General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWindows XP, Internet Explorer 6, Office 2003 enter their final support year
All support ends in 365 days yet 38 percent of Internet users still us XPWindows XP drops out of extended support on April 8, 2014. As of April 9, 2014, there will be no more security updates or other fixes made for the ancient operating system.
Joining it are Internet Explorer 6, Office 2003, and Exchange Server 2003. Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 will also end support on that day, but newer Service Packs will continue to be supported. Naturally, this also includes "Windows XP Mode" in Windows 7 and other virtualized solutions.
About 38 percent of Internet users are still using Windows XP. It's unlikely that all of them will switch to Windows 7, Windows 8, or some other platform entirely by this time a year from now. It's likely that some or all of them will see their computers exploited by malware as a result.
The threat of imminent insecurityone hesitates to describe it as "imminent obsolescence," as by any reasonable measure, Windows XP met that threshold years agois probably insufficient to make people stop using Windows XP today. It comes down to an unwillingness to replace systems that depend on the old software, both for economic or compatibility reasons.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/04/windows-xp-internet-explorer-6-office-2003-enter-their-final-support-year/
DJ13
(23,671 posts)Heck, I just stopped using my trusty Windows 2000 PC yesterday (new PC, now Win 7 Pro), and that had no updates for a few years.
It was probably so reliable because it didnt have Microsoft messing it up with constant updates.
tammywammy
(26,582 posts)My other home laptop is Windows 7, both have Office 2010. I like Office 2010 a lot more than 2003.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)an ancient eMachines XP machine that I can't really upgrade because it's 32 bit and maxed out at 2 gigs RAM.
But, it works-- and to replace it means transferring vast amounts of software and data to a new machine with all the headaches of configuring everything to what I'm used to.
Sure, it will be a lot faster, and I don't hate Win8, and I'll be happy with the result, but I'm just putting off the aggravation for as long as I can.
Warpy
(110,913 posts)since it's in such wide usage and since it was the best OS they ever put out.