Activate XP after support ends?

[mike123abc]

Why should MS spend money supporting a 10 year old OS? They much rather sell an upgrade.

 

[mike123abc]

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/antivirus-windows-xp-malware-exploits-april-2014,24970.html

Another article on the death of XP and that even MS antimalware for XP will not be updated.

One interesting point in the article is that once they stop patching XP but continue to patch Vista+, every exploit closed on the newer OSes will probably be used against XP once hackers find out about it. Essentially exponentially increasing the risk of XP, even with all the antivirus programs....

Rains also points out that Microsoft will patch vulnerabilities in Windows Vista and above, but "malicious" researchers will likely reverse engineer these updates, test to see if they affect Windows XP -- which most of them will according to the report -- and write exploits for those vulnerabilities, targeting the older Windows XP platform.

 

[Stargazer]

Perhaps they could come out with a Windows 8 version that would work with the system requirements of older systems that are currently running XP.

 

[mike123abc]

Perhaps they could come out with a Windows 8 version that would work with the system requirements of older systems that are currently running XP.

A lot of the problem is that there is a lot of old specialized hardware that needs old types of slots and connections, and the drivers were never updated.

 

[Foxbat]

Windows 8 = 64-bit. No 16-bit installer, so even if an application would work in the virtual XP machine, there's no easy way to install it short of taking before and after snapshots of a clean XP box and installing your app on it, then hoping it translates to 64-bits.

We have XP boxes that talk to specialized PCI cards. While there are some MBs you can buy with PCI slots, they're getting harder and harder to find. You can't get newer Windows drivers for the old hardware, and forget about finding compatible Win 7/8 drivers for the PCI cards.

All this means is the decision made 8 years ago to "save money" by using Windows-based PCs for Process Automation is going to cost us an equally large amount of money in order to replace everything.

Say what you will about VMS, but those systems are still running 24x7 20+ years after they were installed. Now, the aging DEC hardware can be swapped for an up-to-date Intel-based server running emulation software, but there's no reason to replace the application software if it does the job it needs to.

Microsoft should have designed an Real-Time OS decades ago, but they've gone all touchy-feelie now.

 

[jayn_j]

Wish I could like foxbat's post more than once. The short life of PC interfaces and buses has been a thorn in my side for 20 years now. The industrial world keeps stuff around for a LONG time. They like to replace and add more capability using the proven technology and what works for an office environment doesn't apply here.

When you spend 3 years developing a custom solution that has a market base of a couple of hundred units, you really can't afford to throw it all away two years later.

 

[mike123abc]

When you spend 3 years developing a custom solution that has a market base of a couple of hundred units, you really can't afford to throw it all away two years later.

No, but if you pick a much better communications media like ethernet, and putting it in its own case, you have a much better chance of the hardware being compatible longer.