BBC News - Microsoft warns of Internet Explorer flaw So, people using IE 6-11 on the Windows XP platform are vulnerable to a pretty serious exploit, which will not be patched because support for XP ended in April this year. The only safe recourse is for people to upgrade from XP to a later operating system. Wow. Really? XP is a very good operating system, stable and having enough features to suit most people for the foreseeable future. For myself, I never saw the need to upgrade to Win7/8 but did so because I replaced my PC recently. Many, many people feel the same because XP is still a very popular system. The timing of the announcement is interesting. The reported effects of the exploit are frightening. And now there is nothing anyone can do about making XP/IE users safe. Honestly, am I expected to swallow this crap?
It was always going to happen - a major security flaw being found once support had ended - it was just a matter of when. It does seem strange that Microsoft have ended support of their most popular OS but I can also understand that they want people to upgrade to the latest version - as it is now 15 years old! My boxes are all on XP as there's nothing wrong with it. It works. It does what I want it to and all the programs I have installed work on it. I tried updating to Windows 7 and a couple of the programs that I need to use don't work on it... so I can't update as these are XP only! Most of my other stuff is internet based. If I was to upgrade I would have to pay for a Win7/8 licence, then I'd have to upgrade my Office 97 programs - which isn't cheap - and they all work fine as well. There's probably a few other programs in there that would no longer work or require upgrades too. I could be looking at a £500 "upgrade" bill to end up exactly where I started ... and I'm not sure if the machine would run any better!
My main machine still runs xp and will continue to do so until the machine expires. I 'upgraded' to a new laptop, tried the utterly hateful windows 8 and returned it to the shop as not fit for purpose. I now have a macbook pro instead.
The alternative if you want to upgrade I believe is to create a virtual environment on your newer machine programs like Acronis and Paragon (and probably a shitload of others) can do this so you have it on you new computer. I've not had to do this yet, but will be for the missus when her machine needs replacement. I deliberately went to Win 7 to avoid Win 8 as I had heard so many bad things about it. The "Bay" sells a lot of cheap copies of Win 7 & 8, with a computer of course as otherwise it would be against the rules, you just have to pickup the computer separately I'm sure Apple products are superior in every way but I refuse to purchase a computer from a company who maintains such rigid controls over what you can and cannot do with it (or any other Apple product for that matter) no matter how good or beautiful. Windows can be a PIA but nearly all the time it works just fine for me John
I use a freebie virtual machine programme where I can run DOS, Linux and XP. I will probably install Win95 onto it at some point, to get all my old favourite games back up and running. The box itself is running Win8.1, which isn't quite the abomination that Win8 was and is. I have to say, it's OK as an OS but this is despite the new Win8 ethos rather than because of it. It is possible to get 8.1 running in a pretty similar way to Win7 so I am reasonably content.
Ha! Someone lost their bottle. Generous old Microsoft, eh? BBC News - Microsoft includes XP users in Internet Explorer fix
