Do You Still Use Windows XP?

On the Microsoft website, you’re strongly cautioned that if you’re running XP SP3 after the end date, you’re using it at your own risk: According to a study by NetMarketShare in March of this year, Windows XP still has about 38 percent of the market share, just behind Windows 7 with almost 45 percent.

Security & Compliance Risks: Unsupported and unpatched environments are vulnerable to security risks. This may result in an officially recognized control failure by an internal or external audit body, leading to suspension of certifications, and/or public notification of the organization’s inability to maintain its systems and customer information.

There is a cool widget from mycountdown.org that you can run on your blog that shows the countdown until Microsoft officially ends support for XP. Microsoft also offers a similar End of Support Countdown Gadget.

I still have an old IBM ThinkPad G40 with a Pentium 4 rocking XP – but the last time I used it? I couldn’t tell you. Judging by the amount of dust on it, it’s certainly been a while. I do have XP running in virtual machines so I can compare and contrast features in the newer versions, but that’s about it. So what about you? Are you still running XP on your main computer system, or on a secondary computer? If so, you should definitely think about moving to Windows 7 at least. I mean, the final version of Window 8.1 is set to be to be released everywhere this fall. Of course, it really all depends on what you need. If you’re old Gateway Pentium III is still chugging along fine and you can email, check the web, and do light document work – that might be just fine for you. Corporations, on the other hand, will need to make preparations for a migration to a newer version – most likely Windows 7. Leave a comment and let us know what you’re running on your computer and what you think about XP! My response to those that ask me if they should upgrade: “If it works for you without any problems, keep using it. If you have some compelling reason, such as specific software that won’t run on XP, you will have to upgrade.” Windows XP was solid but really? It’s almost 15 years old man. Windows Vista was a mess and Windows 7 is perfect. So no… Now that being said, yes. Being 2013 it’s probably time to start considering an upgrade from a technology refresh and security standpoint. The latest OS can take advantage of a lot of performance upgrades over the years from a CPU, Disk and network standpoint. Yeah, like I said in the article, the main reason I still have XP around is because I still have an old laptop. And I do have it in a Virtual Machine so I can go back and check things essentially for research on how things used to work and how they do now. @Steve Costello — You’re right! If your XP system works for you, hey… keep using it until it dies! LOL, just make sure there’s plenty of anti-virus and malware protection on it. And enable the built-in Firewall at least. It’s still the OS that’s much more susceptible to malicious code than newer versions. Windows 8 has built-in anti-virus and malware utility in the form of Windows Defender and it works really well. Plus behind the scenes, the code is far more secure. -S My first laptop (2002-3) is still there too with XP and office 2003. It’s mostly a backup computer which i use seldom. Other than that, we have a laptop from 2011 (windows 7) and a netbook (which i use during by business trips) both with Office 2010… I have already bought a new desktop at the beginning of this year with Windows 7 on it….it will replace the other one in April 2014. Will install Office 2010 on it. I did this because i don’t see the added value of Windows 8 and i also think that the Office 2013 is actually a worse thing MS has done than Windows 8. Same goes for Word. That being said, from a security standpoint and long-term support — yeah, you probably need an upgrade. Outlook is also a problem in those old versions but obviously it’s still working for your business so “Way to go”. Your owner has probably saved a pile of cash by squeezing every last bit of usefulness out of those old systems. I do have Windows 7 and Office 2010 at home. While I don’t have any real issues with Windows 7, Office 2010 did take a little time getting used to. Today, I really like using the Windows 7 OS and Office 2010. Security continues to be a big issue for me and was a significant factor in why I upgraded my personal computer and software. Be well! Once you get over the Ribbon issues…. however it’s fairly straight forward. Honestly however, with the exception of database upgrades and stability fixes with Outlook 2007 and later, Office 2003 is just fine. Hard to justify the upgrade for me honestly past Office 2007 but that’s just me being frugal on the corp side of things. ;) Installing apps for more productivity options: https://www.groovypost.com/howto/office-2013-install-apps-office-store/ Adding and viewing online videos and photos: https://www.groovypost.com/howto/insert-watch-online-youtube-videos-word-2013-documents/ Awesome blogging capabilities, which I think is going to replace Windows Live Writer… and those are just for Microsoft Word. But, if you’re just doing basic text document creation only , you can use anything, AbiWord (which is free) Open Office (also free) Google Docs, or any version of Word. Also, PowerPoint 2010+ allows some groovy online sharing capabilities. Perfect for doing presentations online in real-time. And Excel has a lot of enhanced features for analyzing data to create charts and graphs, data analysis, Pivot Table improvements, and much easier report generation, especially when importing data from Access <– that is if anyone uses Access anymore :) There is no functional reason why XP cannot continue to be used, other than to keep Microsoft’s business model relevant and the hardware manufacturers happy. I have old laptops/systems running Windows 95 and Windows 98. No one bothers attacking these old systems with their low market share. This will soon also be the case with XP. Writers will concentrate their efforts on Windows 7 and 8. I think the security issue is overblown, especially if you’re at home with a firewall and use free avast! Besides, Vista was the worst OS ever and as it is it will be patched and supported longer than XP. So we have a 12 year old OS with 40% of the market share, that Microsoft will refuse to support in 9 months. We also have a 7 year old abomination of an OS (Vista) that only 5% of the market uses, yet they will waste resources supporting it for another few years. Do you see anything wrong with this picture? Besides, Vista was the worst OS ever and as it is it will be patched and supported longer than XP. So we have a 12 year old OS with 40% of the market share, that Microsoft will refuse to support in 9 months. We also have a 7 year old abomination of an OS (Vista) that only 5% of the market uses, yet they will waste resources supporting it for another few years. Do you see anything wrong with this picture? Thanks for reading. I’ll give you a call. And this time, please don’t give the computer I built for you to one of the girls again. :) :) What do I have to do to upgrade? You shouldn’t feel bad. Windows XP had a good run but yes, it’s probably time to say goodbye to your old friend. :) The first step is to determine how old your computer is and if it can take an upgrade to Windows 7 or Windows 8. Let me know and I can help give you an idea. If you’re going to go with a new computer, the upgrade will be fairly simple. We have a million articles on both Windows 8 and Windows 7 https://www.groovypost.com/tags/windows-7/ https://www.groovypost.com/tags/windows-8/ So let’s start with your PC age. From there we can give you a good path for the upgrade along with a few articles on how to transfer your data and get it up and running with the latest tools. CrashPlan is a perfect choice for backing up Online: https://www.groovypost.com/reviews/crashplan-quality-online-backup/ And if nothing else, make sure you have a local backup on an external drive :) Karen’s Replicator is an older program for back up but still does an awesome job: https://www.groovypost.com/howto/backup-data-windows-karens-replicator/ Or just check out the archive of all of our data back up articles: https://www.groovypost.com/tags/backup/ Optimally you should have online and local data backup solutions. Here’s a good guide however…. I need to go back and update it. It’s been a bit since I updated it… https://www.groovypost.com/howto/groovytip/security-guide-keep-your-computer-virus-free/ but it’s still a good read. No need to spend so much money on upgrading. My PC runs great with no problems so why should I? As long as I still have a good anti-virus software on it I can continue to use it securely well beyond 2014. XP is the best. It never let me down! My only concern would be continued support of AV on the XP box and, OS exploits which might take advantage of the older OS and not covered by the AV software. That said, if you practice smart computing online, you should be fine however, operating system exploits do exist and can cause serious damage. That would be the only thing I’d be concerned about long-term. Well that and driver support for new accessories you might want to use but if you have a solid platform, you probably don’t care much about that. All they use it for are websites I allow them to access, email, and some photos. It’s perfect for what they use a computer for. But I might get them the cheapo Chromebook because in the end, yeah it’s XP, but it’s far more complicated for anything they need, and potential for viruses are always a concern. I also have an Android tablet, but Android isn’t good for doing any real work other than running the Kindle App and basic email/browsing. I do NOT plan on upgrading to anything as long as the Thinkpads work. Win8 is really Vista 2.0 and is a joke. While I could upgrade to Win7, I see no need to. My AV is MSE and seems to be fine. I got rid of AV’s like McAffee, Norton, Kapersky, & Vipre long ago. I also have Office 2000, yes, 2000, on them and it’s fine for everything I do since I retired. Some of the stuff in current versions of Office makes one wonder why it’s still called Office. In fact I prefer Lotus 123 to Excel and use Lotus for all my spreadsheet functions. I had to build complex spreadsheets in Office 2010 and couldn’t believe how clutzy it was. I ended up doing the spreadsheets in Lotus, saving them as Office 97 files, and importing them into Excel 2010 and then fixing them up so they would work properly in 2010. Simple things like table lookups have deficiencies in Excel. I partitioned my HD’s to keep Windows separate from the data just in case. I have Paragon Image copies of the C-drive and the keep backups of the data on the Data Partition. So if a virus does sneak in, I’ll just refresh the C-drive from the backup image. I had tried Win7 on another Thinkpad when it came out and wasn’t impressed. So for us it’s XP. in fact, my Parents are still using one of my old ones with XP. If you continue to use XP past the cut off date, I would definitely make sure you have a SOLID daily back up plan, keep all security and other software up to date — uninstall Java if you don’t need it too. In the end, usually getting an infection is due to “user error”, but after the cut off date, if there are exploits, you’re out of luck from MS patching them anyway. The upgrade path from XP to Windows 7 or Windows 8 for that matter is pretty seamless. Also, you’d be surprised how well 7 runs on older less powerful hardware. It’s not a beast like Vista was. Comment

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