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Welcome to Day One of the post NT 5.1 era Windows XP has finally reached the end of the road, as the last supported variant - POSReady 2009 - is supported no more.Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 which, as its name suggests, is designed to run apps that shriek "Unexpected item in the bagging area" at shoppers as disinterested staff look on, finally reached the end of support yesterday, marking an impressive run for the veteran operating system.As recently as last month, readers were sending us images of XP getting poorly in places such as UK aspirin-flinger Boots while one of...

Windows XP Setup music!

Only Intel machines are affected by Meltdown Details have emerged on two major processor security flaws this week, and the industry is scrambling to issue fixes and secure machines for customers. Dubbed “Meltdown” and “Spectre,” the flaws affect nearly every device made in the past 20 years. The Meltdown flaw only affects Intel processors, and researchers have already released proof of concept code that could lead to attacks using Meltdown. The vulnerabilities allow an attacker to compromise the privileged memory of a processor by exploiting the way processes run in parallel. They also allow an attacker to use JavaScript code...

Britain’s largest ever warship is not “vulnerable” to cyber-attacks despite running on Microsoft Windows XP, a 16-year-old operating system, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has said. The Conservative minister defended the use of what many consider to be outdated technology on HMS Queen Elizabeth the day after it left its dockyard for the first time to begin sea trials. Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft, meaning it does not receive updates to protect users from new types of attacks. “If XP is for operational use, it is extremely risky,” Alan Woodward, professor of computing at the University of Surrey,...

I received a Sony DSC-W830 camera as a gift. Nice. Unfortunately it will not connect nor download pix to my PC running XP. Can anyone help? Thanks.

... Google has surprised users by announcing it will extend support for its Chrome web browser running on Microsoft's old Windows XP operating system until April 2016. Windows XP was sunset in April last year, with security patches no longer available for the obsolete operating system. Google at the time said support for Chrome on XP would be ditched at the same time as Microsoft ceased to provide updates for its operating system.

Typically, today’s budget PCs come with 4GB of RAM. A mid-range configuration may offer double that, and high-end gaming systems and workstations go as high as 16GB or more. There’s no doubt which way the wind’s blowing, either: Windows 8 supports up to 128GB of physical memory (assuming you’re running the 64-bit edition), while Windows 8 Pro can go up to 512GB. Does anyone really need this much RAM? Memory isn’t as expensive as it used to be, but there’s obviously no point paying for gigabytes of RAM from which you’ll receive no material gain. Does more equal faster? Many...

Even though the deadline for any type of support for Windows XP was up last April, many organisations are still using the venerable operating system to power their PCs and the applications that run on them. But XP was never a truly secure OS to begin with and despite numerous patches over the years, new vulnerabilities have been found. Of course, since April 2014, no more updates have been provided by Microsoft on general release and this has left anyone still running XP very much exposed to hacking and security breaches. According to figures from IT security firm Secunia taken...

Intel's recent results suggest a slowdown in firms leaving the ancient OS behind and upgrading to new systems. Why won't they update? Most interesting detail that emerged from Intel's lackluster first quarter financial results had nothing to do with mobile, the company's white whale. Instead, it concerned something so old that it almost seems laughable in the same week that the very 21st-century Apple Watch dominated headlines. Per ZDNet's own Larry Dignan: In a statement, Intel said it cut its first quarter outlook because of "weaker than expected demand for business desktop PCs and lower than expected inventory levels across...

Despite predictions to the contrary, it seem there is still plenty of life left in the PC market. PC shipments across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) reached 25.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2014, a two percent increase on the same quarter a year ago, according to calculations by IDC. It said strong consumer demand during the holiday season meant the PC market racked up a third consecutive quarter of growth - albeit modest and patchy. PC sales across the region grew by 5.5 percent across the year, with 93.3 million PCs shipped. But the researchers...

In this follow up to Replace the Retiring Windows XP with Linux we're going learn the easiest and most foolproof way to install and run Xubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS on your old Windows XP computer. The only requirements are that your old computer has USB ports, and that it supports booting from a USB stick. If your computer is too old for USB, then it's pretty darned old and you really need to think about getting a newer one. There are but four steps: one, go to OSDisc.com and order Xubuntu Linux on a 32-gigabyte USB stick. Then insert the USB stick into your computer,...

Microsoft officially ended support for Windows XP on April 8, 2014. That means the company is no longer patching newly discovered security vulnerabilities in the operating system, and people who continue to use it are opening themselves up to security risks. However, according to NetMarketShare, more than a quarter of all PCs (27.69 percent) were still running Windows XP in March of this year.Why would people continue using a twelve-year-old operating system that would put them at risk?No doubt, many are home users who simply aren't very technology savvy and/or may not have the desire or the money to upgrade...

Usually, the Internal Revenue Service is the one getting paid this time of year, but Uncle Sam will be lining someone else's pockets this tax season because of its attachment to Windows XP. In case you hadn't heard, support for XP officially stopped on April 8th, meaning that Microsoft will no longer provide support or security updates for the venerable OS. However, governmental computers can't be left vulnerable, so the IRS will be paying Microsoft millions of dollars for custom support to keep their machines secure and functional. Right now, over half the agency's PCs still run XP...

Summary: Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, Word and Publisher are patched, some products for the last time. Today Microsoft released four security updates for Windows and Microsoft Office. These will be the last publicly-released updates for Windows XP and Office 2003. A total of 11 vulnerabilities were addressed by these updates, including seven for Windows XP and four for Office 2003. Separately, Microsoft released fixes for Internet Explorer 10 and 11 to address vulnerabilities fixed by Adobe in the Flash Player bundled in the Metro versions of IE. Among the vulnerabilities patched is a critical error in the handling of RTF...

Microsoft really wants people to stop using Windows XP. The company launched a new promotion that offers XP users $100 off the purchase of a new PC that costs more than $599 through the Microsoft Store from now until June 15. Buyers will also get 90 days of free support and free data transfer from their old XP-powered PC. Microsoft is ending support for XP, which has been around for more than a decade, in April. That means any security flaws found by attackers after that point won’t be patched, leaving users who are still clinging to their old computers...

Lush green hills under a cobalt blue sky with precisely the right amount of fluffy clouds floating about. Who hasn’t been lost in reverie staring at the default Windows XP wallpaper, dreaming of Middle Earth or maybe a weekend in Cork County? Yet that shot of a bucolic paradise has turned into a very personal nightmare for Charles O’Lear, the man who captured the iconic photo and sold it to Microsoft. O’Lear took a one-time payment for the photo rather than trying to negotiate a license fee. Even a tiny fee per Windows XP license would have yielded him a...

Microsoft hopes to make it easier for Windows XP users to drop their old computers and upgrade to a newer Surface or PC by offering them $100 to do so. The Redmond-based company announced earlier this month that support and security updates will no longer be available for its popular old operating system after April 8. That doesn’t mean the computers will immediately become unusable, but they may be more vulnerable to hackers. Windows XP users can get $100 off when they buy a Surface Pro 2 or select PCs for $599 and more. The cheapest is an Acer Aspire...

I have a Windows XP machine using Apache as an HTTP webserver. It is primarily used as a way for me to provide large files to clients who cannot receive large attachments. It is strictly a one-way street. I do not allow FTP uploading. Nor is this machine used for anything else (no web surfing, etc) Other than the HTTP server port(s) and a couple for UVNC (which provides multi-layer password protection and encrypted connections), I have the firewall pretty buttoned up. The system itself runs reliably, and beyond installing a decent antivirus (which I already have), I cannot see...

Windows 8.1, after four months of its October 2013 debut, has finally managed to overtake other operating software including Windows Vista and Mac OS X recording a slow, but steady initial growth. According to latest latest data coming from Net Applications Windows 8.1 holds a market share of 4.30 percent to become the fourth most popular operating system in the world. According to the statistics, Windows 7 with a share of 47.31 percent, continues to be the number one OS version followed by Windows XP which is still powering 29.53 percent of desktop computers worldwide. MicrosoftÂ’s modern operating system, Windows...

The Windows XP death clock is ticking away. While Microsoft has extended support for malware protection, do not be fooled -- XP will be officially unsupported on April 8. If Microsoft has its druthers, these XP users will upgrade to Windows 8 and maybe even buy a new computer. However, there is a problem with this -- the Windows 8 UI is radically different from XP and people do not like change (especially people clinging to an operating system from 2001). Also, they may not need to buy a new computer, because their existing is probably fast enough... for...