Windows 7

[pixel]

As Windows 7 is the most mature and stable member of the MS offering, it came as little surprise that the most widely-used OS, Windows XP, has been put to pasture and further maintenance and support withdrawn.

However, like many others, and in spite of alarmist claims that hackers and impersonators will now have a field day targeting XP installations, I'm still maintaining a Windows XP box as testbed and backup machine.
It is therefore with some relief that I noticed some additional activity from Microsoft on this front:

• Further Security Updates have been provided to patch certain XP vulnerabilities.
• IE8 has been sent to replace the leaking earlier versions of Internet Explorer.

While Internet Explorer has never worried me - I use the much safer and better supported Firefox - I am happy that MS took their responsibility somewhat more serious. The effort necessary to replace XP boxes, which have rarely more than 2 GB of RAM rendering them unfit for Win7 and 8, could rival the Year-2000 YTK hysteria. And similar to that hype, I firmly believe that a modicum of common sense in dealing with Internet communication will keep XP users secure and satisfied for many years to come.

On a slightly different note: I have come across an issue, where a friendly Helpdesk member did "something" to a neighbour's system, which activated the need for her to login as Administrator. As she never established another user on her (second-hand) PC, "Administrator" was the only and invisible entity. That meant she could no longer use her PC at all because she had no knowledge of any Windows password.

In order to avoid a hazard like that, I have immediately added a new user to all my Windows PCs. This new user, named "Master" or something similar, has Administrator privileges and can login to repair if anything goes wrong with the original.

That didn't help my neighbour though. There, I had to resort to a hacking tool - google "ophcrack" and download the XP Live CD boot tool, if you ever need to crack a password. That found the unknown Administrator password within 5 minutes, saving her $$hundreds. A local "PC Fixer" had stated her only option was a new PC with Windows 8, which he was happy to sell her, plus a small fee to recover any data from her soon-to-be-scrapped old disk drive.

A rather happy outcome for a struggling age-pensioner

 

[So_Cynical]

A windows 7 machine with 7 installed can be had for less than 500 bucks new...affordable even for pensioners i would think.

 

[Julia]

Pixel, amongst all the hysteria generated by MS saying they were 'withdrawing support for XP', (which I'm using, having had it put on to a new computer about a year ago), I asked my tech bloke about it. He said "when have you ever had to ask MS for support about anything?" Well, never.

The sky did not fall in at the appointed date, good virus and malware protection seems to ensure all is running smoothly, and amusingly, updates continue to arrive from MS.

In the meantime, however, I expect a lot of new computers were sold.

 

[Logique]

MS sent a constant stream of updates and security patches for XP, and for MS Office.

I read the tea leaves, and decided it was time to move on to Win7 OS.

It's not just about security, but having the hardware/software needed to run various applications, now and in future.

That said, WinXP and Office 2003 were mighty programs in their day. But I can't afford to take the risk with them, now that they're not supported.

 

[Julia]

I'm using XP and continue to receive updates.
Also, when I ran all the warnings by the tech person I use his question was "when did you last contact MS for any support?",
Um, never.
His view, and so far he's correct, is that - as long as you have good virus and malware protection - there's no reason XP should not continue to function for some time into the future.

 

[Logique]

Be careful there Julia, there has been a small number of later version OS updates, but not the XP or Office 2003 specific ones.

 

[ChrisJH]

I have an old netbook, running XP, and I barely use it anymore as it was having a hard time running. When the message popped up the other day about no more updates for XP, I figured I may as well see how Windows 8 runs on it.

I installed Windows 8, and even on this 6-odd year old netbook, Windows 8 runs a lot better than Windows XP. Also, there is a great program called Start8 which you can install, and will make Windows 8 work exactly like Windows XP/7.

Thoroughly recommend it!

 

[sydboy007]

I have an old netbook, running XP, and I barely use it anymore as it was having a hard time running. When the message popped up the other day about no more updates for XP, I figured I may as well see how Windows 8 runs on it.

I installed Windows 8, and even on this 6-odd year old netbook, Windows 8 runs a lot better than Windows XP. Also, there is a great program called Start8 which you can install, and will make Windows 8 work exactly like Windows XP/7.

Thoroughly recommend it!

MS did a good job of the under teh hood stuff with windows 8. They designed it around 2GB or memory rather than their usual tactic of requiring more and more resources.

Not having used it I'm not too sure if the complaints about the UI are warranted or not. I know a lot of people complain about office 2010 and 2013, but once you get over the learning curve I do fine their new UIs to be rather efficient.

Word of advise. Set up your day to day account as a standard user. This way if you do get a virus, or some infected web page trying to do a blind install of malware, it wont have the user privileges available. It's a very effective defence against these kinds of attacks. There's 0 click web site malware out there.