Goodbye Windows XP

[xxNathanxx]

Thing is I've never used any Linux based OS and the thought of installing some version of them all has crossed my mind but I've never converted that thought into action, I might as well give it shot now that you mentioned a version.

What's the learning curve on such an OS?

Might I suggest giving openSUSE a try: http://software.opensuse.org/131/en

It's a very user friendly distro and has a great community to help you out with problems, yet it doesn't hold you back when you feel like jumping off into the great wide yonder. Oh and it also has a cute gecko as its mascot.

I suggest downloading the GNOME LiveCD from the page I linked, put that on a USB stick and have a look. Instructions for installing etc can all be found on said page. It'll likely be quite different (or at least feel different) to what you are used to in Windows, but I'm sure you'll get the hang of it in a couple of minutes.

Otherwise I don't think there's anything more to add than what FAST6191 already said.

 

[matpower]

R.I.P Win XP
Anyway, the last time I ever used XP was for a game on a VM, I moved to 7 after I made my jump to the 64-bits era.

And so the mass migration to Linux begins.

I would laugh if that really happened.
Anyway, if someone wants to pick a Linux Distro, get Linux Mint(XFCE if you got an old system) or (X)Ubuntu.

 

[tbgtbg]

It's not going anywhere for me. No way my desktop can run anything newer, and I wouldn't even if I could. Hell, if I was sure I could find proper drivers for everything I'd be running it on my laptop too.

 

[FAST6191]

It's not going anywhere for me. No way my desktop can run anything newer, and I wouldn't even if I could. Hell, if I was sure I could find proper drivers for everything I'd be running it on my laptop too.

I had a little old thinkpad with a P4 (or the pentium M equivalent) and a gig of ram running more or less acceptably on 32 bit 7. Now the old printers and scanners might suffer, personally I am hoping someone decides to get rid of some nice plotters and the like (HP still support various nasty old laser printers but apparently a 10 year old plotter is no good).

I still plan on using XP on most of my VMs given how well it runs with only 192MB of RAM. Good thing most VM software supports non-persistant virtual disk drives (similar to DeepFreeze but at the VM level) so any viruses that do get on won't survive after shutdown.

No argument it is a great measure, however it is the damage that might happen if things slip into my network (see also eggshell security -- hard outside but soft and chewy inside). I really do not have the most fancy network setup (no NAS, not even a USB drive plugged into my router which supports it) but I am seeing lots of fairly well networked devices and that is only going to increase with time.

Don't forget, the British and Dutch governments paid Microsoft to continue support...for them So it's only 99% dead.

Even more "technically" it is supported in its "embedded" and point of sale forms for another couple of years, likewise in one of my trips into the dark places of the internet a couple of years back (as in post 2010) I found some people doing a fair line in supporting windows 98. Given XP has some proper legacy uses I can imagine good things happening there, until reactos rises up and kills it sorry not a joke reply at this point.

 

[elunesgrace]

XP was Microsofts best operating system. Vista was garbage. Windows 7 was decent enough though not great. Windows 8 convinced me to walk into an Apple store and buy a Mac six hours after it was released.

The margins on apple products are so horrific that I cannot condone such a decision, ever.

 

[Taleweaver]

I have to admit I felt kind of a loss today. It's as if to say goodbye to a lover you once had.

XP really set a standard in desktop operating systems. Before, it was kind of normal that things slowed down to a crawl and you'd had to reinstall the OS every half year, usually 'cause some obscure error somewhere.
Saying that I instantly loved it goes a bit too far, as compared to millennium...now THAT was garbage.
XP was just...right. Yeah, it had some flakey theme as default, but everything just worked out of the box. That never happened to me before.

In a way, it's also a period in my professional career. All in all, the majority of my eight years of PC support was on XP. And if I didn't quit my last job, I'd still be using it (the fact that they were too stubborn to take upgrading our 300+ clients seriously and rather insisting it was something "to be done when you've got time for it" was one of my reasons for quitting).
I upgraded my dad and brother a couple months back. They were reluctant, but at least they understood the situation. And I've got to say that 7 is a worthy successor (hardly tried vista. It wasn't as bad as some make it out to be, but it added barely anything yet drained more resources).

@ozitoAs for a replacement OS...I'd go with linux mint (cinnamon) or, if it's a REALLY old pc (512MB RAM or less) lubuntu. They're different than windows, but not that different. And I'm dead serious when saying that they resemble windows xp more than windows 8 does.
Also: lili. It's so simple it's almost embarrassing. Insert a (to be formatted) usb stick, choose a linux distribution, let it install...and you've got linux on an installation disk.



Anyhow...back on topic: RIP, windows XP. It's been a good decade for you. A VERY good decade.

 

[Mario92]

It's actually pretty weird that Linux distros doesn't stand up that much even as now is their change! 8.1 probably won't run on old XP machine and if that machine were used only for online surfing then Linux is the best solution there is!

I was just thinking that if companies now upgrade to 7 or 8 won't they have that as next problem in just few years again? 7 support ends in 2020 unless they make support for that longer as well. We'll be stuck with outdated software cycle OMG

 

[Wisenheimer]

XP was pretty outdated when Microsoft released Vista, which was about three normal upgrades rolled into one. The core OS has not seen much upgrade since Vista, with Windows 7 and 8 being minor changes.

XP was also badly fragmented: Home, professional, Media Center, x64, Tablet PC, not to mention all the different embedded and other custom versions.

I still use Windows XP 64 as my primary Microsoft VM, since the OS only uses a few hundred megabytes of RAM, but obviously eventually I will eventually have to switch to Vista or 7 to install some newer software that I intend to run in the VM. The nice thing is, all those deprecated OS's will still be there on the hard drive if I need to boot them up.

When XP hit the scene it was infinitely better than ME and I was running it for months prior to it's release. Never looked back and never even crossed my mind to keep running the old OS's from MS.

Fast forward to this time period and you can pry Windows 7 from my cold dead fingers... lol (unless 9 is something I can digest then I may throw 7 to the curb lol)

Rest well XP, you have earned it.

That is because Windows ME and XP were two entirely different operating system code bases.

ME was a minor upgrade to Windows 98, which was based on DOS and Windows 95, 3.11 . . . It was basically trying to use a patched 1981 codebase in the year 2000.

Windows 2000 was based on Windows NT and was rock-solid, but it did not have good legacy support, especially for Windows and DOS games, so it was mostly just used on enterprise and business computers while consumers were stuck with ME.

Windows XP was a minor upgrade to 2000 that had better legacy support for DOS and Windows 3.11/95/98/ME code, especially games.

It was supposed to be released back in 2000, but Microsoft was behind schedule merging the codebases of Windows 98 and Windows NT.

 

[FAST6191]

It's actually pretty weird that Linux distros doesn't stand up that much even as now is their change!

Yeah I would have though a few would have put out LTS versions around now. Sadly not so many have, or if they are it is in a couple of months from now, though a few months from now could well be when people are hurting so that might not be so bad. I also hear GNOME 3.12 is doing good things and there are many other things doing well so things could happen.

On windows 7, 2020 is soon enough to be thinking long term, however it is still several years (and several tax seasons) away. As we still have people genuinely surprised about XP ending (or just hoping it will not be so bad).

On a different note OSX 10.6.8 was kicked to the curb back in February, with that also went such ancient tech as 2007 core duo machines.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/27/fanbois_face_xp_moment_as_snow_leopard_is_left_to_die/

 

[Originality]

RIP XP. You have served me well. Sure, I have not used you since Windows 7, but I did still recommend you to many older computer friends who were just not ready for Vista. May you find peace in your resting place on my USB toolbox for repairs, alongside my Linux live CD also for repairs.

 

[tbgtbg]

I had a little old thinkpad with a P4 (or the pentium M equivalent) and a gig of ram running more or less acceptably on 32 bit 7. Now the old printers and scanners might suffer, personally I am hoping someone decides to get rid of some nice plotters and the like (HP still support various nasty old laser printers but apparently a 10 year old plotter is no good).

I have no idea how a P4/M compares with an Athlon Thunderbird, but I've still got frickin ISA cards in the thing.

Even if I did get something newer, I'd still need to keep this around for various hardware I have that there are no modern equivalents to that requires parallel and serial ports and nope, converters to USB don't work right either.

 

[ipwndeveloper]

HAHAHAH... no longer have to support IE6 when developing Websites, or complex workarounds to maintain compatibility with older OS!!!

It is slightly sad though, some of the tools and software has never left the XP/32bit era, gotta love virtualbox for all the stuff you can't have.

And in my humble opinion Windows 98SE was the best, with some old 486DX cpu and 36kbps dial up through compu-serve. Doom Rocked. Those were the days.

 

[FAST6191]

HAHAHAH... no longer have to support IE6 when developing Websites, or complex workarounds to maintain compatibility with older OS!!!

You mean you have not been charging extra for "legacy support" these last couple of years? Hell even shops have been known to charge extra ( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/14/kogan_ie7_tax/ , for IE7 but it still stands).

Old IE was pig, and I will fight anybody that wants to argue otherwise, but how hard was supporting XP for everything else? Usually I found it cut the other way, at least until you said "no you fool, you will use the users/documents and settings directory rather than the install directory like you have been supposed to well over the last decade".

 

[VMM]

Thing is I've never used any Linux based OS and the thought of installing some version of them all has crossed my mind but I've never converted that thought into action, I might as well give it shot now that you mentioned a version.

What's the learning curve on such an OS?

Ubuntu and it's variations(Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, etc) ate the distros I would recommend for starters.
I use Kubuntu because i preffer the KDE interface, so this is a matter of personal preference,
I suggest you taking a look at pictures of each one in google images and deciding what best suits you.
I started using Linux 8 years ago, it's a lot more friendly now, especially ubuntu and it's variations,
it may be harder to learn how to use than Windows, but is one of the easiest Linux to use,
have great support, use deb packages(which in my opinion is miles better than rpm)
and would give you basic Linux knowledge if you want to migrate to a more complex Linux(Debian, Gentoo, etc)

 

[techboy]

Still running numerous XP boxes here...and since I do PC support as a side job, I support many other people's XP boxes too. Big thing lately has been Win8 downgrades to 7, but I still get calls from people needing an XP box fixed. It's enough that I'd say 1 in 4.

As for big companies and governments paying for security and bug fixes for XP, this implies that updates are still being made, just not being published for free. Unless they're specifically for a problem with the internal systems of the company who paid for them, I'll bet that those updates will leak and turn up online in short order for the rest of us to use. We'll just have to go find them. Even better, some reputable sites like MSFN have been known to post unofficial updates in the past (Win2000 got numerous updates, most being back-ports from XP, and later an unofficial SP5).

As for the rest of XP, I loved all of it except IE. Good riddance to IE6 and IE7. Both of those were horrible. Getting websites to look and work correctly in them was a nightmare, and they crashed all the time. Even IE8 is better, but slow.

Now if only I could convince my mother to stop using IE8...

 

[matpower]

Still running numerous XP boxes here...and since I do PC support as a side job, I support many other people's XP boxes too. Big thing lately has been Win8 downgrades to 7, but I still get calls from people needing an XP box fixed. It's enough that I'd say 1 in 4.

As for big companies and governments paying for security and bug fixes for XP, this implies that updates are still being made, just not being published for free. Unless they're specifically for a problem with the internal systems of the company who paid for them, I'll bet that those updates will leak and turn up online in short order for the rest of us to use. We'll just have to go find them. Even better, some reputable sites like MSFN have been known to post unofficial updates in the past (Win2000 got numerous updates, most being back-ports from XP, and later an unofficial SP5).

As for the rest of XP, I loved all of it except IE. Good riddance to IE6 and IE7. Both of those were horrible. Getting websites to look and work correctly in them was a nightmare, and they crashed all the time. Even IE8 is better, but slow.

Now if only I could convince my mother to stop using IE8...

Well, the Win8 to Win7 will stop when Win8 gets his Classic Start Menu back.
For your mother.
1 - Mask Firefox/Chrome icon as IE8
2 - Remove the original IE8 icon from any visible spot and export the data from IE to Firefox/Chrome(Also a skin is a must if she is using Firefox+Vista)
3 - Tell her that IE received an update
4 - ???
5 - Profit! (Or at least, that should work unless is pays attention to stuff)

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

Still running numerous XP boxes here...and since I do PC support as a side job, I support many other people's XP boxes too. Big thing lately has been Win8 downgrades to 7, but I still get calls from people needing an XP box fixed. It's enough that I'd say 1 in 4.

As for big companies and governments paying for security and bug fixes for XP, this implies that updates are still being made, just not being published for free. Unless they're specifically for a problem with the internal systems of the company who paid for them, I'll bet that those updates will leak and turn up online in short order for the rest of us to use. We'll just have to go find them. Even better, some reputable sites like MSFN have been known to post unofficial updates in the past (Win2000 got numerous updates, most being back-ports from XP, and later an unofficial SP5).

As for the rest of XP, I loved all of it except IE. Good riddance to IE6 and IE7. Both of those were horrible. Getting websites to look and work correctly in them was a nightmare, and they crashed all the time. Even IE8 is better, but slow.

Now if only I could convince my mother to stop using IE8...

The one thing that really ever bothered me about XP was for quite a while everyone was getting those F ing Virus Scan 2006, Virus Scan 2007, ect. ect.

Later on some one coined the term "Scamware" since the scans always said "You have 8 billion virus's please pay 167 dollars to get rid of them!" lol you could even install it on a fresh copy of windows and it would find a bazillion virus's.

My brother had that fun piece of software on his machine at least 3 different times... So hard to get rid of that eventually I just imaged his hard drive with Ghost after a format and fresh install... Then just used that when ever he contracted it or any other virus.

Edit: Also hard to call going from 8 to 7 a downgrade... more of a side grade lol (My personal opinion is 7 is the upgrade but it's just a matter of taste mostly.)

 

[matpower]

The one thing that really ever bothered me about XP was for quite a while everyone was getting those F ing Virus Scan 2006, Virus Scan 2007, ect. ect.

Later on some one coined the term "Scamware" since the scans always said "You have 8 billion virus's please pay 167 dollars to get rid of them!" lol you could even install it on a fresh copy of windows and it would find a bazillion virus's.

My brother had that fun piece of software on his machine at least 3 different times... So hard to get rid of that eventually I just imaged his hard drive with Ghost after a format and fresh install... Then just used that when ever he contracted it or any other virus.

I never got one of theses...
Really, you just need to use common sense, heck, if you use common sense, you can still use Win 95 to browse most sites nowadays!

 

[EMP Knightmare]

Despite it all I've been using XP and will continue to use XP, I've tried other OS's but just doesn't feel right :/

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

I never got one of theses...
Really, you just need to use common sense, heck, if you use common sense, you can still use Win 95 to browse most sites nowadays!

I can count on 2 fingers the number of times I have honestly had a virus on my machine, one of them was back in the Windows 95 days and it was not that bad. The other one was more recently on XP (more recent in comparison to Windows 95 lol) and it was so bad I had to reformat... Had files spread in like 4 locations even in the driver cache folder and would replace the files as they where deleted on the next reboot. I fought with it for a few hours then just reformated... Sometimes it's not worth the time trying to get rid of them. (Maybe if my machine was slow and installs took hours to complete.)