How-To Geek

Curious as to whats the latest ...
ive seen mentioned here and other places about the inevitable end to support and development but what exactly does this mean?

should xp owners be more seriously considering moving to vista / 7 / 8 ? (NOT interested in thoughts or opinions of which and why unless theres talk of support / development being stopped for one of those too) dont want this thread to become a "which is the better OS" discussion.

Just curious as if to weather or not its really time for one to be looking into getting away from xp and more importantly why.

what if it were a computer that was mostly used for kids to play games online? a computer where no real work / tasks are being performed?

Vistual, you have over 3000 postings on this forum.

Please tell us you posted this Topic in jest. :) :)

"what if it were a computer that was mostly used for kids to play games online? a computer where no real work / tasks are being performed?"

Then use Steady State...
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto.....eadystate/

I still use XP on an old machine for the grand kids ect and i suppose Microsoft are not going to send out any more updates, so i think the solution to this is to Image XP to an external hard drive just in case anything goes wrong. That way i don't have to worry about keeping it up to date.

Daveh.

Here are the End of Life dates for various OSes:

Windows XP 4/8/2014
Windows Vista 4/11/2017
Windows 7 1/14/2020

End of Life means M$ will no longer issue security updates and it is highly unlikely that anti-malware companies will continue to issue definitions for very long after EOL, if at all. Using an OS after EOL most likely will result in infections if the computer has an internet connection and extraordinary precautions aren't taken. I don't recommend running an OS past its EOL for most people.

MSE will still give Free security updates, just there will be no more O/S security updates or holes plugged.

XP will die of natural causes because there will be no more XP Machine Device Drivers issued for new hardware.

The same fate will follow for Vista and Windows 7 just as it did for XP, Win2K, NT, 98 & so forth.

I'm also wondering about that.

Thanks Rick. Good answer, hope they follow through.

No, that is for Business Customers under long term contract like the Government.

I read some where that regular daily MSE AV Updates would be available.

It was awhile back.

I'm not sure that Microsoft will bother to update XP, even out of the goodness of their hearts, and I don't think it will be to the advantage of XP users, even if they did. Already, I've found that a clean XP (re)installation will run relatively slowly if all updates are applied, simply because the more recent updates have been to plug security issues, rather than improve the running of the OS so looking to the future the options are to get the system further bogged down with 'cobbled together' updates, or ignore them and risk security issues. As XP is still a popular OS, especially amongst businesses, it will still remain a target for hacking etc. so the only real hope is that software like newer versions of MSE will still be able to run on XP. Remember that Microsoft have decided to put all their eggs in one basket with the development of Win8, so it is to their advantage to get as many users away from XP systems as soon as possible.