XP users, time to ditch Internet Explorer!

[pete376403]

My employer has an old DOS based accounting package that is (finally) being replaced, but it will take a few months. It did however run ok on 1g Celerons under XP. The new package requires a bit more horsepower so is going onto 64 bit W7 on new PCs. In the interim I've installed virtualXP to run the old package (only). Perfectly adequate and everything else, Office, etc is in the W7 environment.

I did read that the government of Canada has an agreement that will see Microsoft provide paid support XP for another couple of years.
http://www.cringely.com/2014/04/09/t...ng-windows-xp/

[Mental Trousers]

With XP, you can't just open the start menu and start typing the first few characters of the application you want, you have to manually seek it through the start menu which is a bitch of a job in comparison. And, the 'show desktop' icon is small, and not on the bottom right of the system tray, which takes longer to show the desktop. Those are just 2 annoyances with the UI. Windows 7 and 8 fix that.

I find the general UI of 7 and 8 to be a massive improvement in usabilty over XP. I do hate the full screen apps on 8 with a mouse and keyboard though, so a quick alt+tab minimizes it at least.

That's simply not the way a lot of people work. Many organise the Start menu the way they want so they know where everything is. You can do that on other versions of Windows as well, but with WinXP there was no unnecessary extra crap, you didn't have to add or enable anything and it's the default way to use it.

That's also what pissed me off about Ubuntu cos they moved to that sort of desktop as well. Fucken annoying when you aren't actually sure what something is called cos you're still figuring out what's what with the system and you have to resort to Google to find out what to type in to do what you want.

[Gremlin]

With XP, you can't just open the start menu and start typing the first few characters of the application you want, you have to manually seek it through the start menu which is a bitch of a job in comparison. And, the 'show desktop' icon is small, and not on the bottom right of the system tray, which takes longer to show the desktop. Those are just 2 annoyances with the UI. Windows 7 and 8 fix that.

Yeah, that'd be the indexing and searching services running in the background consuming excessive amounts of resources for very little real gain (other than combatting laziness). Nothing a shortcut on the desktop/taskbar or knowing your way around the OS. Used to open the network adapter status with one double click in XP. Now it's about 5 clicks, opening a "centre" and shit...

XP and 2003 were fantastic for shutting off services to reduce the footprint. I've got a 2003 server that is nice and snappy on 250mb of memory and the function it has to run only uses 10-20mb ish. I haven't tried recently, but trying to shut off services in 7 and 2008 resulted in one very unhappy machine.

[Scuba_Steve]

That's simply not the way a lot of people work. Many organise the Start menu the way they want so they know where everything is. You can do that on other versions of Windows as well, but with WinXP there was no unnecessary extra crap, you didn't have to add or enable anything and it's the default way to use it.

That's also what pissed me off about Ubuntu cos they moved to that sort of desktop as well. Fucken annoying when you aren't actually sure what something is called cos you're still figuring out what's what with the system and you have to resort to Google to find out what to type in to do what you want.

yep, that ^
Almost no-one uses the search/run function by choice they're forced to learn it through necessity instead. Fuck I've had the option on OS X since XP was MS's most up-to-date consumer OS & I still don't use it.
Aside from that it still doesn't work perfectly anyways, some of the more "unique" programs you still have to manually go looking for or create shortcuts.

As for Ubuntu, completely agree. I think I just found it easier to stay in CLI, at-least I knew what was going on then

[SMOKEU]

Yeah, that'd be the indexing and searching services running in the background consuming excessive amounts of resources for very little real gain (other than combatting laziness). Nothing a shortcut on the desktop/taskbar or knowing your way around the OS. Used to open the network adapter status with one double click in XP. Now it's about 5 clicks, opening a "centre" and shit...

XP and 2003 were fantastic for shutting off services to reduce the footprint. I've got a 2003 server that is nice and snappy on 250mb of memory and the function it has to run only uses 10-20mb ish. I haven't tried recently, but trying to shut off services in 7 and 2008 resulted in one very unhappy machine.

I click start, then ncpa.cpl for the first paragraph.

Shit that's low memory usage! I'm only used to 2008 R2 and 2012.

That's simply not the way a lot of people work. Many organise the Start menu the way they want so they know where everything is. You can do that on other versions of Windows as well, but with WinXP there was no unnecessary extra crap, you didn't have to add or enable anything and it's the default way to use it.

That's also what pissed me off about Ubuntu cos they moved to that sort of desktop as well. Fucken annoying when you aren't actually sure what something is called cos you're still figuring out what's what with the system and you have to resort to Google to find out what to type in to do what you want.

I'm not a fan of Ubuntu, currently I'm using Debian 7.4 KDE and I find it great.

[avgas]

I got windows 8, and its a pain in the arse...
Anyone no how to sort it?
Was going to load XP,, but wont now.
Perhaps windows 7

http://www.startmenux.com/

[Big Dog]

Few I didn't know about but mostly as I thought. Cheers for the details.
In the case of the company I was talking about I'm not sure what they do regarding interweb banking. That is the one thing I get nervous about regarding security on the work computers (I find it less worrisome for personal banking. An empty account is a safe account right? ). But that's a whole other topic.

And yeah, sure it may hold you back from the latest and greatest but it really depends on the industry and it's growth in tech. Some things come in leaps and bounds constantly, others only little things here and there and then a big leap every now and again. So many variables!

Yep, and that is why so many leaks in govt departments

All laughing aside, the last time I was in a wins office the desktops were 98se or nt4 depending on workstation or client station.
Granted that was 4 years ago.

Almost every bank I have seen a screen for either has a flashy web app or other full blown client... Sitting on either 98se or xp. In one case win2000. :bugger:


Stupid phone / Tapatalk, apologies in advance.

[Big Dog]

I am no expert in violating pcs, but people brighter than me do some wonderful stuff if you look around the web.


Stupid phone / Tapatalk, apologies in advance.

[Big Dog]

Unpleasant memories of a dos envelope on a unix server. It was the boss's idea of how save money by not buying the 486 machine and video card I'd said I needed to run Acad12.

He really really thought he knew better...

I may not know the specific app but I know what you mean. Things have come a long way in the 30 years since a 486 was a good machine. You'd be hard pressed to find a bleeding edge company that does not virtualise something these days.



Stupid phone / Tapatalk, apologies in advance.

[Mental Trousers]

Yep, and that is why so many leaks in govt departments

All laughing aside, the last time I was in a wins office the desktops were 98se or nt4 depending on workstation or client station.
Granted that was 4 years ago.

Almost every bank I have seen a screen for either has a flashy web app or other full blown client... Sitting on either 98se or xp. In one case win2000. :bugger:

Banks do that because pretty much all of the security holes in the OS have been found and fixed by now and, therefore, they're not going to introduce a zero day exploit into what are meant to be very secure systems.

The recent OpenSSL problem highlights how a new problem can be accidentally introduced and then go undetected for years. Banks just can't take that sort of risk (even though the OpenSSL problem was OSS and not Windows but it illustrates the point).

Change is not Secure.

[Gremlin]

Change is not Secure.

Nothing connected to the Internet is usually secure: http://www.essentialmums.co.nz/baby/...d-baby-monitor

[Mental Trousers]

Nothing connected to the Internet is usually secure: http://www.essentialmums.co.nz/baby/...d-baby-monitor

Over time things connected to the internet can be made secure - patching of bugs/security holes, updating firmware of dodgy baby monitors/routers/etc.

However, the NSA is a whole different problem and illustrates why new equipment with a flash new OS isn't secure.

[oneofsix]

Let me get this straight, the original article was about a security hole in a browser, which is an app that runs on an OS. The reporter crapped on about how an app wont be patched because its on a certain OS. Then everyone craps on about OS's. It is just an f'ing app! Even the EU sorted that. So what the F has IE got to do with it being on XP? If the release of the app is patched it is patched, if the security hole is truly in the app and if its not then why patch it on the other OS's?

[kevfromcoro]

Dunno what I have done here....
Google will not work at all,,
Some sites I visit keep putting up heaps of pops. trademe is 1..its dam annoying.
Have tried deleting some programs,, but it just wont do it..
Ready to break this thing in a gazillion bits...

[p.dath]

Dunno what I have done here....
Google will not work at all,,
Some sites I visit keep putting up heaps of pops. trademe is 1..its dam annoying.
Have tried deleting some programs,, but it just wont do it..
Ready to break this thing in a gazillion bits...

Wipe and re-install the machine ...