back to article Expert chat: The end of Windows XP and IE6

In six months' time, it'll be open season for hackers, malware and virus-writers targeting people running Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6. The reason is after 8 April, 2014, Microsoft will no longer make the software patches needed to protect these people from the worst of the web. From the biggest to the smallest, nobody …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why can't I register for this?

      Looks like Elmer Phuds friend has just joined the chat...

  1. taxman

    Browsium?!!!

    Well, if anyone from one of the 'large organisations' joins in it could prove embarassing!

    Panacea or placebo?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well, for us it went like this:

    1: Upgrade all our web applications to run in IE 8

    2: Anything that couldn't be run in IE 8 was put in a VM

    3: We upgraded XP to IE 8

    4: We looked at our Java 6 applications and found most were replaceable with newer version compatible with Java 7 or with products that didn't rely on Java at all - we are working on the rest to fully flush our company of them

    5: Anything that couldn't be run in Java 7 were put in a VM

    6: We put the 6 Vendors of applications that would not upgrade on notice we were cancelling our support contracts - 4 of them in the last 3 months have now made changes, 1 has said they will by XP death date and 1 we have found an alternative product and will begin migration shortly

    7: We found the remaining applications that needed upgrading and mostly upgraded them, some in house legacy applications were rewritten and brought under IT control

    8: We rolled out Windows 7 department by department tackling mostly minor issue along the way

    9: We learnt from our mistakes so next upgrade time we wont be depending on applications that are tied to certain versions of Java or IE (which were the only real problems we had)

    This took us 2 years to accomplish so far and we are not yet entirely XP free. Fortunately we have the understanding of the powers that be and a reasonably small less than 1k desktops.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      I should downvote you

      As you have shown a degree of common sense and no rabid fanboyism, which as you know is against the spirt of things on here.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I should downvote you

        I am sorry to disappoint and I will try harder next time!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sounds like you are lucky enough to have a decent budget to throw at this! And suppliers prepared to be compliant and not regard you as some annoying small fry whose support contract they couldn't give 2 figs about.

      It's the right approach, but I suspect not everyone will have such favourable circumstances.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Budget was only an issue because of the labour involved. So we got the departments involved and in each one you tend to find a few who have a vague idea of what they use and why and are willing to be a test bed and eventually a trainer. From a supplier point of view we were lucky, but then we had continued to pay support fees and our management team had tied the contracts up in a reasonable way when signed originally including clauses about OS upgrades in most (we were founded by a techie however). I think some companies troubles are caused by providers actively designing their software to not be easily upgradable. It has also taken us a long time to get here.

    3. majorursa
      Linux

      Thanks, that looks like a reasonables planning script.

      Have to say though that migrating to Linux would have been just as 'easy' if not easier.

      Point 6 could also be to push the suplliers to move to the web and become agnostic.

      First thing in that scenario would be to get rid of the Exchange/Outlook monster by moving to Google Apps.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Well exchange was actually never an issue as we are based on Debian / dovecot / exim / roundcube / sieve. But even of we were an exchange upgrade would have been seperate from it. Being OS agnostic Would be nice but never could happen with the sheer quantity of windows only stuff we currently use, as im sure it must be in other places.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Have to say though that migrating to Linux would have been just as 'easy' if not easier."

        Have to say that you really don't have a clue what you are talking about.

        Just look at Munich - ten years, and tens of millions invested and they still havn't finished a migration to Linux, and when their staff need to do real work - like use a version of Office that actually works - they still have to access Windows VDI Desktops!

        1. Chemist

          "Just look at Munich - ten years, and tens of millions invested and they still havn't finished a migration to Linux"

          You've already been laughed off the Register about that one !

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "First thing in that scenario would be to get rid of the Exchange/Outlook monster by moving to Google Apps."

        That might work for very small companies, but it's not fit for the enterprise. Office 365 would be the better choice.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "6: We put the 6 Vendors of applications that would not upgrade on notice we were cancelling our support contracts - 4 of them in the last 3 months have now made changes, 1 has said they will by XP death date and 1 we have found an alternative product and will begin migration shortly"

      Awesome move. I like it.

  3. Bod

    XP eveywhere

    Displays in railway stations are usually powered by XP (evident when they crash)

    Likewise a lot of other animated displays in shopping centres, airports, etc.

    I've had ATM machines crash on me, reboot and hey... XP comes up before the ATM UI is slapped on top.

    1. Spoonsinger

      Re: XP eveywhere

      Yep, but they are probably XP Embedded, (a misnomer if ever there was one), and has continued support way after the 2014 date.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: XP eveywhere

        And they tend not to browse the internet....

      2. TimeMaster T
        Boffin

        Re: XP eveywhere

        I worked in the embedded industry so I can tell you that, based on my knowledge gained from talking to people in my classes and at industry events, that ATMs are usually just a desktop OS running some cool peripherals, dito with the advertising displays.

        XP Embedded licenses costs more than a desktop license, most manufacturers will not use it unless they have to. For big stationary devices desktop XP is fine, you only need the micro (LOL) kernel of XP Embedded for things like meter readers, car infotainment and other equipment where the hardware has to be small, durable and portable.

        1. TimeMaster T

          Small correction

          The license fees for Windows XP Embedded are usually based the number of devices and volume purchase agreements come into play. For just one or two your going to pay a mint, but for 1000's it drops significantly.

          For something like an ATM or Mall Kiosk the hardware is just a normal PC and so is the desktop XP OS installed on it.

  4. Wing_Chun_Master

    mwuhahaha the fools..people may have laughed when I refused to migrate to windows 95 but now running my entire 200 workstation network purely on windows 3.1 it would seem that hackers, trojan and virus deviants have moved on and I'm as safe as safe can be!!!

    and people mention tech savvy pah!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmmmm...

    Upgraded to Vista to remove the abortion that was XP, upgraded to Win-7 and now upgrading to Win-8.

    Ignore the doom-sayers! Windows 8 is great!

    1. Spoonsinger

      Re : Ignore the doom-sayers! Windows 8 is great!

      So says the AC!

      (Actually it's fine, wouldn't go far as to say it was great though).

      1. monkeyfish

        Re: Re : Ignore the doom-sayers! Windows 8 is great!

        I'm hoping MS give us a cheap upgrade to from XP to win8 at the last minute. Only found out the other day they charged £25 for the download upgrade when it came out. Now it's £100 (despite the disk being £50 on Amazon). Charge me £25 or less and I'll finally bite. If they publicised it enough they might actually improve their win8 uptake numbers..

        1. TimeMaster T

          Re: Re : Ignore the doom-sayers! Windows 8 is great!

          Why should they?

          They have you by the important bits already. All they have to do is wait till your hardware dies or your business gets taken out by some worm/virus and you HAVE to upgrade to Windows 8, at their price.

    2. Jess

      Re: Ignore the doom-sayers! Windows 8 is great!

      The core may be.

      But on a single screen machine, the UI (even with a touchscreen) is quite simply the worst I have ever used. (Apart from a particularly nasty PVR).

      On dual screens it isn't too bad, however. All the metro garbage restricts itself to one screen, and if your work is primarily on the second screen, it doesn't mess you up.

      The lack of start menu isn't a problem for anyone who has used windows 3.1 or any old linux distro.

      It is very much like using Windows 3.1 (treat the desktop like program manager and fill it with shortcuts, and do anything complex via command line)

      If the ability to remove metro didn't rely on third party apps, it would be quite decent system.

      From the behavior of metro, it is almost as if the original designer expected the user to use a tablet where the keyboard would normally be and the second screen in the usual position, but never bothered to tell the rest of the organization. (It would work quite well with a Nintendo DS style laptop, or a keyboard sized touchscreen on a work station, shame no-one actually makes kit like that)

      1. RyokuMas
        Paris Hilton

        Re: Ignore the doom-sayers! Windows 8 is great!

        While I wouldn't go so far as to evangelise Win8 - or any other OS - I really can't see why so many people have such a downer on Win8.

        "Modern" view? Windows-key+D, problem solved.

        No start menu? Pretty much everything I use has a shortcut on my desktop, no problems there.

        Shutdown/sleep options not visible? I just close the lid on my laptop.

        So my usage patterns have barely changed since... well, my WinXP days, and apparently the Win8 core is better and more secure.

        So why all the fuss?

    3. Mystic Megabyte
      Linux

      Hmmmm...

      Downgraded to XP to remove the abortion that was Vista, upgraded to Kubuntu and now upgrading to Ubuntu 12.04

      Believe the doom-sayers! Windows 8 is shit!

      FIFY

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Windows 8 is shit!"

        It has faster graphics and file system performance (like copying a large ISO) than Ubuntu 12.04.....

        And about a tenth of the security vulnerabilities!

        http://secunia.com/advisories/product/40762/

        http://secunia.com/advisories/product/42951/

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. Jonathan Richards 1
          FAIL

          Vulnerabilities

          I was intrigued by your comment, and wish to subscribe ^W ^W ^W Hold it! I went to the link you almost provided, and Secunia says

          <quote>PLEASE NOTE: The statistics provided should NOT be used to compare the overall security of products against one another</quote>. Then they go on to give reasons why you shouldn't do what you just did, including:

          <quote>It should also be noted that some operating systems (e.g. certain Linux distributions) bundle together a large number of software packages, and are therefore affected by vulnerabilities, which do not affect other operating systems (e.g. Microsoft Windows) that don't bundle together a similar amount of software packages.</quote>.

          1. Chemist

            Re: Vulnerabilities

            "I was intrigued by your comment, ....."

            He's always doing that, quotes a ref. that often turns out to be an argument AGAINST his 'expert' opinion

        3. This post has been deleted by its author

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I will consider Windows 8 a valid alternative when 1) there are full Metro programs to replace everything on the desktop completely, 2) the desktop can be permanently disabled 3) there is a more obvious way for average users to close programs than dragging them to the bottom of the screen or Alt and F4. Until that day, Metro remains a useless inconvienence, and I'll keep with Windows 7.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Until that day, Metro remains a useless inconvienence, and I'll keep with Windows 7."

        But you don't have to use Metro. Just set the OS to boot into Desktop mode and forget that it exists.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Or just install (or keep with) Windows 7. Most power users probably have moved on from XP anyway. I shudder at the thought of trying to explain the bizarre Metro / retarded Win 7 desktop combination to non technical users.

    5. Gordon861

      Win8 Upgrade

      I took the plunge last night and installed Win8 on one of my low powered XP PCs to see how it went.

      It runs surprisingly well on a 2GB RAM Atom 1.6Ghz machine.

      All I need to do is work out how the hell to use the OS, hope the 8.1 update brings back some ore familiar stuff.

  6. tin 2

    How the piss pot has nobody in the entire world written anything that's *markedly* better than XP, so that a big wedge of the userbase have felt compelled to update, or worse, are still not compelled to upgrade when faced with this apparent impending doom?

    In 12 years +??!!

    How!???!

    1. DutchP
      Trollface

      A *lot* has been written that's better than XP, just not by Microsoft

    2. Bob Camp

      It's the opposite of that. Windows XP is really good, and the hardware running it is plenty fast enough to run Office and a Web browser. It's more like nobody HAD to upgrade, and there was this global partial economic collapse that made it so nobody could AFFORD to upgrade, so many people chose not to upgrade.

      As far as Linux goes, that's a poor choice for small businesses who don't have real tech. support and for businesses who have to run applications and hardware designed for XP, such as Office. So basically nearly all of them.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. Rogue Jedi

    At the school in which I work we upgraded most of our PCs to windows 7 in August 2012, the approximately 100 are now 7 years old and are missing vital hardware drivers for Windows 7 (display and network) so must last until we can afford replacements probabally August 2015.

    1. Not That Andrew

      I'm surprised that those 7 year old machines don't have Vista drivers available that work with Win7. Whoever does your purchasing should be shot.

      1. hplasm
        Windows

        Oxymoron...

        Vista drivers available that work

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In our case, licensing cost is not an issue. We have the licenses (SA). Major problem is management.

    We still have a couple of hundred desktops and laptops happily running XP/IE8. The need to upgrade is there, but BMFH's insist that we move department by department. Unfortunately, BMFH always beats BOFH, which is why we have to upgrade large numbers of desktops (behind corporate firewalls, application filters, and 2 layers of malware scanners) BEFORE we can start upgrading mobile users who are basically online everywhere.

    If you want to ask whether a Linux distro is an option: it might be, and I would like it to be an options,but there's a couple of conditions...

    So, dear El Reg readers, enlighten me:

    - for my "power" users: what would be the equivalent of the Outlook/Exchange/Sharepoint combo ? (including calendaring, meeting requests, reminders, tasks,... and syncing all that to WP8/iPhone/Android... )

    - is there something like iSeries (or Power whatshallwecallitthismonth) Navigator (including db2 access on aforementioned machines). Which reminds me, fuck you IBM.

    - can we use that db2 access for macro-like functions in any kind of spreadsheet ?

    - is there something like GPO's in the linux world ?

    These are questions (just the basic ones, mind you) I need answered before I can make a business case.

    1. Trevor 3

      Seeing as no-one has provided you an answer, just downvoted you...

      Try Zimbra or Citadel, for email/calendaring etc...

      for DB2, yes probably, google is your friend. I highly doubt there isn't one.

      For GPO, yes there is.

  9. henryl

    I'm sticking with XP. If it ain't broke...

    I just installed XP on a friend's PC and he's more than happy with it for surfing the web, watching movies, listening to music and writing the odd email. Although I don't use it on my main PC, as a developer I'll keep a VM of it running for testing purposes.

    I'm pretty curious to witness this flood of trojans that I'm told is going to kill my computer next year. I bet it doesn't happen. More likely is that XP will be running business as usual.

    1. Salts

      Re: I'm sticking with XP. If it ain't broke...

      The flaw in your logic is that most software is broken, we just don't know it until someone points out or exploits a fault, TOR+FF+NSA for a recent high profile example.

      Another problem is we don't know if the bad boys are saving exploits for next year and are ready to pounce

      If your friend does any form of online transactions, as a friend you perhaps should point out there could be risks and let him make a choice, rather than force your choice on him.

    2. Daniel von Asmuth
      Windows

      Re: I'm sticking with XP. If it ain't broke...

      I'm sticking with 2000. What's the point of upgrading to XP?

    3. Not That Andrew

      Re: I'm sticking with XP. If it ain't broke...

      I hate to sound like a Linux fanatic, but if that's all he does on the computer, he sounds like the perfect customer for Linux.

  10. majorursa
    Thumb Down

    Business fools

    I'm really glad Micro$soft takes this firm stance because it finally shows how little they understand their customers.

    It's not that the small-shop 'IT-managers' do not want to upgrade, they don't know where to start. It should be M$'s responsibility to build upgradepaths and -tools and make it totally easy to do it. Instead they rely on their clients to hire their OEM/consultants and pay an extra $500 per workplace to get it done.

    I think many of these will be very pissed of by being let in the cold again and from my experience a lot have finally decided to move away from the Redmond mobsters.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like