Continued support for Windows XP

A

Alain Dekker

Given the continued popularity of Windows XP (their best OS in my opinion)
is there any chance Microsoft will have a change of heart and continue
support for Windows XP SP3 beyond the 02 April 2014 cut-off date?

Regards,
Alain
 
P

philo 

Not a chance. :-(



That's correct , however there is no need to give up using XP anytime
soon. As long as you use a virus checker that is supported by XP the
updates for that will keep coming...Additionally, if you are using
Firefox or Chrome, the updates for that will keep coming...
plus other software.

So, XP should be a viable operating system for quite a few more years.
 
K

Ken Blake, MVP

Given the continued popularity of Windows XP (their best OS in my opinion)
is there any chance Microsoft will have a change of heart and continue
support for Windows XP SP3 beyond the 02 April 2014 cut-off date?


*Any* chance? I suppose there's a slight chance, but it's *very*
slight.

I'm not a betting man, but I would put money on their not doing it.
 
K

Ken Blake, MVP

More like zero/0 since MS already gave us an extension a few years ago!


As I said, I would bet against its happening. But is it *remotely*
possible that it could happen? Yes.

It's time to leave outdated XP SP3!

Yep! We agree completely.
 
K

Ken Blake, MVP

The term "Malware" is both singular and plural.


Forgive the grammar lesson, but actually, no it's not. It's a mass
noun, not a count noun. As is "software," by the way. Another common
example of a mass noun is "furniture." You can talk about "furniture,"
but not "furnitures."

For a technical discussion of the difference between the two types of
nouns, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_noun

And by the way, several years ago my wife and I took a vacation in
China, and studied Chinese a little for a few months before the trip.
One of the things our teacher pointed out was that Chinese nouns were
very different from English in that every Chinese noun required a
qualifier, describing the kind of thing it is. So you can't say "a
paper," you have to say "a piece of paper," you can't say "a wood,"
you have to say "a stick of wood," and so on. Our teacher didn't know
the technical terms "mass noun" and "count noun," but she was
essentially saying that all Chinese nouns are mass nouns, which they
are. And since mass nouns are fairly common in English, Chinese isn't
as different from English in that respect as she thought it was.

So what it all comes down to is that, since they are mass nouns, you
can never say "malwares" or "softwares." You can talk about "malware"
or "software," or "a piece of malware" or "a piece of software."
 
P

Paul in Houston TX

G.F. said:
You're right indeed, however you should realize that updates concern the
security of our PCs against malwares. When updates will end, the new
malwares will hit our PCs through backdoors that Microsoft/nobody will no
longer close.

I find it interesting that this home XP3 gamer machine has never had
any active antivirus nor MS updates for 2 years and it never gets
a virus. However, my w7.1 machine has active everything, its
used for company related work only, and its the one that gets
a virus every two weeks.
 
B

Buffalo

"Ken Blake, MVP" wrote in message

The term "Malware" is both singular and plural.


Forgive the grammar lesson, but actually, no it's not. It's a mass
noun, not a count noun. As is "software," by the way. Another common
example of a mass noun is "furniture." You can talk about "furniture,"
but not "furnitures."

For a technical discussion of the difference between the two types of
nouns, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_noun

And by the way, several years ago my wife and I took a vacation in
China, and studied Chinese a little for a few months before the trip.
One of the things our teacher pointed out was that Chinese nouns were
very different from English in that every Chinese noun required a
qualifier, describing the kind of thing it is. So you can't say "a
paper," you have to say "a piece of paper," you can't say "a wood,"
you have to say "a stick of wood," and so on. Our teacher didn't know
the technical terms "mass noun" and "count noun," but she was
essentially saying that all Chinese nouns are mass nouns, which they
are. And since mass nouns are fairly common in English, Chinese isn't
as different from English in that respect as she thought it was.

So what it all comes down to is that, since they are mass nouns, you
can never say "malwares" or "softwares." You can talk about "malware"
or "software," or "a piece of malware" or "a piece of software."

What is the point of this reply? Perhaps you are giddy on some meds. :)
It is kinda like elk or elks. Elk can be both singular and plural, just like
David was talking about 'malware' being able to mean either one.
I guess I don't understand your sense of humor. :)
After all, this is not a grammar lesson ng, IMHO, but one where info about
xp is exchanged.
Have a fun filled 4th!!!!
Buffalo
 
P

Paul in Houston TX

David said:
I'll make you a bet that you do NOT get a virus every two weeks. At
best, you may get a trojan every two weeks.

You are correct.
Rephrasing: virus, trojan, malware, rootkit, etc.
 
P

philo 

Forgive the grammar lesson, but actually, no it's not. It's a mass
noun, not a count noun. As is "software," by the way. Another common
example of a mass noun is "furniture." You can talk about "furniture,"
but not "furnitures."

For a technical discussion of the difference between the two types of
nouns, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_noun

And by the way, several years ago my wife and I took a vacation in
China, and studied Chinese a little for a few months before the trip.
One of the things our teacher pointed out was that Chinese nouns were
very different from English in that every Chinese noun required a
qualifier, describing the kind of thing it is. So you can't say "a
paper," you have to say "a piece of paper," you can't say "a wood,"
you have to say "a stick of wood," and so on. Our teacher didn't know
the technical terms "mass noun" and "count noun," but she was
essentially saying that all Chinese nouns are mass nouns, which they
are. And since mass nouns are fairly common in English, Chinese isn't
as different from English in that respect as she thought it was.

So what it all comes down to is that, since they are mass nouns, you
can never say "malwares" or "softwares." You can talk about "malware"
or "software," or "a piece of malware" or "a piece of software."



Great info there. I have always been fascinated with the Chinese
language...but I cannot imagine trying to learn it.
 
P

philo 

I find it interesting that this home XP3 gamer machine has never had
any active antivirus nor MS updates for 2 years and it never gets
a virus. However, my w7.1 machine has active everything, its
used for company related work only, and its the one that gets
a virus every two weeks.


FWIW: I recently retired an XP (64bit) machine that I built for my wife
close to ten years ago. After some updates broke the drivers for her
WACOM tablet I turned off Windows updates entirely.The browser was
Firefox and the virus checker was the free version of Avast and it was
kept updated. (It originally had AVG)

I am now using the machine for myself as a backup and updated everything
and gave it a complete scan for malware and viruses. The machine was in
good shape. No infections found.
 
P

philo 

But I think it really depends on the needs of the user. Some of us are
quite content with XP, and see no real need (in our case) for a newer OS. I
haven't had any virus problems yet, but maybe that's due to where I go and
don't go online. Of course, if one is getting hit with malware, and/or
wants to run the latest and greatest apps, that may be another story.
Heck, Office 2000 still works fine for me (and in some cases is overkill).

What I'm suggesting is this: if all the apps you need work perfectly well
in XP, and you aren't getting "infected", what's the gain in going to yet
another OS?



That's what I say too. If the days comes for a whole new machine of
course one would go with the current OS...but until one gets new
hardware...XP may very well be the best choice.
 
P

philo 

No. They already did that. It's old. Time to let it go! It's 12 years old!!



Side note:

A friend of mine was still using dial-up and Win2k until about a month
ago. I gave her a fairly decent P-IV with XP on it and told her she had
to go with DSL.
 
K

Ken Blake, MVP

On 07/04/2013 02:36 PM, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:



Great info there. I have always been fascinated with the Chinese
language...but I cannot imagine trying to learn it.


Glad you liked it. And note that we didn't really try to *learn*
Chinese, just learn enough to get us around, ask where the bathroom
is, understand the answer, know the names of foods and how to read
menus, and so on.

As it turned out, our efforts were almost wasted. We were on a tour
and never got to use the little we learned, except once in a
restaurant when I asked for chopsticks.
 
K

Ken Blake, MVP

It depends.

If the PC is to be connected to the Internet, yes, replace it's OS.

If the PC is a standalone PC then no, it can stay with XP past WinXP's EoL.


OK--correction accepted.
 
J

JJ

But I think it really depends on the needs of the user. Some of us are
quite content with XP, and see no real need (in our case) for a newer OS. I
haven't had any virus problems yet, but maybe that's due to where I go and
don't go online. Of course, if one is getting hit with malware, and/or
wants to run the latest and greatest apps, that may be another story.
Heck, Office 2000 still works fine for me (and in some cases is overkill).

What I'm suggesting is this: if all the apps you need work perfectly well
in XP, and you aren't getting "infected", what's the gain in going to yet
another OS?

It depends.

OS is like your house. Newer OS is like a bigger house with stronger walls,
more sophisticated alarm system, more professional security guards, and
anything you can think of, for a secure, hi-tech dream house.

Ideally, it would be preferable, but all of those won't matter if you leave
you door open when you leave your house, ward off the alarm because it's
annoying, or told the security guards not to disturb you because you brought
strangers to your house.
 
K

Ken Blake, MVP

One of my biggest questions in life has always been:

Are there Chinese crossword puzzles?

I finally got that answered by the daughter of a friend of mine who has
been there several times to study.

Indeed they do have crossword puzzles!


I'm glad you got the answer. I didn't know it.
I did get some books just for the purpose of seeing the logic behind the
language so I at least got a rudimentary education of the general scheme
of things. In the process I also learned that Japanese is really
considerably more complicated.


I learned a little Japanese when I went there, too. I don't know which
is more complicated, but I remember a lot more Japanese than Chinese,
even though my study of Japanese is considerably older.
 
K

Ken Blake, MVP

That's what I say too. If the days comes for a whole new machine of
course one would go with the current OS...but until one gets new
hardware...XP may very well be the best choice.



Bear in mind that some newer software won't run on older versions of
Windows, too. And that could also be a good reason to go to a new
Windows version.
 
S

Stef

Alain said:
Given the continued popularity of Windows XP (their best OS in my opinion)
is there any chance Microsoft will have a change of heart and continue
support for Windows XP SP3 beyond the 02 April 2014 cut-off date?

No. Not a chance. But that doesn't mean XP will stop working next
April. I'm still using Windows 2000 Pro on a old notebook.
(Originally came with W98SE on it.) Works fine for what I need it for.

Stef
 
P

philo 

Almost the same with my father. He finally dumped his W2K SP4 Dell PC to
donate. I told him kept his HDD just in case.

Was her WIndows 2K clean (no infections)?



Her Win2k machine was clean as far as I know.


Though I had been urging her to go with DSL for many years, she remained
stubborn. Finally she admitted that her virus checker would no longer
update. I suspect it was more a case of it taking an hour or so.
 
A

Alain Dekker

I also don't run an anti-virus on my home XP machine, just a firewall. Never
had a problem. Windows XP rocks...really not looking forward to dealing with
Windows 7 or 8...
 

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