Microsoft provided several YEARS of warning. They even extended support well past the original sunset date. Choosing to stay on an unsupported OS is a gamble. Regardless of your OS choice, every provider sunsets support for older operating systems.
> That “unsupported” operating system [XP] still runs the strong majority of operating hardware! Not supporting it leaves holes through which the supported systems can be damaged. Microsoft remains a joke.
Well, I don't disagree that Microsoft has largely become a joke, but I side with them on XP. In fact I wish sometimes they had the ability to reach out to those XP systems that are still connecting to the Internet, and disable their ability to communicate past a NAT router. Yes, XP runs a ton of mission-critical industrial gear. You know why? Because designers of that gear were STUPID and took Microsoft's bait. "Base your product on XP!" That's INSANE. Believe me, I know, I was there, I watched it happen, I advised clients to avoid basing a manufacturing product with a 15-20 year lifetime on an operating system that probably wouldn't last a decade, if that. But did they listen? NO-o-o-o-o-o-o....
The people who thought it was a groovy idea to design a long-life product around a short-life operating system were STUPID. The people who bought those products, seeing that they were based on a short-life operating system, were either stupid or naive as hell.
Now, that said, my last employer bought a fancy Agilent digital oscilloscope based on XP. It runs fine and it will continue to run fine, and not get in trouble, because it never gets on the internet. It doesn't get patched, it doesn't do any browsing outside the office filesystem, and unless something gets loose in the corporate LAN (in which case a futzed oscilloscope will be the least of their problems) and attacks the scope across the network, I expect it'll be fine until the power supply takes a dump.
The same is true if it were running a milling machine or a conveyor belt.
** The problem is all the home and small business computers that are running XP ON THE INTERNET. Those are dangerous. They have to get taken off the Internet.
(Takes deep breath)
> Microsoft provided several YEARS of warning. They even extended support well past the original sunset date. Choosing to stay on an unsupported OS is a gamble. Regardless of your OS choice, every provider sunsets support for older operating systems.
Yes, exactly. I suffered with my clients and users who tried to switch to Vista, and especially when Vista started getting shoved down our throats. I expected it to show up in my morning cereal. Finally there were the "XP Downgrade options" and whatnot. THAT was when Microsoft should have done the right thing (much as I would have hated it personally and professionally), owned up to the fact that Vista was a loser, cut off XP as originally planned, taken the market hit to OS-X and Linux, and brought out Win7 immediately. IMMEDIATELY. But that was Ballmer in charge, and he can't admit he's wrong until many years after it's too late, if ever.
And so now Microsoft is a joke. They're still making money and they'll be around a long time yet, but nobody takes them seriously as the market leader, regardless of their still-impressive market share. They lost the critical battle.
And that battle was all about XP. They let it live too long, then they gave it another zombie lifetime, and now they can't kill it. But that should be their main objective. If they can convert those XP users into Win10 users they'll be back in the game bigtime. They could offer Win10 for free to XP users, if they'll just prove their XP machine is gone (make it a rebate if necessary).
But no-o-o-o-o can't do that. At this rate XP will still have a greater share than Vista for the next 5 years, maybe forever. Fools. They make the Internet more dangerous for all the rest of us.
Okay, rant over. :)