The End of Windows XP in 12 days
April 8, 2014 – Mark that in your calendar.
I’m doing a second posting about this important topic of discontinuing XP for a few reasons.
1) Better be safe! Having a machine in your home or office running that does not have the basic OS level security updates is asking for problems. If you are using Windows XP or have XP machines (desktops, laptops, etc) around the office or at home (who doesn’t?) and they use get used from time to time and connected to the Internet or used for a print server or some other very useful task, you might want to have a strategy in place in quickly upgrade.
2) A huge material toxic waste for the planet! I personally feel this is one of the largest, wasteful, unnecessary, forced electronic upgrades ever on the planet. As of only a year ago, about 1/3 of all personal computers worldwide were running XP and most were probably fairly content with their computing environment. An article in computer world in August 2013 found that 37.2% of the globe’s personal computers ran Windows XP. If Microsoft’s estimate of 1.4 billion Windows PCs worldwide is accurate, XP’s share translates into nearly 570 million machines. Another article from January 2014 reported that 95 percent of ATM machines use windows XP as cited by NCR, the largest ATM supplier in the US.
Unlike most software products that allow for you to continue to run the program or upgrade without having to buy new hardware, MS operating system upgrades are usually different since they may be coupled with the machines they are installed on.
Upgrading the OS with dependent hardware and drivers often forces that fully functioning computer to become a door stop and forces users to buy a new computer. This approach only adds to our pile of electronic waste for the planet. I also know there are many non profits, educational organizations, households and users in other countries that simply DO NOT have the financial resources to upgrade users to new hardware, OS and all of the software upgrades that go along with that upgrade.
3) Forced upgrade should not necessary. As a software vendor myself, I know that supporting older versions is not a overbearing task for software vendors. I have clients running a version of Web+Center they installed over 10 years ago, and those clients still find the older version serves their purposes and do not plan upgrades. Being familiar and efficient with an application is often more important than upgrading with new features and complexities they really don’t need or want. From reading various articles, it appears that Microsoft will be doing the necessary engineering patch support for XP for special paying clients so it is more their choice not to distribute those patches to the general user base.
4) Migrating Web+Center from XP machines. If you are running Web+Center on a XP machine as the web server, you can easily migrate your complete current installation to a new windows OS machine without having to re-install web+center from the original installation .exe or perform any version upgrade, or pay for upgrade licenses or support. These migration steps are outlined in newsletter #25 in the article called Web+Center Application Migration to a new server. Give us a call if you have any questions or issues with our migration.
Maybe Microsoft will have a new business vision that decides the small percentage of their engineering staff can continue to provide security support for the XP along with their other versions makes good business sense, good for the planet and good for their image as a corporate citizen. We aren’t asking for improvements, but basic and important security low level support.
Sincerely,
Scott Vanderlip
President, Internet Software Sciences
