Posted on 03/12/2013 2:55:18 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
A large number of Microsoft customers are in for a rude awakening on 8 April 2014.
With less than 400 days to go, 15 per cent of those running Windows XP are still unaware that that’s the date Microsoft finally turns off all support for its legacy PC operating system, according to a recent survey.
After 8 April next year, Microsoft will no longer make bug fixes or security updates for Windows XP, meaning customers will be naked and vulnerable to hackers and viruses and on their own in terms of code updates and fixes. Support for Office 2003 also finishes on the same date, with the same implications.
The findings come from a survey of 250 strategic IT types by application migration specialist Camwood, which polled chief information officers, technology officers and IT directors at organisations that run more than 2,000 PCs.
Fifteen per cent is a decent chunk of the Microsoft customer base. Windows XP is still used on 39 per cent of desktops – just behind Windows 7 on 44 per per cent.
XP was first released in 2001. Since its release, Redmond has pushed out Vista (2006/7), Windows 7 (2009) and its most recent OS, Windows 8 (2012).
Where there is awareness of the end of support, Camwood found 32 per cent of XPers still have not started migrating to newer versions of Windows.
That means this group will almost certainly end up running Windows XP past Microsoft’s April 2014 cut-off, and be in exactly the same predicament in terms of vulnerability to hackers and malware - and of course won't be receiving any code fixes.
Kevin van Heerden, Camwood’s head of software, told The Reg there’s no chance that those who have yet to begin the process will be able to migrate in time. Even a basic migration of just 1,000 PCs would take more than a year, depending on application and data complexity.
“Windows XP is the hackers port of call in terms of trying to get a foot hold and establish botnets,” Van Heerden told The Reg. “They are opening themselves up to risk. It’s like letting your car insurance expire – the car won’t stop working, but you are exposed to a lot of risk.”
The application migration specialist blamed the launch of Windows 8 and Microsoft’s frenetic push for consumer adoption of the new kit for the fact so many customers still don’t know about the end of support. The same was not true for previous versions of Windows, said Van Heerden.
Some customers are confused about whether to go with Windows 8 or Windows 7. This, of course, has implications from the perspective of the PC hardware that they will buy – whether it’s touch-enabled or not – and application migrations. This is adding another layer of decision-taking to the Windows XP migration debate.
“One customer said if you are going to push a new UI on employees, you might as well go all in and go Windows 8 rather than Windows 7,” Van Heerden said.
The software migration specialist says that in other organisations, there has been a grass-roots rejection of anything that takes end users away from their beloved Windows XP. “In a large percentage, they have had staff resistance – a grass roots saying they want to stay on Windows XP because they are familiar with it,” he said.
Van Heerden also said that there had been an absence of leadership from Microsoft on migrations, which he believed was caused by Redmond’s focus on consumers instead of businesses with Windows 8 - adding that the emphasis on product launches during 2012 had diluted messaging.
“There was a lot more buzz around the turn of the century because people were rolling Windows NT 4 and Year 2000 projects together, and there was an immense amount of IT experience. The move to Windows XP was a huge exercise on Microsoft’s part but last year was largest year in Microsoft’s history.
"With new versions of Windows Server 2012, operating system (Windows 8) and mobile, [Window XP migrations] are getting lost in the confusion,” he said. ®
Pff... yeah, right. They sold you an operating system, not a perpetual support contract. In fact, all of the product updates that you got free of charge from them since you bought the system are given to you only because MS deems it a good business move; they have absolutely no obligation to give out a single update for free.
I’ve never had that happen with mine; it’s stable or better than XP was. What about adjusting your mouse ‘touchiness’ setting? Are you using a splt-screen window, with tree on left and files on right?
Save yourself some headaches, skip Vista and go right to Win7. It’s much better than Vista in terms of the interface, stability, and pretty much every respect, and it doesn’t have all the annoying features of Win8, so it won’t be that big of a learning curve. Plus, the support for Vista will only last a few years longer at this point, so you’d be upgrading again soon anyway.
I switched this PC from WinXP to Win8 and it’s OK as far as it goes. Bought the $40 download in December and I am reasonably happy with it. It’s not the greatest Windows ever, but acceptable.
I certainly wouldn’t pay retail price for it. It’s not $160 good. It’s $40 good and you get what you pay for.
When this box fails, I’m most likely going to go to Ubuntu or some “ix/ux” based OS that is open source.
I have had enough of Microsoft, and Apple too for that matter.
“There are antivirus packages, lots of them, that do a pretty good job on identifying harmful content.”
I’d have to disagree with that one. They may be able to identify harmful programs, but they certainly fail when it comes to stopping infections from happening, or repairing a machine that has become infected. I’ve tried pretty much every commercial and shareware/freeware AV program out there, and they all fall short when facing the newer generation of malware.
The best I can say about AV software at this point is that it can be a good alert system, since they will usually catch at least one or two parts of the malware package being installed. So, they can give you an early warning that you need to get into safe mode fast and try to do your own removal and repairs of all the stuff that the AV software undoubtedly let slip through, before your machine is completely locked down.
I think Vista has about 3 more years before it “sunsets”.
While having no affilitation, I often find it useful.
However, my go to file explorer is one I've used for years and am hanging onto the old v7 till it evaporates -- PowerDesk.
But I'm guessing that recommendations for file manager apps in here could go on ad infinitum .. lol !
If you are a cheapskate, like me, you can get free support sometimes if you subscribe to the MS newsgroups. They have one for pretty much every product and version, and the Microsoft MVPs answer a lot of support questions there, free of charge.
No guarantee, and you may have to wait a few days for someone to reply, but worth a shot if you refuse to pay MS for tech support.
“It shoud be illegal for Microsoft to withdraw support.”
It is for car companies, at least for 20 years.
Did IE-10 get installed?
Maybe try a different browser.
I was kidding about installing Vista.
I use Slimbrowser.
It works better than either IE or Firefox.
It is tabbed and is easy to use.
I bet there are tons of XP users willing to pay a small fee to MS to keep current with updates after 2014. Why must MS be so anal about it? Tasbards.
Well I set up libraries to make such things easily accessible. Of course I am only accessing 3tb of data but I universally find it much easier to use and find..and organize. I personally hate Win 8. The file system is the same but the start menu is a P.I.T.A.
I used and recommended PowerDesk (several versions) for many, many yrs, but on Win-7 Pro, it took-over my desktop, and I had to get rid of it. Took a while to get used to using Win Explorer, but at least I’m in control again. Still have the older version CDs in the software library, but since Avanquest bought it, it somehow changed for the worse. JMO.
Those people should all switch to Ubuntu Linux
Well, an OS isn’t a durable product like a car. There’s also no expectation that an OS will even be functional, much less supported, for that long. An OS is designed to run a machine that is planned to be obsolete within a few years, so the lifetime of the OS is not much longer than that.
If cars were like computers, then their top speed would double every few years, and nobody could drive a car 20 years old on the highway safely. Old cars would be curiosities maintained only by geeks who could replace every part themselves, just like old computers and operating systems are today.
Why cant they adapt? My company transitioned to 7 with almost zero hiccups and it is used in a lab setting. In fact our tracking system improved vastly because since they reencoded everything. It cost the company a pretty penny.
Thanks, I will try that. It is somewhat useable (as per my wife) but I hate it.
I have installed Firefox on several of her other computers but not this one. It is less than 1 year old Dell.
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