just wondering:

what are those of you who still use windows XP doing about it?

My IT folks at work are begging people to upgrade. They say hackers will be all over XP once Microsoft no longer supports it.

It's crazy to stick with it. Windows 7 runs better on the same hardware, and is still supported. Not to mention you can't run some modern software on it anymore.

I'm trying to figure it all out now.

Some stuff isn't supported anymore, some has to be updated....it's a huge pain in the ass.

I'd say get yourself a new PC and get someone who can do it for you to dumb it down from 8x (EEK!) to 7. The odds are that your PC wouldn't have the juice to run Windows 7 itself.

walter,

explain, "juice" please,

renny

W7's minimums are 1Ghz/1GB.

If XP came preinstalled, it will very probably support 7. You might need to add some RAM. By 2002, a low-end proc was around 1.5Ghz.

If you upgraded from 98 or ME, then, yeah, get a new machine.

Why end support for a product that is still widely in use??

Windows 7 will run on (most) anything that anyone is using right now; if it's got XP on it, odds are in his favor. Unless, yes, it's REALLY old and came from the late 90s. Don't bother with Windows 8. In fact, run away from it as far as possible.

I bought a brand new PC recently, and specifically requested Windows 7 instead of 8. I saw the horrors of 8 on both my daughters' laptops (they hate it too).

Heard there is a new 8.1.1 update that eliminates the annoying Charms bar and some other terrible "improvements".

I got a Windows 8.1 tablet Sunday and returned it in less than 24 hours. It was a terrible experience.

There will be an 8.2 (or whatever they decide to call it) in the fall which restores a native Start Menu. Windows 9 is tentatively due in the spring of 2015.

If Renny's been on XP all these years, he should probably move to 7 right now and then just stick with it until support ends in 2020.

So if I find a download of Windows 7 I should be relatively safe??


POST 28,000

"Find"? Not really advisable, IMO. I'd spring for the upgrade version (if they make one for XP users; they may not). Or if you know anyone in college, or your daughter does, you can see about having them order with a heavy discount.

You could always upgrade to one of these...

Hank's advice here is very good, however I'm personally not a big fan of installing operating systems. If you're going to have to invest in RAM anyway, it might not be that big of a stretch to get a new machine, as long as you can get Windows 7 and not anything 8x.

Installing RAM is less than $100, if you bought top of the line and maxxed out a system; a new PC is hundreds of dollars. It's also quite easy to do, so I'd go that way. I installed RAM in a computer without even knowing at all what I was doing back when I got my first PC.

I had planned on learning Linux by now. It hasn't happened, & I'm ashamed to admit my main 2 boxes are Dell's, so motherboard drivers on Linux may be a problem.

If 7 would install over the top of XP, I'd very reluctantly go there (if i could resolve that pesky Dell driver issue), but MS states that 7 requires a clean install. I've heard nothing but bad about 8, & it would make my various migration problems even more acute (I also have a ton of software i use for both personal & business that MIGHT run on 32 bit 7, but would not run on 8).

I may regret this, but at least in the short run, my solution is to up my security software. Both pc's now run Reg Run, EMET, & Malwarebytes pro in the background at all times; & even though it slows the boxes to a crawl, I'm probably going to start leaving MSE on at all times. (Speaking of SLOW, the combo of Reg Run, EMET & the new Malwarebytes Pro causes 10 minute + boot times on a quad core with XP's maximum 3 GB ram!)

I also use Firefox with No Script for the net, & a combination of PSI & newsletters to warn me when there are security patches.

I also remember that when Win 98 support ended, a non profit White Hat group made Zero day patches available for a couple years. It would sure be nice if something similar happened this time, as the #'s I've read is that world wide 25-35% of pc's are still on XP as of Monday this week.

All that said, it's probably a bad choice, (even a Malwarebytes rep told me during a purchase that it was a bad choice!) but.................

I am starting to really hate Microsoft; the #1 reason for this is to increase sales of Win 8.

My #1 concern is I have used Win 3.1, 95, 98 & XP & of the 4 systems I have found XP to be by far the most susceptible to malware. I never picked up anything on 9.x, & my behavior was more risky in those days than it is today. It's of course also possible that Malware writers have gotten more skilful (God knows the spammers have), but I lean towards believing that something in XP's basic architecture tends to be Virus prone..

I've had no issues with any 32 bit software on 64 bit Windows 7. Most older hardware has built-in drivers for Windows. Dell has not used severely proprietary stuff in about a decade, so you should be good with either Linux or Windows 7 unless you have an extremely old machine...in which case it's not worth trying to upgrade. Of course, should you choose the Linux route, then you have a whole new can of worms with your software, far beyond 64/32 bit issues. Some may work with WINE, some may not at all.

You could try an Ubuntu live CD, which doesn't actually install anything, but just boots to a disc that has a full Ubuntu Linux distribution on it. That would tell you if you'd have any driver issues right away, with no harm or foul.

I need to find the time to try your Ubuntu suggestion.

The machines are late 2008 & late 2009.

Re 32 bit: When working on a friend's 64 bit Win 7 machine a couple years back, I did have a few programs that wouldn't install. I consider myself quite ignorant re Win 7, though. I just assumed it was a 32 bit vs 64 bit issue.

Frustrating thing for me is other than increasing slowdowns (likely due to today's software needing more resources than XP was designed to provide) I'm very comfortable with XP, & I don't do change well!

Do you know what brand of Motherboard, Chipsets & Bios Dell was using in 2008 & 2009? The bios shows only as "Dell".

The BIOS should be irrelevant, generally speaking, for installing the OS (this is true of anything post 2000, mostly). They used Intel chipsets and the drivers are available from Intel directly for the system board. The first thing I did with my Dell I got in 2004 was wipe it completely and install a fresh clean copy of XP on it. Most of the time the Intel drivers are actually included in Windows, and you don't even need to search them out. I only needed drivers for my sound card, graphics card, and network card, IIRC...and I'm not even positive about the latter two; it seems like they may have installed with Windows automatically. If you have only one PC, the smart thing would be to download the network drivers and save them to a USB drive, so you aren't stuck offline needing drivers.