Discussion on:

End of XP support: Why so many CIOs are still not ready

Just how many programs might work well with something like DosBox or the like. I've seen it run a variety of programs quite well with Win 7, and hear it works well for Win 8 as well

> Just how many programs might work well with something like
> DosBox or the like

It's called Wine (http://www.winehq.org). Unless you're running something that needs kernel-level access, or direct connection to a USB device, it will probably do anything you need. And the USB support is being worked on.

It seems that companies that don't want to move to Win8 (or even Win7 if they happen to have licenses kicking around for it) should consider supporting the Wine and/or ReactOS projects, rather than continuously submitting to the dictates of MS.

I hope you like duct tape and bailing wire.

Windows XP was the first, and so far only, windowed operating system to absolutely dominate the marketplace. It continues to work well, and probably does upwards of 90% of the tasks that businesses require. So, in a time of fiscal restraint, why spend money to upgrade software, hardware, and training when any increased productivity may be negligible?

If dinosaurs like COBOL and Fortran can survive, Microsoft may just have to come to terms with the reality that XP evolved into an excellent operating system that still suits the needs of millions of customers.

I had a client make the switch to Windows 7 as soon as they found out they could still run their XP only archaic database application within XP mode. That was very nice that the vitalization technology was built into Pro. Windows 7 IMHO is the next rendition of XP in terms of lifespan. Windows 8 just isn't cutting it for me unless it's touch screen only. Can't stand Metro.

Unfortunately way too many things still do not work in XP Mode and for that reason alone I can not see a move from XP any time soon for most of my clients.

Col

XP Mode is free, easy to install, works reasonably well, and benefits from a nice integration with the Win7 Start menu. All to the good. My preferred virtual machine, however, is VMWare Player. It just seems to work better for me. Player does require an XP license, but you probably have plenty of those in hand.

The big drawback to the virtual machine approach to preserving XP is that you now have two PCs to maintain, and the user needs to have a good understanding of PCs in order to benefit from the hybrid. So, even though I have a VM on my own machine, most of the machines I support stay with one OS.

Remember, if Windows came installed on your computer you cannot transfer it to another machine. That is the licensing restriction. Buy the OS separately at the store and that is different. So unless you just happen to still be running 7 year old computers you probably don't have a bunch of licenses just laying around.

Why fix something if it isn't broken
MS Windows 7 (n) - A 64-bit extension of a 32-bit extension of a 16-bit shell of an 8-bit operating system for a 4-bit processor from a 2-bit company that can't stand 1 bit of competition.

The security model is badly flawed. Microsoft is regularly patching flaws that could "allow a remote attacker to gain control over the system". They've mostly stayed ahead of the hackers. But once they stop patching the hackers have plenty of time to catch up and the risk to your data rises significantly.

After all in any business you shouldn't be having your Internal Workstations in Direct Contact with the Outside World.

You also make an Excellent Case for not using any Microsoft product because what you are saying about XP holds true for everything else that they make.

Many American businesses and hospitals are still using WIndows XP (VA Medical Centers that I have seen). Microsoft needs to wake up to the fact that Vista, WIndows 7 and Windows 8 all FAIL to meet the real world needs of most of the civilized world! Wake up Microsoft! People don't want the Microsoft Store pushed down their throats by making everyone go to Windows 8 and Windows RT!

XP Support is minimal anyways. The patches do nothing to prevent viruses or improve stability. And everyone knows the standard "support" is to format and reinstall.

Agreed. I am changing all my computers to Ubuntu. At least the upgrades are free and you can edit the code if you want and are not tied into MS' hard and fast useless ways. Open Office allows you to put in dates BEFORE 1900.

when support for an OS dies, the hardware manufacturers will begin to stop supporting the old OS usually prior to the end of the OS [why bother creating drivers for an OS that has say 3 months to live].
You also have software developers who may stop any support such as Google Chrome [guarantee they will do that!], Firefox, etc. AV/AM software will continue for the current version but no new versions.
Plugins such as Java [yeesh!] and Flash could be stopped as well.

It's a fairly recent thing that browsers stopped supporting Windows 98.
As I understand, Win7/8 only have a few new API's worth using, and apparently there is already a patch to make XP support them.

XP and Office 2007 were the last Microsoft products I ever voluntarily purchased. That was only because I could use a staff discount of a friend. I only ever asked Microsoft for support once and that was NOT a good experience. My laptop came installed with Windows 7 basic and Office 10. The first thing I did was uninstall Office 10 and remove it from my laptop. I then installed Open Office and have not looked back. Windows 7 will probably be uninstalled very soon and I will be installing Ubuntu.

Have you used Unity much? It's still pretty buggy and made my Ubuntu experience falter. I prefer good old Gnome 3, newest version of that shell is WAY better than Unity. As far as bad experiences, just wait until you update packages that break other functionality in Ubuntu...point is that all software & OS's suck, some more so than others.

I use it everyday outside of work and haven't run into any issues. To me it's a fantasticaly well designed interface. I think i haven't booted into win7 at home in like 2 weeks. I also installed it on an old core duo laptop from 2007 and there it wasn't as smooth as on a new system, but it was still very good.

I think that as the economic situation tightens for a lot of companies smaller outfits aren't going to be able to justify the cost of upgrading. I still say there needs to be a final SP created for XP to give it on last set of "enhancements" and then let it go the way of it's predecessors. I am always going to keep a copy (a VM) around just in case....;)

I hope Kubuntu or Xbuntu with Wine and/or Crossover will fill the need to allow continued use of XP based software if Micro$oft doesn't.

sounds as if a bit of black mail made from Mirosoft I now have win 7 but give me back xp any day it ranso much smoother

> There is no real reason not to make the jump to Microsoft Windows 7
> other than lack of knowledge.....

Perhaps the fact that Win7 is no longer sold is a reason you can't make a jump to it? Sure, you can pick up questionable copies from feeBay, or if you're some mega-corporation you can install it from your enterprise license, but your regular small and medium sized company is stuck.

On 24 January I purchased a Dell Precision M4700 with all the best hardware components I could buy, and with Win7 Sp1 and XP mode, somewhat panicked that without fast action I would be stuck with Win8. I am glad I bought the M4700, although learning how to setup and use Win7 is a severe time sink. Win7 books are huge.

actually pay you for advice like There is no real reason not to make the jump to Microsoft Windows 7 other than lack of knowledge..... ?

Having passed the age of 65, my brain is not as flexible, nor does it work as swiftly as it used to. Corel WordPerfect, Corel Draw, and JASC Paint Shop Pro have served me well since the 1980s, and filled all my home-user requirements. Why change now?

I also use WordPerfect, Corel Draw, and Paint Shop Pro and am just passing 64. I've used them (and a lot of other stuff, professionally) on DOS, Windows 3,1, 98, XP, 7 and now 8. They work well on all of them. They are both faster and more secure on 7 than on XP, and faster and more secure on 8 than on 7. Once the OS is set up. the only real difference is where to find the icon to launch the program. XP , 7 and 8 have all been on the same hardware, a dual-core AMD Athlon X2 on an Asus motherboard with 3 gigs of RAM.

@gman49@...
Just curious, was the migration from XP -> Win7 -> Win8 done with clean installations or using "upgrade options".
Would be quite a track if you had managed to do this from DOS through to Win8 using upgrades but I see with your hardware change you probably started with a clean installation of WXP.

While you're no doubt correct about how quickly you learn it's no reason to not bother!
Both my parents have cruised through 65. Together we've just finished updating their PC and laptop to Win8, they've Android phones and an iPad to boot. Far from struggling they're relishing the new interfaces, the faster responses and just the excitment of learning something new. They now want a touchscreen for their PC.

Give new OS'es a shot regardless of vendor or prejudice and you might just enjoy learning again.

Loads of words linked together with emotion, not a shred of logic.

Change doesn't mean new
new does not mean better
and who said your definition of better was applicable?

Know your audience...

Are you buying them for everyone? Do you need my shipping address?

"Everyone love's (sic) a new and better car"
You're implying that new is automatically better. What does a new car do better than an old one these days?

We had bought a used 2002 Mercury GM a number of years ago. We recently traded it for a 2011 Mercury GM (last year they will make them and the Ford Crown Vic). While the car is a "top-of-the-line", it lacks a lot of features we had in the 2002. Also, the mileage is no better.

BTW, I wouldn't be surprised that those advocating change and saying it is good are Microsoft shills. Since Microsoft is not a H/W company, they must keep "revolutionizing" their S/W. Unlike IBM, which is big-time into services besides H/W and S/W. IBM learned their lesson years ago and now evolves the S/W slowly, always keeping backward compatibility in mind. The base of their "z" series OSes go back to the mid 60s (nearly 50 years ago). It is also highly unlikely that Windows will ever be as secure as those "z" series OSes.

You must not have to deal with in-house government applications. Some are tied to custom hardware like sign cutters, traffic loggers, traffic display boards, et-al.

There are a lot of user apps tied to WinXP/hardware peripherals with no easy virtual compatibility option. Of course if the user apps are static you don't really need OS support from Microsoft.

Well they had a chat with the money boys, and they responded with do we need to spend it now. Guy was honest enough to answer no, or not credible enough to get an agreement after saying yes....

Next question.

While going to Win 8 full timex is unlikely for me [I've tried it and don't like it], Windows 7 is a vast improvement over Vista [which I won't get into] and Windows XP.
First, with Windows XP, many computers running them are at least6 years old [when Vista first came out] and some are breaking down or just dying a slow death. So if a company is using Windows XP and a system dies, what are they doing? Buying a system with Windows 7 or 8 on it, scrapping the OS and putting Windows XP on.
No way of knowing but I'm sure most Win XP systems are strong enough to run Windows 7.
Now Windows XP is an old OS. You need drivers to install the latest hardware. Wireless was problematic [which is why manufacturers included their own wireless utilities]. USB3 support wasn't built in. Neither are other recent technologies.
Deploying Windows 7 [while bulkier] is easier than than Windows XP.
If in a workgroup, Homegroup feature kills that problem of accessing resources from another computer. No need for passwords, duplicate accounts, etc.
Group policies for domains add much more options to locking down systems.
I can go on and on.
Now as for why CIOs aren't pushing? They are a bunch of idiots. They have had years to prepare for the change but it seems like few bothered to look ahead [I know of an ex-boss who was like that]. Then they will rush to migrate which will probably cause problems and mistakes.

For IT this year and how much of that was specifically set aside to move away from XP?

I'm betting no where near enough.

Col

As CIO I started phasing out XP in 2010. Any reasonable office desktop hardware purchased in the last 5 years will run 7 or 8 with a minimum of fuss. The last hold-outs got a 2nd Enterprise-grade HD with Windows 8 deployed and a dual-boot setup, and they have 30 days to get their data migration done before the network will no longer recognize their login. As an administrator it is my job to make decisions that maintain the productivity and security of the corporate infrastructure. I deploy Windows, Solaris, Linux, Unix, all of which have their place in a productive environment.

Not all companies are moving away from XP quite so quickly.

Here I suppose it all depends on what Specialised Software and peripherals are in use and the cost involved in rewriting/replacing them is.

Currently I still support Specialist Software that will run on nothing newer than NT4 and at the moment is given away with multi thousand $ bits of Plant to be used on Construction Sites. The Hardware is useless without the software and the work can not be done economically without the Hardware.

Or the Medical Profession who uses their 1 of 2 Programs which as of yet are not Certified to run on 7 or latter Desktop OS's and has only recently been certified to be used on a 2008 Server.

Specialised Software used in some places simply is not rewritten as fast as most companies would like and a lot slower than I personally prefer.

Of course bigger places can use more of the available options or probably are forced to use different things to just Microsoft depending on what it is that they do. However most small business is stuck with Microsoft as they are the people rightly or wrongly who own the Desktop and small network environment.

Col