Goodbye Windows XP

[FAST6191]

For those unaware, and though most with even a foot in IT are probably sick to death of it by now it has not gone the furthest outside it, Windows XP is no longer a supported operating system as of today. This means Microsoft will no longer provide security updates to it, unless you pay them a tidy sum and probably even then you will want to be a bigger company.
Now it is probably not as bad as some companies finding their nice expensive industrial equipment and service software is going to be harder to run well in the years to come. However many flash carts, pieces of copier hardware, programs and techniques which like the more unfettered system access Microsoft has slowly been removing from its newer operating systems are used by many of us on GBAtemp. The OS itself will still carry on working but it poses something of a security risk if you are also going to be using it for day to day purposes.

Those still in need of XP but only its USB/serial options may find the likes of Virtualbox and VMWare to their liking. One guide to using it for old GBA flash cards, though the guide will work for just about anything that needs USB really.
Those simply using it as a day to day operating system you should probably know there are a lot of alternatives, including free ones, that will run well on older hardware but still do everything required of a modern operating system.

Do any of you have the pleasure of now maintaining a Windows XP box for your hacker tools and hardware?

Microsoft post

 

[chrisrlink]

I believe the current (already released) hotfixes/updates will remain up for grabs but no new updates will be released

 

[RemixDeluxe]

inb4 omgpplstilluseXP?!?

 

[Gahars]

XP gon' giveth to ya and XP gon' taketh away...

 

[GamerzHell9137]

RIP, i won't ever forget you *tears*

 

[JeremyLDixon]

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.

 

[VMM]

inb4 omgpplstilluseXP?!?

Many enterprises still use XP.
Enterprises don't change their OS with the same frequency as end-user,
they also want stability, if the system is working, and is stable, there is almost no reason to change it.
Now that it will stop having support, it's a tendency for those enterprises that still use it, to change.

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.

Tell me one thing that Windows XP had better than Windows 7.
Windows XP didn't even have propper 64 bit support.

 

[DinohScene]

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.

I have to disagree.
Win 2k was the best windows ever.

 

[Ozito]

I remember how reluctant i was when XP was released, it wasn't until the year later when i received a new computer with XP that i said goodbye to '98 and welcomed XP into my life

Still have xp on my underpowered celeron laptop, not because i want to but because anything else would be slow and running W7 on my main computer, the difference between vista and 7 was very noticeable for me, i tried to use vista but it was really hard to like it.

 

[FAST6191]

Tell me one thing that Windows XP had better than Windows 7.

Better low level access to hardware, probably one of the main reasons most people are/have been facing hard decisions. Also depending upon how you want to view it better networking capabilities; raw sockets were nerfed on XP kind of early on. No argument that for general use 7 beats XP in most ways that matter, give or take you can still type, print, surf and email on XP and that can be all that matters.

Still have xp on my underpowered celeron laptop, not because i want to but because anything else would be slow

I have a version of Debian using XFCE on my little celeron laptop and it runs pretty well -- it is my in bed book reader and surfing machine, granted I pulled a 2 gig RAM chip out of a dead laptop (got to love those entire lines of HP/compaq laptops that all died) and stuck it in there too.
There are plenty of lightweight linux distributions that can turn that machine into something that is not complete junk.

 

[Arras]

I remember how reluctant i was when XP was released, it wasn't until the year later when i received a new computer with XP that i said goodbye to '98 and welcomed XP into my life

Still have xp on my underpowered celeron laptop, not because i want to but because anything else would be slow and running W7 on my main computer, the difference between vista and 7 was very noticeable for me, i tried to use vista but it was really hard to like it.

TBH I recently installed W7 on a 10 year old PC that used to run XP and the performance is pretty much the same.

 

[Ozito]

I have a version of Debian using XFCE on my little celeron laptop and it runs pretty well -- it is my in bed book reader and surfing machine, granted I pulled a 2 gig RAM chip out of a dead laptop (got to love those entire lines of HP/compaq laptops that all died) and stuck it in there too.
There are plenty of lightweight linux distributions that can turn that machine into something that is not complete junk.

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?

 

[Nismax]

I run XP on each and every computer I have. Fuck everything else.

 

[Ozito]

TBH I recently installed W7 on a 10 year old PC that used to run XP and the performance is pretty much the same.

Aren't you quite a dare devil.
I don't want to imagine how slow w7 would be on this laptop, it barely flows with xp on it.

 

[yusuo]

I wouldn't use Debian as a starter os don't get me wrong its good and solid but not very user friendly if you don't already know the basics.

Try Ubuntu or Linux mint if you got a good enough system if you don't you could use lubuntu or dsl (damn small Linux)

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

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.

 

[Hyro-Sama]

And so the mass migration to Linux begins.

 

[FAST6191]

I would say it is worth knowing a bit about Linux if you plan to get on with computers -- it runs on most things and is very popular for servers. The learning curve varies from distro to distro but for the entry level it is not so bad, likewise I might not start out with debian*. Most of the headaches come with trying to get odd hardware combos working, typically inbuilt webcams, certain printers and wireless cards though all of that is far better than it was a few years back. Also for a laptop that old the wireless is probably junk anyway and they have very nice compact USB wireless cards these days (many people playing with raspberry pis use them so they are guaranteed to work on X86 linux), if you have used a compact bluetooth before then same size.

That said if you find yourself messing around with the command line these days and not just clicking on a few things you have picked the wrong distro, or it because you want to.

*it is nice and it is the thing that the easy to use distros like Ubuntu and Linux Mint base themselves on, however it is left a bit rough around the edges which works for me as I find the other two a tiny bit inclined to hold my hand on occasions (I actually use linux mint on my main machine now and have several clients on it).

http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major has a list of most of the popular distros of Linux, stay away from arch linux for now as it is one of the more complex ones and you do not need that headache. There are some aimed very much at people coming from Windows and will make it look somewhat like XP ( http://www.zorin-os.com/images/screenshots/ZorinApps.png ) but I am in favour of the "rip the bandage off" approach.

Frankly though if you download and burn a liveCD, run that and see how it works you will have done most of the hard work (and also find out if your wireless or graphics is going to be a pain). The only real difference is Linux tends to favour using repositories to get software -- it varies from distro to distro how they set about it but if you are used to the likes of the app store/google play (by the way Android is technically a type of linux but it is a distant relation) on phones/tablets then same idea, except the software is usually free and actually suitable for use by someone that wants to get something done.
There is more but I will not pile it on at this point.

If your main machine has some power to it (dual core and 4 gigs of RAM will do) you could also try virtual machines to see if you can get on with Linux. Being a virtual machine means you tend not to face hardware issues either.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

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


Otherwise, meh. I and everyone I know have stopped using XP ages ago, now lets hope everyone else catches up and at least upgrades to 7/8.1/switches to Linux.

 

[nl255]

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.