Microsoft issues less-than-helpful tips to XP holdouts Microsoft seems to have realised what most everyone figured out years ago: come April 9 there will still be millions upon millions of computers running Windows XP and therefore open to all sorts of potential attacks. Redmond's recognition of the problem appears in a new ”Cyber threats to Windows XP and guidance for Small …
It is aggro from beginning to end.
XP does not install on modern machines with SATA set to AHCI mode. Use the BIOS to alter that setting to COMPATIBLE. When you come to install an AHCI driver (e.g. Lenovo) there may be a procedure where you end up in AHCI mode.
As Bert 1 mentioned, MS Update does not work; but you do a few things first as advised by MS and eventually it gets going.
It can be hard to find device drivers for post-2001 hardware. In my experience Dell and Lenovo have most of what you need for their machines. But third party sites these days just want to stuff you with crapware.
Some hardware seems to have no drivers until you have XP SP2 or SP3 installed.
It will take all evening if you have a good broadband connection.
Windows NT4 used to be as bad near its end. You needed SP3 before you could put in SP6a, then there were updates after that.
What you should already be doing - put them on a separate network area with no internet access (or heavy firewall control for specific sites they have to access), disable autorun on all drives, and force all personnel on pain of cattle-prod to have any USB sticks scanned on a known good machine before they plug them in.
Of course, when you switch from XP to a more modern version of Windows then you will never be able to do a proper backup in a reasonable time again:
(at least until they resurrect Windows NTBackup with the backup-to-tape functionality)
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/3e08fc65-52f5-48ca-ae13-321cdfc44fbd/why-is-windows-backup-on-windows-7-rtm-so-slow?forum=windowsbackup
I don't use windows enough to know what is the best backup software for typical home use, but I know from experience that windows own backup sucks donkey balls in terms of portability for getting your files back again after a major crash.
Suggestions folks for a good Windows backup program?
Suggestions folks for a good Windows backup program?
I find that Macrium Reflect is doing a solid job for me. Fairly easy to configure and now I just leave it creating images to a backup drive. It keeps the last three it made. Periodically I swap the SSD on my server and do a test restore.
I use 2, Macrium Reflect Free for images and EaseUS Todo Backup for data and images. Went for the double approach just in case of restore problems with one of them.
Incidentally, I've got1 Windows 8.1 machine, and thought File History would be a good idea..... How wrong I was. It's pants, it doesn't work. In the 6 months I've been using it there have been far too many problems to detail here. The finally straw was when I found out it was randomly deciding not to back up certain files. An album with 10 tracks had track 7 not backed up for example.
You have to be 100% sure of any backup solution, and not have to worry and check backups all the time.
File History not good.
I run Ubuntu on my old NC10 netbook (dual boot to XP) with 2Gb ram and stock hard drive and OOTB hardware drivers and it runs Liunx fine. What are you doing on your desktop to drag its performance down so much! The NC10 is hardly a powerhouse.
The issue with Linux is "rich media" and codecs that are not all built in - if you get the build right its perfectly functional.
I migrated myself from Windows to Linux and the user experience is sufficiently similar that I really dont think most peoples' learning curve would be that steep
The main potential reason Linux may be a poorer choice is that many consumer devices have drivers/software written only for windows so configuring that cuddly talking child's bear can only be done through explorer with drivers loaded via USB (security of my PC aside). This can be a real pain, hence keeping the XP dual boot where I have all those pesky device management tools from vendors that cant be bothered with web interfaces.
Ends....
I have a much loved Eee 901 netbook (and a slightly less loved Eee 900). Both run Xubuntu absolutely fine, but can't cope with the Unity used in the main Ubuntu... so the answer to "What are you doing on your desktop to drag its performance down so much" for many people is 'trying to run Unity as the desktop'.
Puppy Linux runs even better on both of them, of course.
"I run Ubuntu on my old NC10 netbook (dual boot to XP) with 2Gb ram and stock hard drive and OOTB hardware drivers and it runs Liunx fine."
Samsung NC10?
Has intel graphics and an rt187something type wifi card. All work fine with GNU/Linux
OPs computer might have ATI graphics or something 'orrible.
Unity -> Compiz -> Graphics hog depending on status of driver.
I'm with @tony here. I've an old Dell D820, and ubuntu's install of '12.10' and '13.04' was quite a performance drag. Xubuntu which I've now got installed works fine, and is very quick especially given it's installed in the slow part of the hard drive.
Next, I'll see how the Windows 7 upgrade works (or not). It's worth a try for some gaming, and some things that just are harder to get to work under Linux (age of empires 1, for example). If I look around, I've even got Chip's Challenge kicking about (Win 3.11).
Aah, nostalgia.
If it is someone who really needs XP natively for some special application then they will already be taking precautions.
If it is a home user without any technical skills or the money to simply buy a new PC they are screwed, unless someone is willing to help them. At least a Linux install can be done for beer money, so folk on a really low budget have some option for safe web use.
Failing all of that, there are £100 android tablets out there...
Hmm, from an IT security ignorant perspective - MS is not doing a very good job here:
1. Malicious websites - can I have it in writing that swapping to Win 8 will allow me to freely visit them just because I can?
2. Links in my email - can I go trigger happy once I've upgraded to Win7/8, really? Bring it on!
3. Removable drives - does upgrading my OS mean I'll be able to poke any hole with any stick?!
4. Worms targeting 0 days we won't fix - do I have guaranteed protection against bugs targeting Win 7/8 and will your fixes against those recompense my already sustained losses if I get infected before you spot the bugger?
5. Ransomware - see above
And last but not least, I'm sure there will be some twats trying to exploit the unaware or stubborn initially, however, if I was a baddy, given a choice of writing malware that can affect 20% of the market share, or 70%+. think my ego would flow towards the latter.
Alas, I'd say MS would have a better success using a carrot instead of a cracked stick, but that's just me.
As for my parents, 2 tablets and an android ran little media centre box have replaced their aging PC entirely. They are now considering one of the monstrous 20+inch to fulfill my mom's personal dream - having one permanently installed in the kitchen (cooking is her post retirement hobby).
XP PC is sobbing quietly in a corner of the attic, next to a CRT monitor that now serves as a threat to the grandchildren - if you'll be naughty, nana will replace your LCD with this ol' monitor.
I hate 8. However given that I have to support this sh*t platform I reluctantly shifted over to 8.1 in Feb. But once you install classic shell etc, and copy over the windows 7 wallpaper, it is slightly torrerable.
However, if i open a picture etc it drops back into metro and that frustrates the crap outta me. Im slowly getting around these 'issues'.
I admit that it is faster on startup / shutdown, but thats the only thing I like!!
Long ago I had two XP computers on my desk. Then I excitedly updated one to Vista on launch. One week later it was running Kubuntu (which kinda networks better with Windows then Windows).
My XP computer still got most use especially for real work. Kubuntu was fine for browsing, email and the odd thing like SSH for which Windows needs apps. It wasn't until last year that I found myself using Kubuntu more than XP. It took that long to adjust and gradually replace Windows apps with platform independent apps. Yep it would have been a lot faster if I had no choice. Well on April 17th (yes I'm going to risk 9 days) the XP computer will be replaced with a Kubuntu 14.04 LTS system so it will be two Kubuntus on my desk. I'll keep a XP laptop under the desk 'just in case'.
So that's my life story on how Microsoft lost me without trying. But its also how heavy users just can't switch from one to the other happily even if, like me, they have been Linux Sysadmins for a decade. So junk XP get Linux next month may perversely be an option for people only requiring browsing and email - its going to take a lot longer to do a sensible transition on a larger scale.
So the only thing it's going to take for 2014 to finally be the year of desktop linux is ... hordes of XP using grannies to suddenly migrate.
Despite the fact I'm about to get down voted into oblivion I don't think that's going to happen. As a desktop OS the various flavors of Linux all have nerd chic and, once you get over the learning curve are just as good at hosting a browser as Windows they're still largely lipstick on a pig. A powerful server centric pig, but a pig none the less.
Until we see a consolidated effort to make a Linux experience simple and straight-forward (if I have to drop to the command line and type in arcane commands to install or upgrade an app... most GUI users are going to scream and hide) or the major game vendors treat Linux as a first class citizen it's just going to continue to lag. Of course it you want a nice *nix-based experience then just upgrade to a Mac ;)
"(if I have to drop to the command line and type in arcane commands to install or upgrade an app"
Why on earth would you need to use a command-line to install or upgrade a program ? You can do if you want but it's not necessary.
For example ( I use OpenSUSE 13.1/KDE ) Installing is via the GUIs Yast then Software Management and updates by Yast then Online Update. There is even another GUI option for installs/updates. They are in a nicely-behaved Start menu BTW
Not sure if it just one of my system's, but I've noticed an increasing number of websites not loading correctly in IE8 on XP, whereas Chrome has no problem.
So looking at a typical non-IT user, I suspect many will upgrade to Win 8.1 or whatever in about a year's time when they find that many of their favourite sites don't load in IE6/7/8 and they don't know how to load an alternative browser..
Whilst the directive to "Back up more often so you can do a clean reinstall." is sound, the problem is that MS don't really provide the tools for a non-IT user to do a full disk image backup, which is what you really need to get rid of ransomware, rootkits and other nasties. But then if they haven't been bothered to create recovery disks, it is unlikely they will be doing backups.
Suspect Geek Squad and Knowhow will be doing quite a bit of business in the next 1~2 years...
They're very anemic old AMDs so no AV software, that would use more resources than the music software I'm trying to run. Probably not going to do anything different come April although the machines are online and on my home network. What's the worst that could happen? Even if I got ransomeware, the CPUs are so crap, they would take years to encrypt the 3TB of stuff I have on my network. Do you not think I would notice something going wrong way before I even lost 5% of my stuff? My fileserver is linux on a powerpc chip, I could download XP malware onto that thing all day long, you'd never get it to actually run on there. So why should I care?
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