesn't have an actual legit need to have it for some legacy reason is just irresponsible and lazy.

Ashbringer said:

I doubt anyone could go through modern life with just a tablet. At some point you'll need to sit in front of a PC. Every time I use a tablet, I look at it thinking "I wish I had a real PC". I just find web browsing on a tablet to be exhausting.

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I think tablets are the most n00b piece of tech ever

collegeboy69us said:

What nobody took the time to tell the less educated is unless they are running an ATM, or mission critical software you are probably going to be fine if you already practice proper etiquette.

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I was browsing the web on my laptop when I accidentally made a typo to a webpage and went to a virus site. Asking me to download the latest version of flash. Clearly a site that's meant to distribute a virus. Lucky for me I'm running Linux and those things don't effect me.

Now anytime a company or industry needs a boost they will just scare the public into buying the latest model or version... why? because they are fucking dumb enough to buy into such "news"

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I own two laptops that I use daily. An HP Dv7 with Core2Duo @ 2.4Ghz and Nvidia Geforce 9600M GT. The other is a Compaq with i3 @ 2.5Ghz with a Radeon 6370M. Both run Linux btw, and both do just fine for me. The Dv7 was built in 2008ish and the Compaq was in 2010.

These laptops have broken in the past and been repaired by myself, but I wondered what the cost of a new laptop would be. Specially one of equal capability. Most laptops up to $400 come with either i3's running at 1.4Ghz or Pentiums at 2Ghz. None of which would be faster then the CPUs in either of my laptops. It's not until you reach $500 that you see 2+Ghz i3's which would be equal or faster then the CPU's in my laptops. The graphics you'll find in modern laptops are leaps and bounds faster then the older GPU's, but not enough to make a difference. I'm very surprised how well an Intel HD 4000 graphics does in benchmarks.

3Dmark11 for Intel HD 4000 is about 600 <-- Current Generation
3Dmark11 for AMD HD 6370m is about 400 <-- 2010
3Dmark11 for Nvidia 9600M GT is about 1800 <-- 2008

Intel Core2 Duo P8600 @ 2.40GHz PassMark CPU Mark 1,530 <-- 2008
Intel Core i3 M 380 @ 2.53GHz PassMark CPU Mark 2,121 <-- 2010
Intel Core i3-3110M @ 2.40GHz PassMark CPU Mark 3078 <-- Current Generation

If there's a reason people aren't buying new PCs it's probably because a modern $500 PC is hardly faster in performance as ones built in 2008 and 2010.

heatlesssun said:

This is overly cynical. The end of XP support was announced years ago there is a risk to running it online if it's not getting patched. Microsoft did go back and patch XP this time for that last big IE flaw. My guess is that they will probably have to do this kind of stuff for a while with issues that bad and with XP use still so high. But in time as XP use drops, it's certain that Microsoft won't patch even big holes.

Plus if one has an XP era machine, PCs have come a ways since then. There are some nice devices and good prices that many would probable enjoy much more than something 5 plus years old or even older.

Click to expand...

I agree -- however you have to keep in mind one of my relatives does not even know where the power button is for the device. (despite me showing her) These are the types of people, you could put a fully protected Win8.1 machine in front of them, and after an hour online it would be riddles with spamware. For what they do on it (and the speed at which they themselves operate) even a Pentium 3 would be more than adequate for what they actually do.

The end of XP was set in stone a long time ago, I'm 100% cool with it and happy to see it go, I suppose my cynicism was more towards the news outlets themselves doing what they do best: hyping up non-news just to get joe blow and his wife scared of their own shadow.

the real reason for dumping XP. money

collegeboy69us said:

I agree -- however you have to keep in mind one of my relatives does not even know where the power button is for the device. (despite me showing her) These are the types of people, you could put a fully protected Win8.1 machine in front of them, and after an hour online it would be riddles with spamware. For what they do on it (and the speed at which they themselves operate) even a Pentium 3 would be more than adequate for what they actually do.

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One thing that really helps with malware in Windows 8.x is using the modern browser even on the desktop. If you setup a non-administrative account and use modern apps 8.x can be pretty well locked down to prevent casual users from getting themselves in trouble.

Ashbringer said:

I doubt anyone could go through modern life with just a tablet. At some point you'll need to sit in front of a PC. Every time I use a tablet, I look at it thinking "I wish I had a real PC". I just find web browsing on a tablet to be exhausting.

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I see this recommendation more and more.

Especially for Grandma and Grandpa. As people get older, they become farsighted. Yes they can use reading glasses but most people are vain and don't have them with them or forget/misplace them. Then reading a 10" screen becomes a pain. A lot of 30/40 something don't absolutely need it, but they are straining to read it and don't realize it and its one factor making it tiring.

The other factor is that not everyone has the daintiest fingers and the best dexterity. And motor control goes away with age. A long email on tablet keyboard can be torture.


But I see people make this recommendation more and more. Those computer help shows and tech writers, who are likely very mobile and lug a laptop around and glasses because its their job. Out of touch with their audience.

mwallek said:

the real reason for dumping XP. money

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Yeah....because continuing to support an old OS for over a decade is something we should expect from Microsoft.

When will it be OK to drop it? 15 years? 20 years? When the last XP machine is powered off? I think MS has been more than reasonable for supporting it as long as they have and I really wish they hadn't patched the big vulnerability last week. People still running XP are now a threat to the rest of the internet, I saw an XP workstation at my doctors office and told them I would no longer be a patient there if they didn't get rid of it.

It is no more, it has ceased to be, it is bereft of life and pining for the fjords. If you want to keep around a dead OS nailed to a perch, feel free I guess.

XP advocates contributing to the health of BotNets everywhere. The Internet thanks you!

mwallek said:

the real reason for dumping XP. money

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How would that differ from the reason for making Windows XP in the first place?

The very long lifespan of XP was likely due to MS not wanting to lose customers who may choose alternative platforms in an environment of Vista's real/imagined problems. Arguably there were large costs to that strategy, balanced against the benefits of keeping Windows' traditional PC market share high.

Here's some news for the author of this piece: most people know by now that to get another OS you don't have to buy an entirely new computer... The author is avoiding the real news, which is PCs aren't going out of fashion (they never were.)

Since no new machines ship with WinXP and haven't for several years, it is likely XP has nothing to do with it... People are finding tablets to be the fad they've always been--of limited use compared to a PC, and the tablet curiosity phase is waning as people are discovering, "Move on, nothing to see here"....The article relates this but doesn't want to admit it. Ah, well, just like with the Larrabee pundits, "this too shall pass," I suppose. The PC is by far the very best value available and tablets haven't changed that one bit.

Microsoft screwed up royally with Win8--it should have been primarily done for PCs with optional touch-tablet features. They've spent the last year trying to change that around to what it should have been in the beginning...and the last major update for Windows 8 will have its very own Start Menu, at last. Better late than never, I guess.

I don't care how old you are--looking at a 10" (or smaller!) screen all day royally sucks...

I've had the most business over the last month than any other in the last half-dozen years.

It's XP. Half upgrade installs to 7 or 8 depending on how old the computer is, and half new systems.

Either way, desktops are still everywhere, it's just that with the sagging economy everyone has been literally using the same PC 10+ years.

That's not declining PC use... that's loyalty to your machine.

I think the industry has it backward. Everyone was still using their desktops for real work they just didn't understand how old the machines were.

I traded in a win xp laptop at best buy and got an Acer Chromebook for $75 after trade in.

That might contribute to the surge.

The chromebook isn't much usefulness but it surfs the web fine and has 8+ hours of battery life while my old laptop was a slow single core Athlon and had about 5 min of battery life.

collegeboy69us said:

I agree -- however you have to keep in mind one of my relatives does not even know where the power button is for the device. (despite me showing her) These are the types of people, you could put a fully protected Win8.1 machine in front of them, and after an hour online it would be riddles with spamware. For what they do on it (and the speed at which they themselves operate) even a Pentium 3 would be more than adequate for what they actually do.

The end of XP was set in stone a long time ago, I'm 100% cool with it and happy to see it go, I suppose my cynicism was more towards the news outlets themselves doing what they do best: hyping up non-news just to get joe blow and his wife scared of their own shadow.

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Sounds like they need malwarebytes on their computer. The latest version, 2.0 does a quick scan daily, if anything is found it does a long scan.

It also blocks known bogus IP addresses coming in and going out.

I've gone to legit sites in which you get that annoying out of the blue pop-up trying to redirect, MWB blocks it's ass and does not allow the website to complete/open.

Many people would have went to 7 from XP if many of their older favorite programs were compatible.

Quite a few older games and programs will just not work even in compatibility mode.

There is a MS 7 site in which you can check if your game/program works. I've tried a few, nice red X.

That is not what I want to see.

Max Mike said:

Or more likely people are finding out that new shiny table is no substitute for a full blown PC.

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Like my mother-in-law did when she found out her iPad wasn't going to run Photoshop despite all my warnings and a year later wanted us to buy the thing or tradesies it if we bought her a drawing tablet for her i7 laptop (that she thinks is slow--not to mention it still trumps any single PC I own). Yeah, she's more interested in looks than use.

I've been saying for a while. I believe PC shipment have only been on decline since PCs have less need for replacement, not that there isn't a demand. Hardware is better than ever and PCs last years longer than their predecessors for everyday applications. Back in the day people had issues with limited hard drive space, or single core processors amongst other hardware needs. These days you can use older hardware and make it last significantly longer, so instead of buying a new PC when you don't need one. You spend money on a new device that gives you functionality outside of your desktop.