It's "Be kind to the computer illiterate" week.

[JanewayRulz!]

What happens 4/8/14 when the microsoft XP is no longer supported?

I know at the office we have to get new computers since the special management software we're running will not be kosher (security wise) on a computer that's been "upgraded" to windows 7.

Exactly how "bad" is it to run my family's personal computers with just XP after 4/8?

(Yes, I'm clueless, but am willing to learn.)

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Well, Microsoft won't be patching it anymore, so any future vulnerabilities that are found will be easily exploited and it's unlikely anyone will be fixing them. Some people might take it upon themselves to put out patches but they won't be official in any way.

If you have the computer behind a firewall or NAT device (like a router) and you're careful about what you install you should be okay, but honestly, unless you have an explicit reason to stick with XP (such as a critical program that doesn't work in higher versions) then you should upgrade or switch to Linux or something. Web sites may even stop supporting computers running XP for security reasons.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Its more a question do I spend the money on an upgrade program for home, or do I wait a little while and buy a new computer with 7 on it.

Of course, the next question I guess I should ask is how long will 7 be supported and should I go straight to 8?

 

[sojourner]

skip 8. wait for 9 or whatever it's going to be called.

 

[Amaris]

Its more a question do I spend the money on an upgrade program for home, or do I wait a little while and buy a new computer with 7 on it.

Of course, the next question I guess I should ask is how long will 7 be supported and should I go straight to 8?

Windows 7 is very stable, and reliable. I have a Pentium 4 with 1 GB RAM that runs Windows 7 right now, without any performance issues. That said, the end date for Win 7 support is 1/14/2020, which is a lot of time in which to eventually upgrade to whatever Microsoft comes up with next.

You can read more about that here: ZDnet Blog

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Its more a question do I spend the money on an upgrade program for home, or do I wait a little while and buy a new computer with 7 on it.

Of course, the next question I guess I should ask is how long will 7 be supported and should I go straight to 8?

You're going to have a harder time getting 7, the longer you wait, since MS wants everyone on 8 now. If you have a computer old enough to still be running XP you are likely due for a full system upgrade anyway.

Mainstream support for Windows 7 ends next January. Extended support ends in January of 2020, so patches will continue to be produced for a long while yet.

The current version is 8.1 which is supposedly an improvement over most of what people hated about 8.

 

[farmkid]

Its more a question do I spend the money on an upgrade program for home, or do I wait a little while and buy a new computer with 7 on it.

Of course, the next question I guess I should ask is how long will 7 be supported and should I go straight to 8?

You're going to have a harder time getting 7, the longer you wait, since MS wants everyone on 8 now. If you have a computer old enough to still be running XP you are likely due for a full system upgrade anyway.

Mainstream support for Windows 7 ends next January. Extended support ends in January of 2020, so patches will continue to be produced for a long while yet.

The current version is 8.1 which is supposedly an improvement over most of what people hated about 8.

If your computer runs XP, there's a pretty good chance you can't run 8.1 at all, so you might as well just go with 7. As I've looked into upgrading my computers at home I've found that NX bit support, which is required by 8.1, is lacking in two of the three computers I have at home. They'll run 7 just fine, and are powerful enough to run 8.1, but 8.1 won't install once it sees that the computer doesn't have NX bit support. In the case of one of my computers, the CPU supports it, but the motherboard manufacturer neglected to add support in the BIOS. If you want to check your computer, go here.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Thanks all, you've definitely given me food for thought. Not sure I like buying into 7 if its not going to be supported for very long, and yet I remember the terror of buying Vista in its infancy. After that experience I went "back" to XP Pro for the next two machines in the household.

 

[farmkid]

Windows 7 will be supported for 6 more years. It's a pretty good bet you'll get a new computer by then, so I wouldn't worry about that. Sure, mainstream support is ending next year, but extended support continues until 2020. The difference is that in extended support, Microsoft will no longer take feature requests, warranty claims, and no longer offers no-charge incident support. You can still pay for support and there will still be security updates. And besides, I wouldn't be surprised if they moved the end-of-support date back a couple of times as they did with XP because of the broad user base.

 

[SPCTRE]

Thanks all, you've definitely given me food for thought. Not sure I like buying into 7 if its not going to be supported for very long, and yet I remember the terror of buying Vista in its infancy. After that experience I went "back" to XP Pro for the next two machines in the household.

Well, don't worry, no matter where you end up, it will not be as bad as Vista.*

*Assuming you don't go back to Millenium Edition.

 

[Owain Taggart]

My Dad just upgraded to 7 after having used XP for a long time, and it's what we all use in the house now, and in my opinion, it's the best OS they've had since XP.

 

[GalaxyX]

Windows 7 has a bigger RAM footprint than XP, but once you get over that hurdle, both are nearly identical as long as they are patched with the latest patches.

So if your XP computer can't run Windows 7, it's most likely that a simple RAM upgrade (usually the cheapest upgrade) will get 7 up and running.

I'm running 8.1 via Bootcamp on my super duper Mac.

I really don't see anything different from 7 except it's choking with some of my games, and the interface is more annoying.

The Windows store is ok, I'm liking this Hydro Thunder Hurricane game I purchased thru it. I'm burnt out on "App Stores" though.

 

[RoJoHen]

My Dad just upgraded to 7 after having used XP for a long time, and it's what we all use in the house now, and in my opinion, it's the best OS they've had since XP.

I agree. I used 7 at my last job, and I thought it was an excellent system. Almost made me want to get rid of my Mac at home.

 

[MacLeod]

What happens 4/8/14 when the microsoft XP is no longer supported?

I know at the office we have to get new computers since the special management software we're running will not be kosher (security wise) on a computer that's been "upgraded" to windows 7.

Exactly how "bad" is it to run my family's personal computers with just XP after 4/8?

(Yes, I'm clueless, but am willing to learn.)

Well you'e got what another 4 months until you have to make a decision

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Windows 7 has a bigger RAM footprint than XP, but once you get over that hurdle, both are nearly identical as long as they are patched with the latest patches.

So if your XP computer can't run Windows 7, it's most likely that a simple RAM upgrade (usually the cheapest upgrade) will get 7 up and running.

I'm running 8.1 via Bootcamp on my super duper Mac.

I really don't see anything different from 7 except it's choking with some of my games, and the interface is more annoying.

The Windows store is ok, I'm liking this Hydro Thunder Hurricane game I purchased thru it. I'm burnt out on "App Stores" though.

Windows 7 has some profound under-the-hood changes including totally overhauled memory and driver subsystems. Memory is used more efficiently and drivers have much, much less potential to cause full system crashes (due to moving most driver functions into userland.)

 

[JarodRussell]

Come to think of it, in the years of using Windows 7 (and that on a daily basis), I didn't have a single crash. Windows XP crashed constantly for various reasons. I even got a bluescreen in Windows 8. But my Windows 7 machine, stable as fuck.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

What happens 4/8/14 when the microsoft XP is no longer supported?

I know at the office we have to get new computers since the special management software we're running will not be kosher (security wise) on a computer that's been "upgraded" to windows 7.

Exactly how "bad" is it to run my family's personal computers with just XP after 4/8?

(Yes, I'm clueless, but am willing to learn.)

Well you'e got what another 4 months until you have to make a decision

Why 4 months?

Looks like most of you are on the side of windows 7, so I'll probably go in that direction.

Now I just have to decide on a computer to go with it. Four months will help me save up for it, rather than just buying the upgrade.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Well, I wouldn't recommend using XP on a computer hooked up to the net beyond that, as there aren't going to be anymore security updates. Hackers know that and will likely be looking for sitting ducks, so I simply wouldn't risk it going forward.

I got my Dad installed with an XP Virtual Machine because he has older software he needs to run not supported on Win7, but I downloaded all the updates available knowing the cutoff.