Continued support for Windows XP

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Thats true, our machines are generally not connected to the internet, except
occasionally on dedicated connections for remote support (via TeamViewer).

[]
Since this is obviously a professional use, How do you find the cost of
TeamViewer? I'm very impressed with it as a home user, and hope that it
continues to be available (the servers), so I hope it gets plenty of
commercial use so the company stays in business!

Also, I understand that the way it works is that both you and the remote
end are in fact logging in to a server at a third location (that's how
it manages to work regardless of firewalls and the like). Do you (or
your customers) have any security concerns about your private business
going via such? (I'm not sure where the servers are actually situated.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous"

I already am largely ambisinistral.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Ah, like a good whisky ... (-:


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.

How's she getting on?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous"

I already am largely ambisinistral.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

From: "Andy" <[email protected]> []

XP has got to be the most studied and used O.S. in history.

Most infections are due to opening files from unknown sources.

Andy

Not true.

So what, in _your_ experience, are most infections caused by?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous"

I already am largely ambisinistral.

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Andy" <[email protected]> []

XP has got to be the most studied and used O.S. in history.

Most infections are due to opening files from unknown sources.

Andy

Not true.

So what, in _your_ experience, are most infections caused by?

Exploitation.

Social Engineeering (the human exploit) and software vulnerability exploitation.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

The problem with that approach is that you use an anti-virus to get
rid of an infection, not to prevent one. In my view, it's very

Ah, the ambiguities of vernacular English. At first I thought you (Ken)
were saying "one uses ...", but you meant specifically that Ant is
using. But anyway ...

Infections don't just happen; they are always a result of something
you've done - some code you've run. If you use a manual scanner to scan
any executable you download, you'll catch a lot of them.

Of course, you can be fooled into running code by several less-obvious
means than just actually running downloaded executables. There was the
..jpg code exploit (I think it used a buffer overflow means), which
IrfanView and others weren't susceptible to (though I believe the
Microsoft default viewers were). There is script that runs from
websites. If you're not running an on-access AV, then anything you let
self-update is a potential vector, and so on.

I certainly use AV as prevention not cure. (Well, mine claims cure
capability, I've just never had opportunity to find how well it works.)

important to prevent infection, for two reasons:

1. Some infections can be very hard to get rid of

Indeed (as can some "legitimate" softwares - from what I've heard McAfee
and Chrome for example!).

2. You may get rid of an infection only *after* it has already done
unrecoverable damage.

Agreed again.

Unless you recognize that you may need to do a clean reinstallation of
Windows and are willing to do it, I think it's much better to have a
resident anti-virus and prevent, rather than remove, infections.

And again.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous"

I already am largely ambisinistral.

 

[philo]

Office 2000 here as well. Tried Office 2003 and 2007 and both were vastly
inferior. Only thing I could see that *was* improved was the notes feature
(where you can share a document between multiple users).

Still use Office 97 in my work and its perfect!

Office 2000 is fine except it will not handle the new docx format


however someone told me about this:



http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

The problem with that approach is that you use an anti-virus to get
rid of an infection, not to prevent one. In my view, it's very

Ah, the ambiguities of vernacular English. At first I thought you (Ken)
were saying "one uses ...", but you meant specifically that Ant is
using. But anyway ...

Infections don't just happen; they are always a result of something
you've done - some code you've run. If you use a manual scanner to scan
any executable you download, you'll catch a lot of them.

Of course, you can be fooled into running code by several less-obvious
means than just actually running downloaded executables. There was the
..jpg code exploit (I think it used a buffer overflow means), which
IrfanView and others weren't susceptible to (though I believe the
Microsoft default vewers were). There is script that runs from websites.
If you're not running an on-access AV, then anything you let self-update
is a potential vector, and so on.

I certainly use AV as prevention not cure. (Well, mine claims cure
capability, I've just never had opportunity to find how well it works.)

important to prevent infection, for two reasons:

1. Some infections can be very hard to get rid of

Indeed (as can some "legitimate" softwares - from what I've heard McAfee
and Chrome for example!).

2. You may get rid of an infection only *after* it has already done
unrecoverable damage.

Agreed again.

Unless you recognize that you may need to do a clean reinstallation of
Windows and are willing to do it, I think it's much better to have a
resident anti-virus and prevent, rather than remove, infections.

And again.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous"

I already am largely ambisinistral.

 

[philo]

How's she getting on?

Her P-IV with XP and her new DSL are just fine.

The first computer she had was a 386 her brother had given her that she
wanted me to upgrade from win3x to Win95.
All the time I had it in my van to bring over to my shop I was trying to
figure out how to tell her she had a useless piece of junk...even though
I knew Win95 could run on a 386.
Just before I got home a found a completely smashed up machine in the
trash and my wife was shocked to see me stop and pick it up.

As it turned out, the trashed machine had a perfectly good 486-66
mobo/cpu even though nothing else was salvageable...not even the case.


So when the friend got her machine back I never told her I upgraded it a
bit.

 

[choro]

Office 2000 is fine except it will not handle the new docx format


however someone told me about this:



http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3

Didn't know that it worked for MS Office 2000 too. It certainly works
with my MS Office 2003. And I must add that I *do NOT* like MS Office
2007. Was working on a friend's computer the other day and I kept
looking and looking for File>Save. That icon in the top RH corner is
*stoopid*!

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

On 7/7/2013 1:30 AM PT, J. P. Gilliver (John) typed: []
Even after years since 2007, I still get lost and frustrated!

I found (which could be installed without the privileges I've not got!)
which gives me the old menu back: it doesn't replace the ribbon, it just
adds one more option (I think it's called Menu) to it, which when
selected gives the old menu. I _am_ learning where things are on the
ribbon, but still occasionally use this to find something. Note that if
you're so familiar with the old Office that you use keyboard shortcuts
rather than the mouse, the new one recognises a lot of them (though pops
up something like "old office key sequence", which you ignore).

Interesting. Called "Menu"? That will be hard to search for being a
common term. Haha.

No, it wasn't called that. I'll have a root around to see if I can find
what it is called.

I still have 98SElite on my other laptop, with its 128M of RAM - works
fine. And on my desktop, though I keep meaning to XP that, especially
since I broke the sound drivers (or something; it has no sound, anyway).
But I use it so rarely (this 12" netbook is my main PC).
[]

What do you use 98 SE Lite for these days?

Well, what do you "use" XP for? I very rarely use that machine, but when
I do, it explores files and surfs the net (via Firefox 2.x.x.x) well
enough.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

From: "Andy" <[email protected]> []
XP has got to be the most studied and used O.S. in history.

Most infections are due to opening files from unknown sources.

Andy

Not true.

So what, in _your_ experience, are most infections caused by?

Exploitation.

Social Engineeering (the human exploit) and software vulnerability
exploitation.

OK on the human; but to exploit the software vulnerabilities, surely the
user must still be tricked into running code.

 

[David H. Lipman]

In message <[email protected]>, David H. Lipman
From: "Andy" <[email protected]>
[]
XP has got to be the most studied and used O.S. in history.

Most infections are due to opening files from unknown sources.

Andy

Not true.

So what, in _your_ experience, are most infections caused by?

Exploitation.

Social Engineeering (the human exploit) and software vulnerability exploitation.

OK on the human; but to exploit the software vulnerabilities, surely the user must still
be tricked into running code.

No. Often it is a case of a "Buffer Overflow with an Elevation of Privileges".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege_escalation
http://www.borderware.com/infocenter/editorial/135144.asp

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

OK.

Have done. http://www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenu-languages/ - do play
fair and buy if you use it other than privately, it's cheap enough.
(Free for home.) Scroll down the page a bit.
[]

XP is still popular today compared to 98. Wow, Firefox v2 works well
on web sites? The last time I tried v2.0.0.20a, many web sites were
unusable and ugly.

On the few websites I use that PC for - it's what I mainly use it for in
fact - it's fine. (Though I think it does google, Wikipedia, and a few
others, too. I wouldn't expect it to work on YouTube, though I can't
remember if I've tried.)

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

From: "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <[email protected]>

In message <[email protected]>, David H. Lipman
From: "Andy" <[email protected]>
[]
XP has got to be the most studied and used O.S. in history.

Most infections are due to opening files from unknown sources.

Andy

Not true.

So what, in _your_ experience, are most infections caused by?

Exploitation.

Social Engineeering (the human exploit) and software vulnerability
exploitation.

OK on the human; but to exploit the software vulnerabilities, surely
the user must still
be tricked into running code.

No. Often it is a case of a "Buffer Overflow with an Elevation of Privileges".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege_escalation
http://www.borderware.com/infocenter/editorial/135144.asp

But how is the buffer overflow etc. triggered?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to
adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable
man. -George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)

 

[Alain Dekker]

I install the DOCX converter and it works great in Office 97. Office 97 was
greater, Office 2000 is even better. Have used Office 2003 and 2007 since
and neither are an improvement (AFAICS) over 2000/97. Moreover, Office 97
flies.

 

[Alain Dekker]

TeamViewer is superb. We paid for 3 concurrent licenses (I think it was
1,500 euros) and a "QuickSupport" tool. The advantage of the QS tool is that
we can embed our own logo and a custom-instruction for the user (Please call
this number for additional support, etc(. When they need remote support,
they click a button in our software, which in turn launches the QS tool.

We have password-protected the TeamViewer login so that the customer does
not know what the password is, and therefore only ourselves can log into the
machines (using the 9-digit code they telephone us with).

In terms of customer concerns, there are a few (usually the bigger,
multi-nationals) who won't allow the machine to connect to the internet (and
therefore allow the machine to log into the servers in Germany). For these
customers, we just use our on-site technicians and the customer has to live
with reduced service support. The bulk of our customers are happy to allow
remote, password-protected access. Its only ever run when they want, anyway,
so its usually fairly easy to assure them of the security of the connection.

We are currently using TeamViewer v4. TeamViewer in Germany are now up to v7
or v8, not sure, and we've noticed that they've taken a commercial decision
to prevent v5+ clients connecting to v4 servers. At the time I was rather
annoyed by this decision, but as they allow free downloads of the v4 viewer,
its not really a big concern and it does at least protect their business
since as they add new functionality (like remote chat, VOIP, additional
recording features, etc) if you need that functionality you pay for a new
license. One feature we wish we did have was the ability to control our
machines via an iPad, but TeamViewer only introduced iOS support in v6,
which means we'll need to buy a v6 license if we want to make use of this
feature. Who knows, we may just do that...

Our once-off 1,500 euro license fee has been a massive bargain over the last
4-5 years and I'd recommend TeamViewer to anyone tempted. They've done a an
excellent (German-like?) job.

Alain

Thats true, our machines are generally not connected to the internet,
except
occasionally on dedicated connections for remote support (via TeamViewer).

[]
Since this is obviously a professional use, How do you find the cost of
TeamViewer? I'm very impressed with it as a home user, and hope that it
continues to be available (the servers), so I hope it gets plenty of
commercial use so the company stays in business!

Also, I understand that the way it works is that both you and the remote
end are in fact logging in to a server at a third location (that's how it
manages to work regardless of firewalls and the like). Do you (or your
customers) have any security concerns about your private business going
via such? (I'm not sure where the servers are actually situated.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous"

I already am largely ambisinistral.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Thanks for this info..

TeamViewer is superb. We paid for 3 concurrent licenses (I think it was
1,500 euros) and a "QuickSupport" tool. The advantage of the QS tool is that

Wow, not cheap! Though definitely worth it.
[]

We are currently using TeamViewer v4. TeamViewer in Germany are now up to v7
or v8, not sure, and we've noticed that they've taken a commercial decision
to prevent v5+ clients connecting to v4 servers. At the time I was rather
annoyed by this decision, but as they allow free downloads of the v4 viewer,
its not really a big concern and it does at least protect their business
since as they add new functionality (like remote chat, VOIP, additional
recording features, etc) if you need that functionality you pay for a new
license. One feature we wish we did have was the ability to control our
machines via an iPad, but TeamViewer only introduced iOS support in v6,
which means we'll need to buy a v6 license if we want to make use of this
feature. Who knows, we may just do that...

I've noticed that the bit I use (to do the controlling) does have a
tendency to upgrade itself with little (though not no) warning. I just
hope I never let one through that will suddenly no longer work with the
QS bit my various friends have.

Our once-off 1,500 euro license fee has been a massive bargain over the last
4-5 years and I'd recommend TeamViewer to anyone tempted. They've done a an
excellent (German-like?) job.
(-:

Alain

[]
I'm always impressed with how well it works - even on this machine on
which Skype (even audio-only) is very flaky and sometimes drops out,
TeamViewer is rock-solid. (When I first installed Skype on here, I think
it did work well enough - I think it's something I've done/installed
since then, but I don't know what and CBA to find out. Or Skype itself
could have been upgraded to something that'll no longer work here, but I
can't really believe that of the audio-only side.)