microsoft Windows XP: Why It Won't Die For Years To Come

[vissha]

Windows XP: Why It Won't Die For Years To Come

 

 

Old versions of Windows are sticking around longer than you might think, in unexpected places.

 

Old versions of Windows just won't go away.

 

Earlier this week Microsoft ended its support for Vista, which means the decade-old operating system will no longer get security updates. And while this may spur some companies to finally kick out their old devices, there are still plenty still holding onto Vista and XP -- and perhaps even older versions of Windows.

 

"I think if you dug down deep you'd find some Windows 98 in places too," said Stephen Kleynhans, research VP at analyst Gartner.

 

Just how much old Windows is in use is actually unclear: according to research by Spiceworks, just over half of businesses still have at least one PC running Windows XP and nearly one in 10 still have Windows Vista running somewhere too.

 

Spiceworks calculates that Windows XP is running on 14 percent of all PCs in businesses worldwide, while Windows Vista is only running on one percent. In contrast, Windows 7 has the highest share, running on 69 percent of business PCs. Windows 10 currently has nine percent of the overall share, followed by Windows 8 at five percent, according to Spiceworks.

 

It's worth noting these numbers for XP are higher than other sources which paint a slightly different picture: NetMarketShare says that Windows XP makes up around seven percent of PCs accessing the internet (Vista is a rounding error at less than one percent), with Windows 7 accounting for half and Windows 10 a quarter. And other stats show XP with a much lower share still, as my colleague Ed Bott has explored elsewhere.

 

Not in front of the users

 

Still, considering that nearly 90 percent of IT professionals surveyed by Spiceworks said they are concerned about the risks of running unsupported operating systems such as Windows XP and Windows Vista, why are they still being used at all?

 

"The reality is we tend to think of PCs as devices that sit in front of users. If you look at that class of device there's practically no XP left, but there are PCs used in all kinds of different scenarios in companies," said Gartner's Kleynhans.

 

That might be a Windows XP PC running a security system and monitoring the card swipes at all the doors in an office, or a PC monitoring elevators and recording a log. If those PCs don't have new applications installed on them, and are not connected to the internet, most companies don't see good reasons to replace them.

 

"Those machines might have been there 10 years, and they're running Windows XP, and they will probably run that until the day they're finally disposed of because there's no reason to spend any money or any effort to change it," said Kleynhans.

 

For example, Kleynhans encountered one organization using heavy equipment that needed to set up using software tools that only ran on Windows XP.

 

"Most larger companies probably have one or two things like that hanging around in the periphery. It's not an indication they are strategically sticking with XP. That's a tactical reality," he said.

 

However, that doesn't mean it's would be a good idea to use an out-of-support version of Windows on a PC used for standard office work.

 

"That would just be dumb, quite frankly," said Kleynhans. "That would be a bad thing to be doing because there is no security left, no fixes coming down the pike. You should at least be trying to keep somewhat up-to-date with a machine that some individual cares about to do their daily job."

 

One area where XP has a stronghold is perhaps with consumers, Kleynhans said, who don't think about security issues, and are more concerned with the few dollars it will cost them or the time and effort to do an update rather than the potential problems. And chances are nothing will make them upgrade. "If you haven't converted by now there's nothing that will force you to convert at this point until the hardware physically dies."

 

XP has stuck around so long because it was an extremely popular version of Windows -- certainly compared to its successor, Vista. And Windows 7 is similarly popular, which means it may also be with us for quite some time.

 

"There will be similar cases to the ones we see with XP where the machine is doing its job sitting in a corner, so why would we ever touch it? Seven years from now, 10 years from now, we'll probably be looking at some survey and it says look at all this Windows 7 that's still out there," said Kleynhans.

 

"It's not that companies will say en-masse that they are not going to Windows 10 -- in fact we are seeing the exact opposite: we are seeing a very positive response. But there will be some places in the company where they decide, for whatever reason, to keep some Windows 7 in that corner."

 

Source

[Misaki2010]

Those who still use Windows XP are definitely living under a rock! I couldn't use Windows 7 even if I wanted to... that's how inferior is to Windows 8 and 10, the biggest problem with Windows XP are the drivers... I'm soooooo glad I don't use that crap anymore.

[rebula]

Windows XP: 2002 Professional works perfectly and it will remain forever. beautiful greeting

[HandyPAF]

I have a laptop from 2005 that has XP SP3 on it. Works perfectly because the computer came pre-installed with the OS which makes it compatible with all the drivers needed for that computer.

 

I don't use it, of course. Poses too much of a security risk.

That, and most of the programs I use do not run on an XP machine.

[banned]

Hahahaha

 

XP still alive and well, and you can do nothing about it. It must make you very very angry

 

Hahahaha

 

:-D

[Conley Powell]

     Misaki2010 says, "Those who still use Windows XP are definitely living under a rock! I couldn't use Windows 7 even if I wanted to... that's how inferior is to Windows 8 and 10, the biggest problem with Windows XP are the drivers... I'm soooooo glad I don't use that crap anymore." In a word, hogwash. As for HandyPAF's "security risk": also hogwash.

[Skylar]

36 minutes ago, Conley Powell said:

     Misaki2010 says, "Those who still use Windows XP are definitely living under a rock! I couldn't use Windows 7 even if I wanted to... that's how inferior is to Windows 8 and 10, the biggest problem with Windows XP are the drivers... I'm soooooo glad I don't use that crap anymore." In a word, hogwash. As for HandyPAF's "security risk": also hogwash.

 

crap? most likely, this guy has started using computers just recently.

Windows XP was THE revolution. latest windows versions are just evolution

Also, i still have tons of DOS programs and games on my old DELL computer running XP. Not connected btw.

[appzter]

I continue to run and love WinXP (under my rock) -- on two 13 year old Pentium 4 PCs running XP SP3 perfectly on 1 & 2 GB RAM and they both continue to get security patches!!!   I truly prefer XP to my newest rig with W10 (which MS can't seem to finalize). 

 

Want to still get XP security patches from MS? -- see... http://thehackernews.com/2014/05/registry-hack-get-windows-xp-security.html

[virge]

8 hours ago, Misaki2010 said:

Those who still use Windows XP are definitely living under a rock! I couldn't use Windows 7 even if I wanted to... that's how inferior is to Windows 8 and 10, the biggest problem with Windows XP are the drivers... I'm soooooo glad I don't use that crap anymore.

 

 

 

I agree with ya on that, when people call me for support issues and tell me they are running Windows XP on a Pentium 4 computer from before fire was invented, my initial response is to buy a new system.

 

Welcome to August 24, 2001

[pc71520]

The legendary Windows XP...Still present on many PCs...

[Misaki2010]

On 4/13/2017 at 2:56 AM, Conley Powell said:

     Misaki2010 says, "Those who still use Windows XP are definitely living under a rock! I couldn't use Windows 7 even if I wanted to... that's how inferior is to Windows 8 and 10, the biggest problem with Windows XP are the drivers... I'm soooooo glad I don't use that crap anymore." In a word, hogwash. As for HandyPAF's "security risk": also hogwash.

I presume you're still using it?... don't get me wrong, it was great, back in 2002... but seriously... get over it. It's an old operating system, it lacks tons of features that are available in later versions of Windows. You can't use more than 4 GB RAM on it... Yeah, I would use it on an super old PC (Pentium III maybe, because I used Windows 7 on my Pentium 4) but on my current machine with 24GB RAM I really can't afford to forget about 20 GB RAM for an old operating system, and I won't even talk about the lack of new apps for XP, games and the security which is awful on it.

[steven36]

On undefined at 1:37 PM, Misaki2010 said:

that's how inferior is to Windows 8 and 10, the biggest problem with Windows XP are the drivers... I'm soooooo glad I don't use that crap anymore.

Drivers are just one issue out of many  I didn't even  like  that about Windows 7  having to find drivers for my wifi  adapter and stuff and every since Windows 8 my wifi  adapter works without installing 3rd party drivers . Ive not been a user of  XP since like 2010 Ive messed with it some in VM and I have one very old PC  from the early 2000s with it that's not been on the internet since the dailup days .

 

Just because businesses  that are in places that dont get audited still run XP  dont say much . If other countries didn't  have rules  on non compliance  that number would be much higher even. Businesses are known to cut comers any way they can . There are some Businesses and users  who get all there work done on Linux so using a Old OS for work is not saying much  .

 

  Fact is any windows older than Vista dont have gpu accelerated decoding for x264 videos and stuff and  this is why i dont miss XP  and being stuck watching SD  XVID , Some people are always stuck  in a time warp. Once  they get good gpu accelerated decoding for x265 , vp9 and 4k  native for computers  there will be many stuck on Windows 7 and 8.1 without it. There is nothing better about XP only that it's good enough for some to do what little they do on the internet but so is a android phone   I'm already over Window ME -Windows 8.1 and dont even love Windows 10 . I never seen a OS that didn't have it;s faults .

[Misaki2010]

On 4/15/2017 at 7:03 PM, steven36 said:

Drivers are just one issue out of many  I didn't even  like  that about Windows 7  having to find drivers for my wifi  adapter and stuff and every since Windows 8 my wifi  adapter works without installing 3rd party drivers . Ive not been a user of  XP since like 2010 Ive messed with it some in VM and I have one very old PC  from the early 2000s with it that's not been on the internet since the dailup days .

 

Just because businesses  that are in places that dont get audited still run XP  dont say much . If other countries didn't  have rules  on non compliance  that number would be much higher even. Businesses are known to cut comers any way they can . There are some Businesses and users  who get all there work done on Linux so using a Old OS for work is not saying much  .

 

  Fact is any windows older than Vista dont have gpu accelerated decoding for x264 videos and stuff and  this is why i dont miss XP  and being stuck watching SD  XVID , Some people are always stuck  in a time warp. Once  they get good gpu accelerated decoding for x265 , vp9 and 4k  native for computers  there will be many stuck on Windows 7 and 8.1 without it. There is nothing better about XP only that it's good enough for some to do what little they do on the internet but so is a android phone   I'm already over Window ME -Windows 8.1 and dont even love Windows 10 . I never seen a OS that didn't have it;s faults .

You couldn't have said it better. Microsoft has a lot to improve with Windows 10... I used to like Windows 8.1, I'm still forced to use it on Surface RT and it's like SOOOO BAD... I wish I could install anything else, even XP... having an OS for ARM sucks... purchasing a Surface RT was my biggest mistake, one that I will not repeat.

[steven36]

29 minutes ago, Misaki2010 said:

You couldn't have said it better. Microsoft has a lot to improve with Windows 10... I used to like Windows 8.1, I'm still forced to use it on Surface RT and it's like SOOOO BAD... I wish I could install anything else, even XP... having an OS for ARM sucks... purchasing a Surface RT was my biggest mistake, one that I will not repeat.

Now  there a new dog in Town (Qualcomm) with new Windows 10 ARM PCs 

Quote

 It will take design cues from smartphones and is being called a cellular PC by Qualcomm and Microsoft.

 

Full article  Qualcomm: First Windows 10 ARM PC coming in the fourth quarter

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3191401/computers/qualcomm-first-windows-10-arm-pc-coming-in-the-fourth-quarter.html