Will Windows XP ever die?
It has been two years since support for the OS that we all loved had its support cut, and I am surprised to see that it's still breathing after all this time, though with a 10.9% market share as of last month. I wonder... will it ever fade away into nothingness, and why are some places out there, even in China, still use it? Those that still use it on their machines are more vulnerable to security threats and that many programs have already dropped support for it (though I recall that Firefox still supports it). It might take another two or three years to finally give up and for all its users to wean away from it. Even so, 7 would go the same way. It's just strange that something like this would still go on, given that Windows 2000's lifetime ended six years ago and I bet that perished pretty quickly.
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Usually what happened was as computers from the 9x era died off either due to failing hardware or poor performance, they were replaced with shiny new XP boxes.
And now the same is happening with 7... the XP boxes are starting to die off and get replaced with shiny new 7 boxes.
But here's the problem, since the world avoided Vista like the ME-plague, XP was installed on newer generations of hardware, including the core2duos which are still fairly capable machines and it's taking a while for those to die off, but it is happening.
Will XP ever die? Yeah, but it will just take longer because it was in service much longer than most other versions of Windows due to both how long Vista was delayed and bad public opinion of Vista.
And right after I made this thread, I came across this by chance.
In the late 90s most people would have maybe at most a desktop and a laptop for business or whatever, but by the end of the 2000s you'd find multiple machines per house. The sheer amount of systems kicking around plus the vast userbase that was exposed due to the long shelf life is pretty much why it's taking so long to go away.
And the main problem that arose with this was that people had gotten so used to XP that they didn't see any reason to upgrade to a newer version of Windows. After all, why should you replace something that works fine the way it is? Of course this argument is flawed because of XP's horribly outdated security (and the fact that it's no longer supported makes it even worse), but it's an argument that I've seen used by a lot of people in my direct surroundings who are still using XP.
Because as long as you can download a web browser on it, people will use it. Thankfully, it appears that Firefox and Chrome have announced discontinuation for XP if I'm correct.
No reason to continue use XP even using POS update hack, unless you build retro-computing or have Pentium III machines to play around.
I got vista machine and my Chrome browser noticed that Vista will be unsupported as XP too. Heck, Vista still supported today and will be unsupported on 2017.
Chrome has discontinued XP support. Firefox still supports it AFAIK. But that support won't last forever. The sooner they drop support for XP, the better.
as crap as it is still, or become more elite with a macOS or Linux.And soon, 7 could be next
There are still CNC machines running CP/M and MS-DOS. Scientific testing machines running Windows 98. Somewhere there is probably someone using a PDP-11 or OS/2 for some hidden production purpose.
Never underestimate the power of legacy equipment.
If they want to cry about "old" operating systems being a security hazard, let's talk about embedded Internet of Things devices that are only 2 years old and ALREADY TOTALLY UNSUPPORTED! What, talking about that doesn't sell new crap? Oh, I see, they just want everyone to run out and buy a new Dell right now.
Posted from Microsoft Windows 95.
I get nostalgic for the old stuff from time to time and sometimes it's a fun challenge to get things working again. But don't kid yourself, this is a very niche thing.
As for security, for the average home user behind a firewall, yeah, you'll probably be fine.
For the big company with lots of money to steal with a nice juicy target on their back? No. Security is absolutely a priority and it's not just about what you click on. Worms ran rampant because of XPs lax security.
As for security, a lot of that was patched in SP3.
No, Server 2008 still gets updates until 2023, and those updates mostly work on Vista (except for some .NET ones).
The 2008 R2 updates have to be paid for, right? Does that registry tweak still work? I haven't tried it.
What registry tweak?
"We do other computing discussions here as well...It's an old computer/abandonware forum."
Yes, that was my point. XP is still used.
I read recently, that MS released an XP security fix in 2019 for one malware exploit.
I just do not understand what relevance "market share" has in a "old computer/abandonware forum". In an IT sub-forum, yeah, I'd get it.
I've used this website a bit but have signed up to contribute to this thread.
It is a mistake to think that web usage statistics are a fair measure of OS usage. When I reluctantly stopped using XP on the net I bought a very cheap Win7 tower to browse the web. Through use I found Win7 to be a good OS and over the years I've put more on it than I thought I would and use it more than expected. Nevertheless XP has remained and will remain my main OS. This is simply because, on balance, XP is the better of the two. I am also awaiting delivery of a second hand Dell core2 Duo with 4Gig of Ram as a blooming powerful reserve machine. (my machine is a self built Athlon 2500 with 4Gig Ram)
This obsession with 'NEW' 'UPDATED' software is daft. The NT OS long ago started to suffer from the law of diminishing returns. XP does everything you can think of and does it well. My system is extensively customized and tweaked to my tastes. It is a pity I now need a second office machine for internet use and if M$ offered security support so it could go back on the web I'd happily pay them £10-£20 a year forever. Alas M$ wants constant change forcing a now totally pointless 'upgrade' cycle.
Also when you consider that most -Win10 constant change ed- systems are 64bit an awful lot of very good software simply will not run, and this will continue to get worse with every six monthly 'update.'
On the stat' collators sites I only count as a Win7 user, (soon to change to Linux or 98se with a modern browser.) yet my Main machine is invisible as are my two laptops, one XP and the other Win98se. Why do I use them? Because they do everything I require of them. Both have Notepad++, PagePlus full office suite etc. When I've done I transfer the work to my main XP machine in the office. It does take a long time however . . whole seconds, which I apprieciate is too long for youngsters to wait.
I have spent years getting things the way I WANT them to be, I do not intend to constantly change everything every few years for little or no gain. I have also spent many hundreds of pounds on software that I have learnt to use to its full potential.
When my main system eventually dies I'll switch to my newly bought old Dell with XP, then my older XP box and if I'm still alive by the time that dies maybe my present Win7 machine or one of my older Win98 boxes (several around 400 to 1100mhz & 128 to 256MB Ram, all perfectly decent for most tasks.) Browsing the web can be done on anything.
Um I believe Me introduced that. Unless you mean WinRE, which was introduced on Vista but included on install with 7.
The "swap around minimized programs" feature is great and all, but has quirks. Such as making a pinned program become part of the main group. Or only being able to move around entire groups, and not individual iterations.
Nonetheless, on paper sure XP has already died.
But in reality: no. I still see POS terminals running standard XP Pro even this day and age. And that's the tip of the iceberg.