We still use XP on 3 machines at work. They have cards in them and run software that won't run on newer versions of Windows. It'd cost $20k per machine to upgrade them to Win7, plus the downtime while the computers are upgraded and the new systems implemented to make them work. They'll get upgraded at some point in the next year or so, but it's just not in the budget or timeline to do it now.
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Microsoft Attempting to Scare Windows XP Users Straight
- Thread starter CommanderFrank
- Start date
We still use XP on 3 machines at work. They have cards in them and run software that won't run on newer versions of Windows. It'd cost $20k per machine to upgrade them to Win7, plus the downtime while the computers are upgraded and the new systems implemented to make them work. They'll get upgraded at some point in the next year or so, but it's just not in the budget or timeline to do it now.
I'm sure the Iranian's felt the same way about the air-gap for their nuclear enrichment facility...
I read that as funny joke, don't you?
rudy
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Its still not OK. I am OK with an ISP blocking or throttling someone who has a detected virus spamming the network but no one should be told they must update a computer that is fine just because it is old. How is that any different than your ISP saying we wont let you connect Ubuntu desktops? If someone runs a proper firewall, or reformats often or any of that they can run an old OS for a very long time without a problem.
Like most things I am sure that MS will just end up screwed over on this, half those people will upgrade to macs not windows 8 as they want.
Absurd? Not to the millions that have machines with a gigabyte or less of memory. Especially in this economic climate. I think that with microsoft's economic stability, their decision to abandon so many users that paid good money to purchase their products is one of the greediest things ever. Most people use their computers for simple tasks, web browsing, buying things online, social contacts, and of course doing basic work such as word processing, database and spreadsheets, and presentations. None of which requires a new computer, or windows vista or above. It's bad enough that the OS deteriorates and bogs down over time, but to intentionally use ways to screw their customers is reprehensible. How would you feel if you had to refurnish your house entirely every 10 years? Not everyone has loads of cash to throw away, just because some company wants another $50 billion our of their pockets.
Awww.. Moistened eyes for a megacorp. Littleviolon.jpg
Unfortunately, Microsoft screws themselves over every chance they get. There was a unique window of opportunity they had for enterprises finally migrating off of XP after more than a decade, and their iPad envy tunnel vision and heavy handed insistence on forcing Metro with no ability to GPO-disable in 8 or even 8.1 means those corps are forced onto Windows 7 for the next decade.
heatlesssun
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Forced to for the next decade? Unlikely. The controversy over the new UI will be settled long before then. Either Microsoft will add a Metro off switch or the new UI will evolve to the point of making the old UI irrelevant.
Yes, likely. Im talking about the kind of companies that are still on XP .. If they waited this long to migrate off of it and onto Win7, they aren't going to upgrade again so soon just because Microsoft decides to pull their heads out with a Metro-disable in Windows 9.
elm669
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For high internet use/internet accessible using windows xp is just asking for trouble.
Where I work they are just now upgrading their computers systems to windows 7 finally. As far as machinery on the floor, we still have machines running ms-dos for their microcontrollers and a few of the brand new ones are running windows xp still for their embedded systems.
Windows xp will still be around and in use for a long LONG time to come
Where I work they are just now upgrading their computers systems to windows 7 finally. As far as machinery on the floor, we still have machines running ms-dos for their microcontrollers and a few of the brand new ones are running windows xp still for their embedded systems.
Windows xp will still be around and in use for a long LONG time to come
Everything runs in root, Wine comes preinstalled, and double-clicking on an .exe opens it in Wine. That might actually "work" for a lot of people.
heatlesssun
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They weren't going to upgrade so soon after 7 regardless.
jojo69
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Everything runs in root, Wine comes preinstalled, and double-clicking on an .exe opens it in Wine. That might actually "work" for a lot of people.
dare we call it...uh
fine wine
That's what I just said. They're moving to Windows7 *because* Windows8 offered them nothing compelling for their business, only a disruption.
Youve got the most bizarre reading comprehension. Truly. I give up.
heatlesssun
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Businesses already on 7 or working on migration to 7 and only interested in desktop operation were never, ever, going to move to 8 at this point, even if it had received the DPI Desktop Seal of Approval.
A business still on XP at this point that has not invested any resources towards migration towards 7 might HAS to consider 8.1 at this point because you're looking at a much shorter support Windows 7 that 8.1 at this point. Some are going to go from XP to 8.1 at this point.
rudy
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lol people keep talking about specialized equipment that cost half a million dollars and had controllers made for windows xp. This stuff does not account for hundreds of millions of machines. The problem is XP was allowed to live too long and it happened to be the OS that spanned the bulk of the growth of the internet. People just have not updated their computers.
Agreed. But those people wont' understand that we aren't talking about their case that makes up .0000000001% of the people in this position. they aren't smart enough to understand that.
heatlesssun
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You obviously didn't read the article in the OP.
" Microsoft yesterday warned Windows XP customers that they face never-patched, never-dead "zero-day" vulnerabilities if they don't dump the 12-year-old operating system before its April 2014 retirement deadline."
<shrug> Looks like abandon-ware to me.
<shrug> Looks like abandon-ware to me.
heatlesssun
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LOL! After almost 13 years it's abondonware. Duh!
Agree - industrial setups will stay on XP for a while. Where I work, we needed to upgrade several computers that run test equipment in our lab. To upgrade our software to a version that will run on Windows 7 32-bit
o) was going to be $50k. Equipment vendor doesn't have 64-bit unless we went to a more advanced ($80k+) version that doesn't do what we need it to do anyway.So given the option of spending $50k to upgrade to Windows 7 and still only be able to use 4gb or RAM or sticking with WinXP, we stuck with XP.
So buy another GB of ram & a USB flash drive.
I just finished upgrading the last of the office computers to Windows 7. That included a number of old P4's.
We had a lot of old P4's, so I swiped the memory from some of the old systems we disposed of, and used it to upgrade the systems we kept to 2GB.
With 2GB of ram, the systems run much better/faster with Windows 7 32 bit/Office 2010, than they did under XP/Office 2003 with 1.2GB of ram.
The trick was to add a cheap 8GB flash drive (about $7) and enable ReadyBoost. The 8GB acts as a cache for the old slow IDE drives. Office apps load 2-3 times faster than they did without the flash drive & readyboost. Figure they should be good for another year or 2 until we finally upgrade the old software they run.
Red Squirrel
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XP is a good OS, so people don't see a reason to upgrade and have to learn everything again. Sad reason, as sometimes you just have to say out with the old and in with the new, but it is what it is.
Businesses don't see a need to have to redo everything. Where I work everything is custom coded by some crappy outsourced company that makes very environment specific code. We can't even upgrade java or everything breaks, it's terrible. I can't see us ever going to 7. We got new computers a few years ago that came with 7, and the XP image was added to it.
I was running XP till some time last year when I decided to build a new computer, tried 7, liked it, but I wanted to switch to Linux so figured may as well dive in, then went to Linux.
Businesses don't see a need to have to redo everything. Where I work everything is custom coded by some crappy outsourced company that makes very environment specific code. We can't even upgrade java or everything breaks, it's terrible. I can't see us ever going to 7. We got new computers a few years ago that came with 7, and the XP image was added to it.
I was running XP till some time last year when I decided to build a new computer, tried 7, liked it, but I wanted to switch to Linux so figured may as well dive in, then went to Linux.
rudy
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I am not even sure if 1GB of ram is an excuse, windows 7 starter ran on netbooks with that much ram and windows 8 is even better on slow hardware. TBH I think its ironic that people use that as a reason but from my experience an old computer is a reason to upgrade to windows 8 if for nothing else you can shut it down and start it up so much faster.
For as many gripes as I have about MS's new direction and poorly executed attempt at customer lockin with trying to force a tablet interface onto desktops, under the hood Windows 8 absolutely runs better - faster and with less memory - on old hardware than XP, Vista or 7. No contest. Unfortunately the new touch oriented focus has scared people away and caused enough controversy that businesses who are traditionally conservative in upgrades will avoid it.
A smarter Microsoft might have eased off on Sinofsky's heavy handed approach and allowed people and corporations to make the transition at their own speed, not Microsoft's - meaning allowing people to fall back to classic UI elements like the start menu at their choosing. That way at least MS would have gotten Metro in place like a trojan horse even if it wasn't in active use on every system. That would have bought them time to incentivize it by coming out with compelling apps that allow people to work better than already were - to get people to do anything you have to make them think it was their idea. Then by Windows 9 they would have been in a far greater position to tighten the noose and attempt defaulting to Metro and de-emphasizing the desktop.
Instead, Sinofsky convinced Ballmer there would be a 'disruption' but people would fall in line. He bet wrong, and its going to cost them billions. Too much, too drastic' too quickly.
SPARTAN VI
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My bank has taken a hard stance against unsupported environments, simply because it's a matter of risk and compliance for us. We run Browserhawk on our online treasury management suite to detect and block out unsupported OS's and browsers. So if MS refuses to renege its XP retirement date, I'm sure we're going to get a shit ton of upset customers that following morning.
buttons
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A lot of people here dont realize the cost of upgrading. My employer probably has around 5000 computers. at $120 a pop thats $600,000 Thats not including the cost of lost production to do the upgrade, training those users on how the new system works, etc etc
Then at the end of the day, what do you gain? NOTHING. They will have a better background picture, but productivity will decrease because they will be frustrated and confused by the minor changes going from XP to windows 7. On top of that, i would hate to see how windows 7 would run on a Dell GX260 P4 2.4ghz 512mb-1gb of ram.
When people order new computers we do put windows 7 on them, but id say we get more calls from the windows 7 users then XP and windows 7 in general takes longer to troubleshoot and fix because of UAC and the lack of standardized way to remotely control them. *XP had netmeeting built in, windows 7 we sometimes are able to use RDP, Lync, or teamviewer.
Then at the end of the day, what do you gain? NOTHING. They will have a better background picture, but productivity will decrease because they will be frustrated and confused by the minor changes going from XP to windows 7. On top of that, i would hate to see how windows 7 would run on a Dell GX260 P4 2.4ghz 512mb-1gb of ram.
When people order new computers we do put windows 7 on them, but id say we get more calls from the windows 7 users then XP and windows 7 in general takes longer to troubleshoot and fix because of UAC and the lack of standardized way to remotely control them. *XP had netmeeting built in, windows 7 we sometimes are able to use RDP, Lync, or teamviewer.
http://www.usb.org/developers/compliance/
When we submitted our USB-enabled embedded designs for certification last month the organization required us to use WinXP for self-validation. Apparently they special drivers/software only work on XP. Ditto for control system tests like DeviceNET.
Driver development for Win7 is different and in some cases more complicated than XP. This has led to the hardware engineering world getting left behind in many cases. Hell, IAR just got official Win7 support a few months ago - and its still a buggy POS. (IAR is an embedded development IDE and compiler for C/C++ on embedded MCUs).
I find it ridiculous that these different entities can't fork over a tiny bit of cash to stay current!
When we submitted our USB-enabled embedded designs for certification last month the organization required us to use WinXP for self-validation. Apparently they special drivers/software only work on XP. Ditto for control system tests like DeviceNET.
Driver development for Win7 is different and in some cases more complicated than XP. This has led to the hardware engineering world getting left behind in many cases. Hell, IAR just got official Win7 support a few months ago - and its still a buggy POS. (IAR is an embedded development IDE and compiler for C/C++ on embedded MCUs).
I find it ridiculous that these different entities can't fork over a tiny bit of cash to stay current!
heatlesssun
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As this thread is proving even 13 years is too drastic and fast for some.
GotNoRice
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Some seem to desperately want to ignore the fact that XP didn't even hit it's "end of sales" date until less than 3 years ago.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/...=rGMTN56tf_w-t6bV8sjsQNrcVpt_PFv96Q#section_2
Not every XP computer out there is some dog from ~2002. I've worked on many Core 2 computers and newer that are still running XP.
aShrubbery!
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If people feel that gov't shouldn't be telling them what to do, then why should corporations be any different.
Sure MS doesn't have to provide support for them after their set deadline, but heck as long as you use it cautiously, what could go wrong? Especially in a non-corporate environment.
For private users, use caution, beware of d'loading crap, resist to open that attachment, avoid phony sites.
I sitll use XP on my browsing/e-mail PC. And for using some older games that run with fewer glitches with XP. There might come a day where I would run XP for some older games only.
On my gaming rig I run Win7.
On both, I have anti-malware software running in the background.
Sure MS doesn't have to provide support for them after their set deadline, but heck as long as you use it cautiously, what could go wrong? Especially in a non-corporate environment.
For private users, use caution, beware of d'loading crap, resist to open that attachment, avoid phony sites.
I sitll use XP on my browsing/e-mail PC. And for using some older games that run with fewer glitches with XP. There might come a day where I would run XP for some older games only.
On my gaming rig I run Win7.
On both, I have anti-malware software running in the background.
Dr. Righteous
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Folks the vast majority of "computer users" are NOT computer literate.
They know to click this, click that. Click start, then shutdown. Press the big button in the morning and go get a cup of coffee. They understand how to use a few apps to get their work down and that is the extent of their computer knowledge.
When the computer pukes; the IT guy just does a disk mirror from CD, and it is back like it was.
All live docs are saved on a server which still gets backed up with a tape drive.
This is your average office environment.
XP was the first OS that worked reasonably well. Why is someone going to spend $$$$ to change what works?? Unless future serverware is incompatible with XP this won't change much.
They know to click this, click that. Click start, then shutdown. Press the big button in the morning and go get a cup of coffee. They understand how to use a few apps to get their work down and that is the extent of their computer knowledge.
When the computer pukes; the IT guy just does a disk mirror from CD, and it is back like it was.
All live docs are saved on a server which still gets backed up with a tape drive.
This is your average office environment.
XP was the first OS that worked reasonably well. Why is someone going to spend $$$$ to change what works?? Unless future serverware is incompatible with XP this won't change much.
heatlesssun
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I understand that. But the fact still remains that XP is ancient by technology standards and it's simply not a correct characterization that Microsoft is abandoning XP after supporting far longer than most technology products.
You gain an operating system designed for tomorrow's threat landscape, instead of one designed for a threat landscape of Blaster. Especially if you move to 64 bit land, with 64 bit software. You also get hardware support for modern machines and software, I see lots of software now that requires Vista+, and has dropped support for XP.
I worked on XP, and I was extremely proud of the work I did, however; It's not a modern operating system, it's not designed to protect you from the threat landscape of today, and data backs that up. (Microsoft Security Intelligence Report)
Now, if you are set on running XP until the drop dead date of no support, I highly recommend you download EMET and enable it for applications that are internet facing...
http://www.microsoft.com/emet
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Red Squirrel
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1GB of ram is bloody low even for XP, can't imagine putting 7 on there. Sure, the OS will run, but throw in anti virus software, all the updater programs that all apps seem to put these days, email, web browser, and that's not even counting whatever program you are actually working in.
When I was on windows 7 for a while before switching to Linux, I had to run with only 4GB of ram for a while as I was trying to troubleshoot an issue so I had pulled out all sticks of ram but one. I was often getting low memory warnings, especially if I was opening stuff like photoshop or autocad.
From an overall performance standpoint based on hardware there is little or nothing to worry about when swapping from XP to 7 on those machines. From personal experience I've seen 7 run on systems with lower end hardware than that which performed better with 7 than they did with XP. I think you're mistaking the horrid hardware requirements Vista needed to be halfway usable for the rather lean hardware requirements of 7.
That's obviously not all there is to worry about as drivers and software compatibility obviously come into play and in general are going to be a much bigger worry.
You're responding to an irrational person so it's not going to do any good speaking to him. The person you quoted has a non-stop hardon for anything touchscreen thinking it some sort of panacea. Therefore, he's going to slam anything that doesn't have what he considers the current high point of touchscreen and will irrationally proclaim from the heavens that Win8 is the ultimate in OSes for anything and everything. Basically, it's useless to respond to anything he says because his rose-colored Win8 glasses only allow him to see what he wants to see.