Judgement day for WinXP is here; Will you choose Microsoft or the land of Tux?

For the minority of Blender users here who are still on XP Machines; Microsoft is providing a free version of a transfer software to make it easier to make the switch to a new OS (possibly either Win7 or Win8)
http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/03/windows-xp-migration-incentives/

To note, Windows XP support is ending in a month and those still on it will see an ever increasing amount of vulnerability to malware and viruses, it is not entirely inconceivable that these machines will become a favorite target for hackers due to them being easier than many other machines.

Also for those who use Blender, if you can’t afford a copy of Windows 8 and you have an old machine (which Win8 can bring the zip back to), you might have no choice but to start researching Linux Distros and induct yourself into the land of Tux.

WinXP users can already count on being lucky they will be able to use Blender 2.70 (but beware, it’s possible that a year from now will see any remaining holdouts restricted to old versions of software, that is providing a malware attack doesn’t destroy your copy and all your data first).

The day is coming, most people have upgraded or switched to OSX or Linux, are you ready?

What about vista?

Vista’s considered to be a bug-fest and overall poorly-made much like Windows ME, I don’t know why you would want to use it with that kind of reputation.

This was bound to happen. It wasn’t “if” but “when”. That is the story.

I happen to be working right now with a company that has about 86,000 installed mission-critical (health care) machines that run XP. This is the OS that has been “certified” for this application, and none of MS’s successor operating-systems have been able to do it. Mark my words on this, Microsoft will continue to support XP indefinitely.

For run-of-the-mill end users, well, Microsoft hasn’t been “supporting” them for decades now. If Microsoft stops supplying security patches for XP (which is really the only thing that this end-of-life announcement means), they’ll simply buy Macintoshes to go with their iPads and iPhones. In the eyes of most common-joes today, Microsoft / Windows has negative​ brand-equity: it represents “the bad old days.” (Mind you, there is no technical reason why this should be so, but MS always licensed their system (as Steve Jobs, RIP, put it …) “promiscuously,” never really paying attention to what the end-user might feel about the product that he received, of which theirs was easily the only truly-visible part. Yes, they will eventually retire their XP systems, but they’re not buying Microsoft based systems to replace them.

An IT company one of my relatives owns is making a killing upgrading machines.

I really don’t know about that, Microsoft will still probably drop support for XP using a similar reasoning that led to them dropping support for Win98, Win95, Win3.1 and MS DOS.

Heck, the IT and Healthcare industries had to upgrade back then, so I can’t see why it would be genuinely impossible for them to upgrade now or at any point in the future (unless they made some changes to every version of Windows that block this ability or something and MS doesn’t care).

cutting support to winXP isn’t that much of a deal as long as winXP users have an antivirus that supports winXP (or perhaps now: wonXP)… I used winXP for years without installing the security updates and I never had a problem with viruses and a like…

Many companies drop support for an OS when it isn’t supported by the maker anymore; i fear some antivirus companies might follow that approach…

yes that is true…

Being put on the spot by Darth Vader and surrounded by 20 armed storm troopers…I can honestly say that compared to my time with Win95 and XP Pro, Vista has been hassle free. And thats the Home Premium 32Bit edition. I’ved used it since 2008, and its only now that its been getting sluggish. However, I think it might be down to something I’ve unwittingly downloaded…

With that said, I’m now using a new machine with Linux Ubuntu and really enjoying the experience. I was going to get an additional SSD for an installation of Win7 Pro, but I honestly don’t feel the need to do that now. The only reason I would pay now for Windows is for games, but…sod it, might as well just spend the money on a games console instead.

But anyway, for Vista I can only give it a thumbs up. Its been the best windows I’ve used so far. However, I dont see the point in buying and installing it now when Windows 7 is available.

Something that has discouraged me from leaving XP to later versions is that i would have to waste money on more/newer hardware just to get the same performance. If wasn’t for that, and compatibility concerns (mostly drivers, and specially drivers for virtual devices), oh and also my hate of the crippled XInput (way less axes and buttons per device possible than with DirectInput), i could had moved to Win7 by now.

I will miss the “Stereo Mix” on Win XP. But fortunately there are other options. But Win XP is better.

Windows 8 has been highly optimized to allow for breathing new life into older hardware, the system requirements for smooth performance, as I heard, are quite a bit lower than with Win7.

We took the promotional deal to install Win8 for a discounted price on my old Quad Core Q6600 machine (since I got a new machine with Win7 and it was six years old with WinXP), it runs a lot smoother now which is quite good when you note that XP slowly got less responsive as the years went by.

It’s good to know that code is being developed with older hardware in mind.

Just as a side note to this: If a company makes mission critical software that only runs on XP, then their mission will surely fail. You can’t survive as a software maker if you don’t keep up with the times, whether it’s with OSX, Linux, Win, etc.

I’ve been running Win 8 for about 4 months now and it runs all my older software without a hitch. It also boots in about 30 seconds from the time I hit the on button until I start using an application. No complaints from me.

Win7 (dunno about Win8) was run side by side with WinXP on several machines (each the same rig) and Win7 consistently ran along side WinXP in performance. I’m not tech-guru enough to tell you much more than that, I just remember talking to some techy friends who were really interested in the Win7 release, before it finally came out.

Vista was crap, don’t get it. I heard a million complaints about Win8 when it was released, but since then I’ve heard it was cleaned up. So I’m willing to bet you could go with Win7 32 bit or Win8 32 bit and see little to no change in performance. Otherwise, if you’re running a computer that runs WinXP and you’re afraid to run anything greater than that on it due to its age, maybe it’s time to upgrade anyway? There are fairly inexpensive options, depending on what you like to do. I’m sure this forum has a dozen people logged on at any one time who would help you out.

I for one am excited to see what happens. I was too young to remember what happened when 95 and 98 lost support, but I guess nothing because I’ve never heard anything about it.

My guess is that this is largely “marketing” by microsoft. Not that the concerns aren’t valid.

I for one am excited to see what happens. I was too young to remember what happened when 95 and 98 lost support, but I guess nothing because I’ve never heard anything about it. <br><br>My guess is that this is largely “marketing” by microsoft. Not that the concerns aren’t valid.

I heard a million complaints about Win8 when it was released, but since then I’ve heard it was cleaned up.

Except that the 8.1 upgrade stopped wifi from working on many laptops, because win8 kept trying to force its driver into the system instead of using the driver supplied by the wifi manufacturer.

Linux is easier to use now compared to when I first started (Ubuntu 9.04). Although, I’ll still avoid the new Unity interface like the damned plague.

One of the heads at a business I volunteer at is happy that winXP won’t be supported any more. His reasoning is that hackers won’t want to target an OS that people are being ‘forced’ to leave. I’m pretty sure that’s going to come back and bite him very, very hard.