UK.gov confirms it's binned extended Windows XP support

The UK government has decided, as foreshadowed by The Reg, that it can do without extended support for Windows XP. The nation signed up for Microsoft's super-special zombie OS support service – aka a Custom Support Agreement - last year, but a recent meeting of government Technology Leaders decided enough is enough. A post on …

[Anonymous Coward]

Love it...

"We expect most remaining government devices using Windows XP will be able to mitigate any risks,"

I'll put the ICO on speed dial, so we (the tax payers) can pay the fines

[James 100]

Re: Love it...

"I'll put the ICO on speed dial, so we (the tax payers) can pay the fines"

That bit always infuriates me. If a government employee gets a speeding fine, they have to pay it themselves, because the whole point is to punish them for breaking the law. So why, if managers decide to break the law, do they get to pass the buck to us?

Now, hold the board members of the body concerned *personally* liable for any resulting fines - I bet they'd scrape every last trace of XP off the PCs faster than Richard Stallman would, and start paying much closer attention to their jobs overall.

[leexgx]

Re: Love it...

so i guess that means they installed Malwarebytes anti-malware and malwarebytes anti-exploit and are using firefox or Chrome (but guess they have gov sites that do not work with anything but IE)

and the extended windows update support option has also been enabled on each system

(make a text file and save it as a .reg file)

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\WPA\PosReady]

"Installed"=dword:00000001

[frank ly]

Appropriate picture

Old and dirty, fraying at the edges, in use beyond its reasonable lifetime expectation. But hey, it still does its basic job if you're prepared to put up with it and you don't have the time or budget to replace it.

[Blofeld's Cat]

Er...

"Old and dirty, fraying at the edges, in use beyond its reasonable lifetime expectation."

Is that the sign or the denizens of SW1 in general?

[Anonymous Coward]

What next ?

Ask the French Police to show them the way, that's what should be next.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/01/french-national-police

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What next ?

"Ask the French Police to show them the way, that's what should be next."

Yeah - and be like Munich where they are desperately trying to revert back from a similar exercise? Being the 1% sucks. There are many good reasons why of the millions of desktops refreshed each year, hardly any of them switch to Linux...

[Uncle Slacky]

Re: What next ?

They're reviewing all IT in Munich, as is standard practice. They're not "desperately trying to revert":

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/no-munich-isnt-about-to-ditch-free-software-and-move-back-to-windows/

[frank ly]

Re: What next ?

Has there been any verifiable and academically sound analysis of the 'Munich experience' with Linux? If so, I'd be interested in reading it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What next ?

"They're reviewing all IT in Munich, as is standard practice"

It's not standard practice unless you have a major problem...

[Adrian Midgley 1]

Re: What next ?

No. Although as always people who can make headings out of big bold text will believe their familiarity should lead IT policy for others...

[RealBigAl]

Security in our time

"We expect most remaining government devices using Windows XP will be able to mitigate any risks"

I can just see a government minister standing on the lawn outside parliament, looking direct to camera.

"There will be no security breach, we've analysed the risk, and I have in my hand a piece of paper...."

[PNGuinn]

Re: Security in our time

Actually, that comment evoked another image...

...Comical Ali in Iraq at a news conference assuring the world that there were no US raids in Bagdad, all the while the sound of explosions and dust and debris falling in the studio...

Icon for a variety of reasons...

[theOtherJT]

Translation:

"We're desperately broke because the government is committed to impossible spending cuts, so we just revoked everyone's IT support budget for all cases where the budget isn't being used to support a white elephant project run by a close friend or relation of a cabinet minister."

[MJI]

Perhaps they ran the same as a lot of us.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\WPA\PosReady]

"Installed"=dword:00000001

Works for me

[MJI]

Re: Perhaps they ran the same as a lot of us.

Yes I do have a more modern OS on as well, but I still have my video editing software which doesn't work with WINE

[Martin Milan]

"We expect most remaining government devices using Windows XP will be able to mitigate [b]any[/b] risks,"

Am I the only person who is really, REALLY suspicious of the word "Any" in there? It's almost as though we have some administrative managerial drone spouting forth without actually doing the research to understand what those risks might be - thereby elevating his/her confidence to the point where they might even speak of "THE risks"...

For heavens sake, you're responsible for holding masses of masses of our most sensitive information, and you are subject to the DPA. Running a maintained operating system on your kit really should not be that much of an ask...

Will the government compensate us when we all get powned by this one?

[Tom 13]

...are still to finish XP migration projects.

That leaves quite a lot of room for interpretation. Does that mean

1) We've migrated 99.9% of systems but still have some key systems running ancient software with OS dependencies that we need to pay contractors to fix. But we've moved them to internal only and put up our best firewalls to protect them.

2) We've haven't gotten off our butts and started yet because the waste hasn't hit the oscillating air mover yet.

3) Something in between.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: ...are still to finish XP migration projects.

I work in one of the UK's (as-good-as) state-owned banks. As devs, we have Win7 PCs, but have retained our XP machines (virtually) as the users are still on XP. They're due to move over by the end of the year or something like that.

[a_yank_lurker]

Re: ...are still to finish XP migration projects.

My money is on #2.

[channel extended]

Two Targets!!!!

I wonder if MOD or GHCQ have completed their switch? What LOVELY targets ;)

[ian_m]

We still have quite a few XP machines left in our engineering manufacturing company.

They are on things like a specialist label printer, an EPROM/FLASH programmer, sign cutter and freight company weighing machine. None have Internet access, most don't have any form of web browser. Most will be stuck at XP for ever as either need ISA bus for a controller card, old XP only SCSI card and software that just doesn't work under Vista/Win7/8.

Most just work fine, type in numbers & letters into label printer software, press go...out come nice printed labels to label products. Under Win7 the software fails to allow open/save/file actions, so fail there. Later software version is available at £xxx works with Win7 but doesn't support a parallel port printer so would involve purchase later version of printer at £xxxx. Why change it still just works,

Want freight label, place box on scales, press button, nice freight label printed. Done.

So this is why so many companies are still using XP in all types of places as it just works and has worked for years.

[Anonymous Coward]

UK govt. can buy Windows 10 with enterprise licence where they can hold feature updates for many years. Though Windows 10 is almost a spyware(less than Android of course) but UK govt. probably have nothing to fear as they are like in bed partner relationship with USA since many years.