Is It Time To Say Goodbye To Windows XP
What makes it worse is that these unprotected Windows XP PCs are often in critical infrastructure deployments. For example, a significant number of ATMs still use versions of Windows XP. In fact, at the time of extended support ending in 2014 it was estimated that more than 95% of the three million ATMs in use worldwide were still running on Windows XP.
Is It Time To Say Goodbye To Windows XP
While antivirus (opens in new tab) and other endpoint security (opens in new tab) measures are an important line of defense, effectively applying software updates and patches removes many of the vulnerabilities that cybercriminals target today. However, in these days of remote working, applying such updates can sometimes be difficult. Luckily, help is at hand. By using a multi-platform patch management solution, IT admins can get complete visibility over the patch status of their systems and provide guidance to staff so that they know what to patch and how.
Effective patching is a critical security precaution for businesses of all sizes. The benefits are numerous. It provides a more secure environment for your staff and helps protect your business from potential security breaches. But more than that, it allows the business to continue to innovate, avoid unnecessary fines and promotes system uptime which leads to happy customers. The last point is particularly important. We all saw the furor that the recent Facebook downtime caused, where businesses which use social media (opens in new tab) to connect with consumers were faced with irate customers and a significant financial hit.
"The data clearly illustrates how prevalent Windows XP remains 12 years after its initial release," said Kathryn Pribish, Voice of IT program manager at Spiceworks. "The next four months will be a busy time for the majority of IT professionals migrating XP-based systems and for the vendors who can provide professional services and support for resource-strained IT departments."
It's time to convert to something newer. Actually, the window for intelligent conversion has passed. If you were going to convert to Windows 7, the latest time to have completed conversion was eighteen months ago. If you convert to Windows 7 now, you're likely to have very unhappy users because Windows 8 has arrived and a lot of users on the personal side are using it.
Goodbye Windows XP. You served us well for many years. It's time to let your life force slip away into oblivion and to allow your legacy (no pun intended) to follow you into the annals of history. Let us speak fondly of you and refer to your reign with us as "the good ol' days".
The time, as they say, has come to say goodbye. From a management perspective, your choice is to try to upgrade your software on your existing hardware or to upgrade your hardware as well as the associated operating system and Office suite.
What should you be doing? The time is short. Lawyers can not afford the downtime that can come with your computers becoming infected as a result of security vulnerabilities by continuing to use XP. You need to be proactive.
Q: How long will ESET provide support for Windows XP?A: ESET has not yet announced an end-of-life for Windows XP support as of the time of this writing. For more information, see the following ESET Knowledgebase Articles:
Most people said goodbye to Windows XP a long time ago. But if, for whatever reason, you're still running the out-of-date operating system, you really need to upgrade. Microsoft on Tuesday finally stopped providing antimalware signatures for Windows XP.
PCs running Windows XP have not been truly protected for more than a year. Microsoft on April 8, 2014 officially ended support for XP, meaning it stopped rolling out security updates for the aging OS. At that time, Redmond also stopped letting those on Windows XP download its Security Essentials tool, which guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.
The software giant did, however, throw a bone to XP users who already had Microsoft Security Essentials installed, promising to keep it updated for a "limited time" to give people some more time to transition to a newer and fully supported OS. That time has now come and gone.
Microsoft has been pleading with customers to upgrade to a new OS for years, so you can't say you weren't warned about this. If you're still on XP, perhaps now is a good time to finally upgrade. Windows 10 arrives on July 29.
These will only be OEM versions, which means that each license can only be used once. The disc that comes with it can be used repeatedly, but you're supposed to buy a new license each time you install. You'll also have to wait for it in the mail -- there's no getting the license ahead of time and finding an installation ISO.
Finally, now that you have everything restored, take some time to learn about the differences between Windows XP and your new system. The difference when using Windows 7 shouldn't be drastic; the difference when using Windows 8 may be a little bit more due to the Modern interface.
Windows XP will always be remembered as the gold standard of Microsoft operating systems. To show our readers how special Windows XP is for Winaero, we have the original Bliss wallpaper available today for you to enjoy at 4K resolution! That's a 600 DPI image and 5 times bigger than the Bliss image file which ships with Windows XP. Download it below by right clicking it -> Save picture as.
What remains special about Windows XP is that it retained the end user control, advanced features and continuity from past releases that power users and IT professionals need. Even with its unprecedented ease of use, Windows XP was highly customizable and had the most logically designed, productivity-focused user interface. In contrast, newer Microsoft Windows versions have moved away from power users and focus exclusively on being friendlier to casual users/consumers, which gives IT pros, power users and developers a tough time customizing and setting up the OS to their liking.
Microsoft today continues to reduce the choice that Windows users enjoyed for the past two decades - they are different company today. Modern versions of Windows which have the NT6 kernel have removed an enormous amount of features and yet they eat your hard drive over time, work slower and have reduced configurability in many aspects. Even Windows Explorer, which is a core component of Windows, works many times slower than XP's Explorer and is far less customizable. From my point of view, newer versions of Windows are worse than Windows XP as far as versatility goes, although they may be more secure.
Today, it is time to say a final goodbye to Windows XP. If you have not switched to another Windows version, it is time to do it now to stay secure although you lose many features and end up sacrificing productivity, usability and customization. At this moment, you have a choice between Windows 8.1 and Windows 7. Windows 7 is closer to the classic Desktop metaphor, but Windows 8 is a crazy mess of a touchscreen oriented UI and the Desktop mode that does not result in an overall great experience. Where will you switch? Tell us in the comments.
Windows 7 was more comfortable and easy to use. However, windows 10 already replaced the older one, it is more like Microsoft phone and quite complex to use. Though, it has many new added features, still love to use the old one.
It is time to say goodbye to Windows 7 because windows have developed a much better operating system which is called Windows 10. Windows 10 performing very well up to now and It is showing less error.
They also took a fresh look at security patches. Many companies, including Quintiles, usually deploy only medium and critical patches, but for the XP machines, even low-risk patches were deployed because those vulnerabilities have been around for a long time, inviting attackers to come up with new exploits against them.
Seeing as how it took Apple seven years worth of operating systems to edge past Microsoft's embarrassing flameout (released in January 2007), it doesn't appear that Redmond's desktop hegemony is due to come a-tumblin' down anytime soon.
Years after it was first released, Microsoft Windows 7 still counts among the favorite operating systems worldwide. But the time has come to say goodbye. Windows 7 has reached its final end-of-life stadium (EOL). Microsoft will no longer be publishing updates or provide any form of support for the operating system. What are the consequences?
Over time, however, Windows 7 will become unusable. The end of support is already taken as an opportunity by software developers to no longer make their products compatible with Windows 7. For example, Google announced that Chrome would only continue to support Windows 7 until July 15, 2021. Other software developers are likely to follow suit.
PHP 7.1 has many fans in the web developer community. But now it's time to say goodbye and switch to a newer version. The development team has set the end-of-life date for PHP 7.1 for December 1, 2019. From that date on, the version will receive no further updates. Even security gaps will no longer be closed by the official developers. What should you do now?
Effectively, any computer that can run Windows 7 will more than likely be able to run Windows 10. That said, if you have any computers that are below that specification, now is the time to either give them an upgrade or (more likely) end-of-life them as well.
Johnson, who leads the trade group's cybersecurity and fraud deterrence efforts, said other banks are making relatively easy changes to beef up ATM security or are paying Microsoft for continued support until they change the software. In some cases the upgrades are being delayed to take place at the same time the banks change their ATMs to accept smart cards, which use a microchip instead of a magnetic stripe to store and transmit information, he said.