-
Microsoft Ends Support for Windows XP
Filed under Social MediaJun 15Microsoft is ending support for Windows XP SP2 in less than 30 days: http://j.mp/9B4zOS
This is kind of a big deal. The headline made me think about how many instances of Windows XP there still are out there, happily doing the work they were designed to do.
I can’t think of a single Windows-based client of mine that DOESN’T use XP. They’re either Mac based, or WinXP. I’m clearly not working at any big corporates, or even (today) mid-size companies, but that’s not where the real Corporate money will come from. Sure a few hundred high-end sales guys and their teams will get big payoffs for selling the licenses (!?!) to upgrade the JCN Corporation from Windows to Vista, then to 7. That’s already happened. I’m talking about the tens & hundreds of millions of private computer owners, and the small businesses and the home businesses, and the restaurants, clothes shops, convenience stores, etc. that use XP as the base OS for their cash registers.
And I’m not just talking about the cost of the software. If the underlying hardware was groaning with the load of XP, imagine what it would be like with Vista or 7 on it? Gotta upgrade, people.
“Well, then I won’t upgrade. I’ll just keep on running XP” they’ll all say.
Ummm, I wouldn’t do that, if I were you. How many security patches get downloaded a week? A month? How long before some Belarus or Nigerian or Brazilian or Vietnamese programmer from Minsk or Lagos or Saõ Paolo or HaNoi finds yet ANOTHER hole in the beautiful, elegant, finely thought-through and lovingly-crafted collection of 3 MILLION plus lines of code, creates an exploit, cracks your XP machine and steals all your data, damages some piece of firmware in an EPROM on the mother board, wipes your hard drive and causes your power supply to explode?
Yes, we in this room know that the previous paragraph is unlikely to happen, but those mom & pop stores, school teachers, families with 2 & 3 computers barely strung onto a WiFi LAN so they can all access the Internet at the same time won’t know that. It’s about as likely as getting hit by lighting. And I’m not saying that some people don’t put on chain-mail suits, stick an antenna on their heads, and go dance around in a thunderstorm. (YOU know who you are!) When you’re talking about risk, there will always be people like those that the journos point to, and the story will spread like wild fire across the Internet. The FEAR is the actual purchase driver, not the actual measurable risk.
And, oh, one other thing. New OS? New (secretly negotiated) legislation coming into effect GLOBALLY (ACTA) regarding Piracy and Copyright and 3-Strikes and people being kicked off the Internet by ACCUSATION of infringement?
Yesterday on Twitter, @CamCavers posted a link on to this article from the Onion regarding World Domination from Starbucks. Funny, but it’s the wrong Multinational doing the execution!
3 Responses to “Microsoft Ends Support for Windows XP”
-
ozma said on June 15th, 2010 at 10:03 pm
I just took my windows XP machine onto the internet–first time since 2006. I like having an internet free computer.
Something weird was happening. All my virus software I was trying to download would freeze up.
I guess I’ll never do that again. As long as I never go online again, I’m assuming I’m safe. Is that true?
I mean, I realize my computer can just go kaput. But I am going to use it as a glorified word processor, basically.
I hope nothing happens. They can’t get my data if I never connect.
-
Tweets that mention beemcee.com » Blog Archive » Microsoft Ends Support for Windows XP -- Topsy.com said on June 16th, 2010 at 12:31 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Bruce M Campbell, Bruce M Campbell. Bruce M Campbell said: New post: Microsoft Ends Support for Windows XP (http://bit.ly/bYn9FE) [...]
-
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
Sent from my Android phone
