Windows Xp nears End Of Life (THANK GOD!) Zero Day Forever April 8 2014

[bugo]

My grandparents live on a fixed income, and they were able to get it. Also windows 8 costs 99 bucks, one time fee. if you shop around you can get windows 7 for about 65-80 bucks.

Also in 2002 Xp Pro UPGRADE cost 160 bucks.

$65 is still a lot of money to somebody who doesn't have it. 

Your example is not common because most XP computers won't run Windows 8.  Why does somebody who only uses their computer for emails and photos need 4 GB of RAM?  Their old computer worked just fine.

The bottom line is that hackers and virus writers are going to target XP and many computers will be vulnerable.  If only .002% of computers were XP it wouldn't be an issue but a high percentage of computers today still run XP.  XP is just as good as Windows 7 and far better than the hated Windows 8.  Why fix it if it ain't broke?

[Pete from Boston]

My grandparents live on a fixed income, and they were able to get it. Also windows 8 costs 99 bucks, one time fee. if you shop around you can get windows 7 for about 65-80 bucks.

Also in 2002 Xp Pro UPGRADE cost 160 bucks.

$65 is still a lot of money to somebody who doesn't have it. 

Your example is not common because most XP computers won't run Windows 8.  Why does somebody who only uses their computer for emails and photos need 4 GB of RAM?  Their old computer worked just fine.

The bottom line is that hackers and virus writers are going to target XP and many computers will be vulnerable.  If only .002% of computers were XP it wouldn't be an issue but a high percentage of computers today still run XP.  XP is just as good as Windows 7 and far better than the hated Windows 8.  Why fix it if it ain't broke?

Because Microsoft doesn't make money unless it requires a one-time fee every few years? 

[bugo]

My grandparents live on a fixed income, and they were able to get it. Also windows 8 costs 99 bucks, one time fee. if you shop around you can get windows 7 for about 65-80 bucks.

Also in 2002 Xp Pro UPGRADE cost 160 bucks.

$65 is still a lot of money to somebody who doesn't have it. 

Your example is not common because most XP computers won't run Windows 8.  Why does somebody who only uses their computer for emails and photos need 4 GB of RAM?  Their old computer worked just fine.

The bottom line is that hackers and virus writers are going to target XP and many computers will be vulnerable.  If only .002% of computers were XP it wouldn't be an issue but a high percentage of computers today still run XP.  XP is just as good as Windows 7 and far better than the hated Windows 8.  Why fix it if it ain't broke?

Because Microsoft doesn't make money unless it requires a one-time fee every few years? 

How much would it cost to do the bare minimum upgrades that would keep the OS usable?  As much money as they make, it wouldn't even make a dent in their profits.  It's all about extreme greed.

[bugo]

They don't build cars that have airbags and seat belts that quit working after a certain number of years.  Why should operating systems be any different?  It wouldn't be that expensive to maintain it.  If XP were obsolete and something like 0.02% of computers used it, it wouldn't be much of an issue.  But 30% of computers still use it.  This is going to be a major PR disaster for Microsoft and I'll be laughing when it happens.  Just watch.

[formulanone]

Most automakers stop supplying OEM parts after 10-15 years.  Automakers rarely create service bulletins, campaigns, and recalls for ten-year old vehicles.

If it weren't for the tiny percentage of miscreants which create and distribute malware/viruses, the cessation of support for XP would be a complete non-issue. It isn't going to fail to work after the 9th of April.

Although it seems they'd created 8.x because they feared losing that 10% of market share to Apple, which is what sucks it up for the rest of us.

[SteveG1988]

They don't build cars that have airbags and seat belts that quit working after a certain number of years.  Why should operating systems be any different?  It wouldn't be that expensive to maintain it.  If XP were obsolete and something like 0.02% of computers used it, it wouldn't be much of an issue.  But 30% of computers still use it.  This is going to be a major PR disaster for Microsoft and I'll be laughing when it happens.  Just watch.

Air bags...do quit working reliably after a decade or so. Most manufacuters give them a decade before they may or may not deploy properly.

Can you go into a Chevrolet dealer and order a brand new engine for a 1990s saturn? How about an airbag?

And it won't be a PR disaster, it wasn't one when windows 9x was discontinued in 2006, or when 2000 Pro less than 6 years ago.

[SidS1045]

And it won't be a PR disaster, it wasn't one when windows 9x was discontinued in 2006, or when 2000 Pro less than 6 years ago.

9x and 2000 Pro were at less than ten percent market share when each reached end-of-support.  XP is still at almost 30%.  If it's not a PR disaster in the making, it's certainly tone-deaf on Microsoft's part, almost as tone-deaf as the constant pushing of Windows 8 as a replacement, an OS that computer users have overwhelmingly ignored (less than 11% market share after being on the market for almost two years).

[algorerhythms]

I hate to be "That Guy" but this whole thing sort of illustrates the advantage of open-source software. As a comparison, when the Gnome project stopped supporting version 2.x of their software, telling people to upgrade to version 3.x (which a lot of people hated), a group of 2.x users decided to maintain the old version on their own. With Windows XP, that's not an option, because the source code, which any maintainer would need, isn't available, and Microsoft isn't going to release it any time soon.

[ZLoth]

They don't build cars that have airbags and seat belts that quit working after a certain number of years.  Why should operating systems be any different?  It wouldn't be that expensive to maintain it. 

Nobody said that Windows XP will quit working after April 8th. It will continue to boot up. However, for us regular people, it will no longer get regular updates. And, be aware that Microsoft announced end of support for XP back in 2007 and that support was originally going to end in 2010 before it got pushed back to 2014. In addition, end of sale for Windows XP was 2008/2009. That was a lot of warning.

If you ever dealt with software development, either from a support perspective or from a programming perspective, then you would know how much costs increase when you have to support multiple operating systems and multiple configuration. The APIs and libraries for Windows XP are different from Windows Vista/7/8, not to mention that you have to check for 32 bit compatibility as well as 64 bit compatibility. The more you have to test and validate, the more expensive it becomes. And, too many people stuck with Internet Explorer 6 for a long time which came with Windows XP. Ask any web programmer what it was like to program in compatibility with Internet Explorer 6 style sheets, and they are like to respond in swear words.

Lets look at another item that was used for many years in cars: Leaded gas. It was introduced in the 1920s as a anti-knock additive in gasoline. Phaseout began in 1973 and leaded gasoline was no longer sold in California in 1992 and in the United States in 1995. (If you still drove a leaded gas vehicle, you also has to put in additive in). Unleaded vehicles were first sold in 1969, but became a requirement in 1975. Fueling stations were required to have unleaded pumps by July 4, 1974. There, the phaseout period was twenty years, but again, how long does an average person keep a car? Would ten years be a good number? And, even then, things change. In 2006 (when I last hunted for a new car), an audio input jack was almost unheard, with the desired feature being a CD player (and, even then, it didn't include MP3). Now, thanks to the iPhone introduced in June, 2007 followed by other smart phones, you are hardly unlikely to find a new vehicle (2012 and later) without an auxiliary audio input. To add that to my 2005 Malibu, I ended up having a FM Modulator installed since it was impossible to modify the radio for a audio input. My new vehicle, a 2013 Buick Verano, not only has an auxiliary audio input, but also a Bluetooth connection for telephone and media audio. On the other hand, tape decks stopped being included in cars in 2010, and I expected CD players to start disappearing from cars in a few years. (Part of the reason I installed a FM modulator was that it was cheaper than fixing the CD player!)

Unfortunately, the lifespan of a personal computer is much shorter than a lifespan of a car. The optimal lifespan of a computer is three years, and I tell people that you should expect five years of usage. The computer I am using was assembled -by me- in 2007. Sure, it initially had Windows XP on it, but I eventually updated to Windows 7 64-bit. But, then, the components that I purchased were considered near top-of-the-line in 2007 (Dual Core 6600 running at 2.4 GHz processor), and I was able to get additional life from expanding the memory (2 GB to 8 GB) and upgrading the video card (nVidia 8800 GTS to nVidia 460), and changing from a regular hard drive to a solid state drive. But, now, it's considered pokey slow for the modern games, and virtualization is a bit slow. But, then, I tend to push my computer. Many "average" people just use their computer to check email, browse the web, home banking, and perhaps word processing and spreadsheets, and they purchased lower-end machines that aren't easily upgraded.

[J N Winkler]

I can see both sides of the argument, but I have to disagree (reluctantly) with Jeremy's position that a (not particularly computer-literate) senior citizen on a fixed income should be able to continue using an XP computer indefinitely for email and image browsing.  This has less to do with any shortcomings XP may have as an operating system, and more to do with the things that tend to go with XP on consumer-grade equipment, such as outdated hardware and very low processor speeds.  The latter two are particularly taxed by incremental upgrades that have been all but impossible to avoid during XP's lifecycle, some of which are part and parcel of ongoing XP product support, such as the transitions from newly released XP to XP SP3, browser version upgrades, Flash, Silverlight, etc.

In my household we have two XP computers that are still in occasional use.  One (a laptop I purchased in 2006, CPU passmark of about 950) stopped being a primary computer in 2011, while the other (my mother's former primary, a desktop purchased in 2004, CPU passmark of 380) went into semi-retirement in January 2014.  The laptop can play few if any DVDs authored in the last four years or so; PowerDVD shows the "Play" status message and promptly hangs.  It doesn't have a Blu-Ray drive, so it can't be used for software playback of movie Blu-Rays.  It can just barely handle rips of DVDs and broadcast TV shows because the bitrates are low enough, but it can't play Blu-Ray rips because the bitrates are far too high for the CPU to cope (VLC freezes and skips while mplayer says "Not enough CPU!").  The CPU and hardware limitation prevents a user of this laptop from accessing a now large and increasing share of recent movies (whether obtained legally or illegally) since both the studios and the mass-market retailers are phasing out DVDs in favor of Blu-Ray.

The XP desktop works well as a part-time FTP server, because basic networking is one of the functions least likely to tax an outdated computer.  This entails accepting some significant limitations, however.  It runs an old version of FileZilla Server since the current ones (as of about December 2013) no longer support XP.  Also, we never spent the extra money for XP Professional on any of our machines, so we must accept the limitations of the simple file sharing model used in the Home and Media Center editions of XP.  This means that if I want to avoid doing a console login on the XP machine just to transfer files via SMB from my primary computer to the "hot" folder for the FTP server, I have to give everyone behind my router write access to the "hot" folder, contrary to my preference for layered security both at the router and on the individual computers on the LAN.

For better or worse, these limitations don't affect more recent computers that have up-to-date drives, Windows 7 or 8/8.1 as the operating system, and passmarks of 4000 or better.

In regard to Jeremy's argument that senior citizens should continue to be able to browse images and read email using an XP machine, that will continue to be possible after support ends in two days.  It will merely be less safe to do so.  However, that expectation essentially puts older users on two discrete "islands" of functionality that are slowly being inundated.  What if an older user wants to go on the Web to find out how to set up his or her email or manipulate an image, for example?  And what about the ongoing deterioration of the user experience, such as slow logon, the lengthy delay before applications launch, etc.?  When my mother transitioned from an XP machine with CPU passmark of 380 to an 8.1 machine with CPU passmark over 6,000, her computer usage increased by about 50% since it was no longer necessary to sit through five-minute logons or wait for the Web browser or email client to start.

Keeping an obsolete OS on life support as a safety mechanism to prevent digital exclusion might very well have an effect diametrically opposite to that intended.

[ZLoth]

I hate to be "That Guy" but this whole thing sort of illustrates the advantage of open-source software. As a comparison, when the Gnome project stopped supporting version 2.x of their software, telling people to upgrade to version 3.x (which a lot of people hated), a group of 2.x users decided to maintain the old version on their own. With Windows XP, that's not an option, because the source code, which any maintainer would need, isn't available, and Microsoft isn't going to release it any time soon.

*nix systems? Good luck with that. As a rule, people are resistant to change even when things are better, and they tend to stick with the familiar.

I prefer *nix systems over Windows as servers. They tend to be rock-solid, and easier to maintain. I even build a test web server using Linux. Most people doesn't even realize -- or care -- that they are connecting to a non-Windows server as long as it serves up the web pages and whatever content they desire.

But, when it comes to their desktop, they don't want to learn another system. They are familiar with Office at work, and they want to use Office at home. No, they don't want to deal with LibreOffice, OpenOffice, ApacheOffice, or whatever office equivalent is out there and the potential incompatibilities. And, many of the good stuff that people use is on Windows or Mac, not Linux. 

[vdeane]

XP will not magically stop working on April 8.  In fact, there's a good chance that living with XP will be no different than it was until May 13 - the first Patch Tuesday after XP support ends.  Even then, the machine won't grind to a hault.  The computer doesn't need a "keep alive" signal from MS that will cause it to just die if it isn't updated every month.  And since most vulnerabilities are cause by user actions (such as downloading an infected executable), the rest require open ports, and almost all require an administrative account, an XP computer operated under a NAT with a careful user will actually be quite safe, especially if that user has a limited account (this is also a reason to upgrade: it is far easier to use Vista and later on a limited account than XP).

It would pay to analyze where that 30% of computers comes from.  It's not Grandma.  A very large percentage of those are from Chinese pirated copies that have never been updated, not even to install the service packs.  They will be unaffected by the lack of support.  Much of the rest of them are from embedded systems like ATMs that are locked down and don't have users interact with the OS directly.  They will also be unaffected.  Many of the rest are tied up in enterprise computers that will continue to receive updates after April 8 if the company pays Microsoft.  These machines will continue on as usual.

[J N Winkler]

It would pay to analyze where that 30% of computers comes from.  It's not Grandma.  A very large percentage of those are from Chinese pirated copies that have never been updated, not even to install the service packs.  They will be unaffected by the lack of support.  Much of the rest of them are from embedded systems like ATMs that are locked down and don't have users interact with the OS directly.  They will also be unaffected.  Many of the rest are tied up in enterprise computers that will continue to receive updates after April 8 if the company pays Microsoft.  These machines will continue on as usual.

I agree it would be useful to have a breakdown.  But do OS usage share surveys typically include ATMs and so on?  I was under the impression that many of the headcounts rely on browser user-agent headers, which embedded systems wouldn't ordinarily generate.

[algorerhythms]

I hate to be "That Guy" but this whole thing sort of illustrates the advantage of open-source software. As a comparison, when the Gnome project stopped supporting version 2.x of their software, telling people to upgrade to version 3.x (which a lot of people hated), a group of 2.x users decided to maintain the old version on their own. With Windows XP, that's not an option, because the source code, which any maintainer would need, isn't available, and Microsoft isn't going to release it any time soon.

*nix systems? Good luck with that. As a rule, people are resistant to change even when things are better, and they tend to stick with the familiar.

I prefer *nix systems over Windows as servers. They tend to be rock-solid, and easier to maintain. I even build a test web server using Linux. Most people doesn't even realize -- or care -- that they are connecting to a non-Windows server as long as it serves up the web pages and whatever content they desire.

But, when it comes to their desktop, they don't want to learn another system. They are familiar with Office at work, and they want to use Office at home. No, they don't want to deal with LibreOffice, OpenOffice, ApacheOffice, or whatever office equivalent is out there and the potential incompatibilities. And, many of the good stuff that people use is on Windows or Mac, not Linux. 

I'm not suggesting that people switch to Linux. That isn't ever going to happen, unless that Linux happens to be Android... Just pointing out the hypothetical that if XP were open source, this would be less of an issue because it would be possible for third parties who want to continue maintaining XP to do so.

It would pay to analyze where that 30% of computers comes from.  It's not Grandma.  A very large percentage of those are from Chinese pirated copies that have never been updated, not even to install the service packs.  They will be unaffected by the lack of support.  Much of the rest of them are from embedded systems like ATMs that are locked down and don't have users interact with the OS directly.  They will also be unaffected.  Many of the rest are tied up in enterprise computers that will continue to receive updates after April 8 if the company pays Microsoft.  These machines will continue on as usual.

I agree it would be useful to have a breakdown.  But do OS usage share surveys typically include ATMs and so on?  I was under the impression that many of the headcounts rely on browser user-agent headers, which embedded systems wouldn't ordinarily generate.

Most OS usage share surveys do not include ATMs, or any machines not connected to the web. Most, as you pointed out, rely on website log data, which relies on browser user-agent headers (which, of course, can be easily faked).

[vdeane]

Website log data isn't actually that useful for figuring out usage shares though, as a particular site can have different stats because the target audience might be more or less likely to upgrade.  I'm not sure what usage shares use, but Microsoft's official count definitely includes ATMs.

The tech press is definitely sensationalizing April 8 (and other security news).  Even the security companies are guilty.  Symantec a couple weeks ago issued a press release talking about an ATM vulnerability where a crook could cause the ATM to "spew" out money with a cell phone.  The reality: the cell phone had to be physically connected to the ATM with a USB cable and plugged in, and could only get the ATM to output money at the normal rate.

[SteveG1988]

My grandparents live on a fixed income, and they were able to get it. Also windows 8 costs 99 bucks, one time fee. if you shop around you can get windows 7 for about 65-80 bucks.

Also in 2002 Xp Pro UPGRADE cost 160 bucks.

$65 is still a lot of money to somebody who doesn't have it. 

Your example is not common because most XP computers won't run Windows 8.  Why does somebody who only uses their computer for emails and photos need 4 GB of RAM?  Their old computer worked just fine.

The bottom line is that hackers and virus writers are going to target XP and many computers will be vulnerable.  If only .002% of computers were XP it wouldn't be an issue but a high percentage of computers today still run XP.  XP is just as good as Windows 7 and far better than the hated Windows 8.  Why fix it if it ain't broke?

Xp is not as good as 7 from a security standpoint. Running all users as administrators by default was an issue that vista started to fix with user account control.

Also, my grandmother's PC came with 4gb of ram and it was not expensive.

[corco]

I noticed yesterday that Safeway's self-checkout machines still run on XP, as one was restarting while I was purchasing groceries up in Helena

[Duke87]

I can see both sides of the argument, but I have to disagree (reluctantly) with Jeremy's position that a (not particularly computer-literate) senior citizen on a fixed income should be able to continue using an XP computer indefinitely for email and image browsing.  This has less to do with any shortcomings XP may have as an operating system, and more to do with the things that tend to go with XP on consumer-grade equipment, such as outdated hardware and very low processor speeds.  The latter two are particularly taxed by incremental upgrades that have been all but impossible to avoid during XP's lifecycle, some of which are part and parcel of ongoing XP product support, such as the transitions from newly released XP to XP SP3, browser version upgrades, Flash, Silverlight, etc.

Indeed. My mother had a relatively low-end laptop she purchased in 2002 which had XP. By 2007 it had become unusable because Microsoft had issued more system updates in the previous five years than the machine could handle. In order to get the computer to continue working, she had to reformat the hard drive and turn updates off. Shortly after she gave up on it and bought a new laptop with Vista.

I noticed yesterday that Safeway's self-checkout machines still run on XP, as one was restarting while I was purchasing groceries up in Helena

I observed about a month ago a bank ATM still running on XP. I get the sense that XP is still fairly common on such specialized machines designed only to perform one specific task, since they naturally have a longer lifecycle than a personal computer.

The more different things you do with a computer, the earlier a grave you are likely to send it to. Note how when we talk about people with personal computers still using XP the key demographic is "old people who only use them to check email and look at pictures of their family". Since these people aren't installing a lot of software or downloading a lot of files, they aren't putting a lot of miles on their machines. Think of it as the difference between only driving your car to church on Sunday and to the store on Tuesday, and using your car to commute and take road trips.

[corco]

I observed about a month ago a bank ATM still running on XP. I get the sense that XP is still fairly common on such specialized machines designed only to perform one specific task, since they naturally have a longer lifecycle than a personal computer.

Unfortunately, those are the uses that probably need security patches the most. An ATM with Windows XP seems like an ATM that I wouldn't want to use.

I'm guessing the Safeway machines aren't internet connected, maybe to a local ethernet but probably nothing else. The credit card swipes are controlled by a typical merchant pad or whatever those are called, not through the computer.

Of course, I have no sympathy for Safeway or ATM companies if they leave security holes exposed- they had the time and the money to upgrade.

[bugo]

The Oklahoma lottery machines run XP.

[J N Winkler]

It would pay to analyze where that 30% of computers comes from.  It's not Grandma.

Looks like some of it consists of computers used by the British and Dutch governments, who have paid millions for one-year extensions of support:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/07/uk-government-microsoft-windows-xp-public-sector

(It's not like we are all that much better off, though--if memory serves, the Post reported recently that the Defense Department still has some XP computers which are not considered high priority for OS upgrades since they are buried in secure networks.)

[vdeane]

I observed about a month ago a bank ATM still running on XP. I get the sense that XP is still fairly common on such specialized machines designed only to perform one specific task, since they naturally have a longer lifecycle than a personal computer.

Unfortunately, those are the uses that probably need security patches the most. An ATM with Windows XP seems like an ATM that I wouldn't want to use.

I'm guessing the Safeway machines aren't internet connected, maybe to a local ethernet but probably nothing else. The credit card swipes are controlled by a typical merchant pad or whatever those are called, not through the computer.

Of course, I have no sympathy for Safeway or ATM companies if they leave security holes exposed- they had the time and the money to upgrade.

ATMs probably need upgrades less, actually.  Almost all malware infections are trojan horses caused by users downloading something from the internet or visiting an infected webpage.  This cannot happen on an ATM.  The days of worms sniffing out computers are long gone thanks to the proliferation of NAT router firewalls.

[Molandfreak]

T-5 hours, 40 minutes.

[SteveG1988]

The last day has begun.

[ZLoth]

Today is the day Windows XP support end. This also means that Internet Explorer 6 and Office 2003 is end-of-life as well.

Good riddance Internet Explorer 6.