Windows XP still going strong despite looming end of support deadline

[A Guy]

With less than a week to go until Microsoft officially ends support for Windows XP the number of users sticking with the aging OS is still significant. The latest numbers from NetMarketShare show Windows XP is going strong, powering 27.69 percent of all worldwide PC usage during the month of March.

That's a very small drop from January, when XP actually grew by 0.25 percentage points for 29.23 percent of worlwide PC usage. First introduced in 2001, Windows XP is still the second most popular version of Windows, surpassed only by Windows 7.

Despite its age, XP has managed to stick around thanks to the poor reception of several versions of Windows most notably Windows Vista and Windows 8. As of March, NetMarketShare says Windows 8 and 8.1 combined account for just 11.3 percent of PC usage worldwide--less than half of XP's market share.

Source

A Guy

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
So's my ageing BMW -- still wouldn't trade it in for a newer car -- I HATE THE MODERN "ECO" SMALL CARS !!!! can't get into them - especially the back seats. They seem to assume nobody is over about 1m.55 in height . I think for US measurements tats around 5ft 5 -6 ins ). If you arer approaching "Basket ball player height" (2m and over) don't even THINK of trying to get in-- even a plane seat in Cattle class or on RYANAIR is more comfortable. !!!

Same with XP -- some things it does excellently which can't be done by newer systems such old legacy hardware for example -- I will run it as a VM and it will probably outlast both W7 and W8. !!! - Th ere's plenty of old expensive specialized hardware that runs on XP such as Lab equipment etc.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[ThrashZone]

I ran across this I thought it was an interesting read,
Forced to use Windows XP past April? 10 ways to make the best of a bad situation

 

[MrWhoopee]

I ran across this I thought it was an interesting read,
Forced to use Windows XP past April? 10 ways to make the best of a bad situation

I find this article to be still promoting the panic,

"But it's what you can't see that will hurt you the most, and that's what XP holdouts are forgetting: the bad guys are arming themselves to the teeth with exploits, just waiting for April 8 to come and go."

" for a situation where a "wild west" of exploits is just about certain to erupt soon"

making it sound like there is already a whole host of unpatched holes just waiting for the flood gates to be opened.

 

[A Guy]

making it sound like there is already a whole host of unpatched holes just waiting for the flood gates to be opened.

Perhaps there are. They find new ones every month for 13 years, why would we assume there are no more?

A Guy

 

[MrWhoopee]

making it sound like there is already a whole host of unpatched holes just waiting for the flood gates to be opened.

Perhaps there are. They find new ones every month for 13 years, why would we assume there are no more?

A Guy

While it is safe to assume that there are more undiscovered holes, the article gives the impression that the bad-guys are somehow already working on exploits for those, as yet, undiscovered holes, and that XP systems will be dramatically more vulnerable on April 9.

 

[jimroad471]

I guess you can keep xp if you follow that advice. IMO, if a company really has too trouble with migration, then stay with xp os....as a home user, I like 7 simply for the performance. I do lotta banking online and with 7, I need not concern my self too much. I am just not that kind of dude that would be taking a serious risk of getting hacked. if you can migrate, do it. if you don't , you now know the risks

jim

 

[user31]

I think XP is great; why would they stop supporting it if it's such a great OS. It's probably Microsoft's most popular OS to date.

 

[Barman58]

XP was a good enough operating system, it was built on a great OS after all But I have to wonder if everyone would be waxing lyrical about it if it wasn't for an accident of fate, (or bad planning by Microsoft) , if the normal planned lifecycle had been followed to plan it would have been replaced about ten years ago.

The Longhorn problems and Vista issues, (a technically much better OS than XP, but ruined by bad practice by hardware manufactures and box shifting stores), meant that XP has become embedded in users consciousness. And you have to remember that the technology in Vista made Windows 7 the success it is.

it's like the old comfy pair of shoes, they leak, they're full of holes, but they just feel right, and no one likes breaking in a new pair of shoes

As it is now you can use third party malware protection, to extend the life of an XP install, but the underlying code in XP is so old and beyond anymore tweaking, so microsoft has rightly decided to finally stop wasting their resources on trying to patch up this practically unpatchable code.

What I fear is that some zero day exploit will proliferate through all the XP machines without being noticed until it is too late and major damage is done to the whole XP ecosystem. How many users do we all see that buy a PC and run the "Free" antivirus trial that was pre-installed by the OEM, long after the trial has run out, so rely on the OS patches to provide some basic security?

 

[HerrKaLeun]

Not really sure about the XP-love. Some years ago when our IT department switched department after department to W7 I petitioned and pleaded to get mine switched to W7 ahead of time for the sake of 64-bit, better multi-core usage, and the taskbar to de-clutter my desktop (that wasn't my main argument . After I had W7 at home, I really couldn't see myself using XP anymore. It was great, but the world moved on.

I don't think the 27% still using XP are all labs, power plants etc. I also think those statistics depend on PCs using the internet as they depend on website traffic counters. So those standalone XP installations on legacy hardware don't really weigh in on those numbers. Meaning, all those 275 use the internet frequently.... a hacker's wet dream....

 

[GEWB]

Ah, XP Luv...

Well, some of my PAID FOR and FULLY FUNCTIONAL programs will not run on Win 7 or 8. Others are programs that I prefer over the "new and improved" versions and those, too, don't run on 7 or 8. So, when I want those programs, I run XP (and even Firefox 2.0!).

Regards,
GEWB

 

[gregrocker]

Business can't really keep it, can they? What if they are infected causing expensive loss of their data, proprietary information, customer records, etc? How would they explain that to an insurer?

What I'm hearing is that business is moving into Win7, in spite of a scare campaign that they must have Secure Boot in Windows 8. They are not buying it, literally.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Ah, XP Luv...

Well, some of my PAID FOR and FULLY FUNCTIONAL programs will not run on Win 7 or 8. Others are programs that I prefer over the "new and improved" versions and those, too, don't run on 7 or 8. So, when I want those programs, I run XP (and even Firefox 2.0!).

Regards,
GEWB

Nothing lasts forever. However, I found many programs that otherwise wouldn't run on Win 7's compatibility mode. when I first started using Win 7, I had a few programs that wouldn't run in it. I found all but two of them would run in Win 7's Compatibility Mode (the one all versions of Win 7 has); those two were freebies I was able to replace with better ones that ran just fine in Win 7.