Windows users: You get a patch! And you get a patch! And you get a patch! Everybody gets... Microsoft has issued its usual warning to admins ahead of this month's Patch Tuesday – and servers are getting some serious fixes. Redmond will be pinging out six parcels of patches; two critical batches, three important and one rated moderate – the latter covering the service bus for Windows Server. But Windows RT, Server …
I have an 8 year old HP laptop running XP. I can't see it coping with the new flavours of Windows so have no plans to change the OS.
There are only a few sites I visit using it, my Mrs has a Windows 7 laptop if I want to explore, and of course, at work I'm using a company laptop so there is no access to norty/dodgy sites.
I understand the commercial reasons for discontinuing support for XP, but why alienate your customer base?
My 6 year old HP Pavilion has been on Linux for three or four years and CrunchBang (#!) Linux for the past several months. I find the GUIs in the different Linux distros are getting heavier and CrunchBang has kept their GUI, a windows manger really called OpenBox, very light and minimal. Run like a charm.
IE is bound tightly to the underlying OS. Some of the DLL's it uses are also used by other key utilities such as Windows Explorer.
IMHO the real truth is that MS really don't have a clue when it comes to patching.
If you update Office for Mac, it complains if Firefox, Sudoku, Photoshop and other non Apple supplied Apps are running. WTF has Firefox or Sudoku being open got to do with an Office Update?
None so that really just don't have a clue.
don't even try to get me started on the seemingly endless update/reboot cycle you have to go through for .Net (when applied to a non WSUS System). My last could was 11 reboots for .Net 3.5 and 4.
I'll stick with XP then - I've used W7 and all the rest of them and get really fed up when I log in and have to wait for ages while MS downloads the latest fixes for their insecure bloatware, and then reboots while I'm in the middle of something important like Fallout NV. Security? Well, I run on a virtual machine. If I was to get compromised I can just trash it and reinstall from the latest backup.
Because when that happens XP becomes a problem. Until then, it is no different from before, other than the possibility of this. (Inevitable, eventually, I think, unless MS blink first when it happens).
At that point moving to VIsta, for machines with both licences, or dual booting Linux mint would appear to be sensible.
"you have to ask if the architecture is flawed."
I don't know if you'd call it the architecture. The Windows kernel is perfectly capable of defending itself. The problem is that for many years Windows Setup made just one user account and expected folks to use an administrative account for daily use (including browsing and email). These day, of course, it is much smarter. It creates just one user account that is rigged to put up an "Are you sure?" box for each piece of incoming malware.
Then there are the users. Microsoft has happily sold computers for years to people stupid enough to click "Yes, I'm sure.". Linux, however, has restricted itself to people who aren't.
I just purchased an Acer 5253 with a toasted hard drive. And yes after purchasing a new 1tb drive I could have installed the Win7 that it shipped with.
Not in this lifetime. I used my old backups and install Win XP Sp3 on it. I have good virus protection, a good firewall and a secured network. They're my machines, and I'll run what I want to on them. If Microcrap gives me anymore guff, I just might go to Linux and become a happy penguin.
Try installing a virgin copy of XP ... my, doesn't it run fast? It's a joy to use but then apply all the patches and watch it slow down to a crawl.
When you build an operating system you tune everything and optimize for memory use and speed, but when you patch a system you are only concerned with security and XP is now bloated and slow. Yes, once you were a beautiful virgin but now, after so many years in the hands of the boys in the basement, you are tired and it's time to let go ...
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe - attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain - time to die." - Roy Batty
XP supports multiple monitors, nothing newer does (and it even affects the blind). XP doesn't ever forget to turn the monitors back on upon wake, either. Or BSOD when you plug in a new monitor.
XP does not crash on every update; I had 5 Server 2008 R2s lock up on the way down this weekend doing updates - a normal amount [1] - and that bug is at least 7 years old. The only 99% safe solution is to rip out TrustedInstaller and never update your Vista/7/8 PC/servers.
XP can do backups to any drive or share you'd like. Windows 7 won't. Microsoft promised to fix it (and TrustedInstaller) for years, before finally laughing manically and spitting in the faces of all the morons who believed them about that or anything else ... roughly the exact day the Justice Department looked away.
I could go on for a month, but just search for any of the billions of threads where an MVP answers with "No not bug. You have virus, run sfc /scannow, reinstall.", "No not bug. Thread delete." Yes, you can even find that style of MVP answer on the famous Drag and Drop intermittently breaks bug (a right cheerful bug now that he's old enough to drink).
Just make sure to download and save all the XP updates. Microsoft always 'accidentally on purpose' quickly turns its support and updates into UpdatesForSure.
[1] I know there are millions of "faithful believers" who will say that locking up on updates is the wave of the future, so what if you have to drive 45km in a thunderstorm/flood thanks to TrustedInstaller because it's not just all about efficiency anymore and being able to see your programs' windows on your monitor is such a dead paradigm and you must just be a fat old neckbeard for not being able to accept the progress that Microsoft has given us from on high, Amen.
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