OK, but I think the real problem is that your operating system=lawnmower analogy breaks down, for reasons iamthewalrus(:3= and others have outlined.
OK: central heating boilers. I’ve experienced cases where they get to a certain age (interestingly, it was about 12 years) where the manufacturer no longer carries replacements for non-generic parts such as the main control board. Your only option is to scrap and replace the whole unit.
I’m wary of reinforcing what I think is a flawed analogy, but I’m reasonably certain you could find someone who could resolve an unpatched Windows security problem for you - probably not in the same way Microsoft would have patched it, but third party security solutions are definitely possible.
What Microsoft is saying is, no, we’re NOT in the business of providing a long-lasting product. We’re like Detroit 1965, planned obsolescence, baby.
They had never really made that explicit before, because their products had always deteriorated sufficiently quickly that the issue of maintaining the longevity of their OS had never really come up. Now they’ve got one that took a licking and kept on ticking, and they’ve decided they don’t care for that. They’d rather be Chrysler than Honda. That’s their choice, but
Actually, they’re discontinuing the provision of security updates that would make it less likely for problems to occur in the first place.
We’ll see. Obviously, the large number of XP machines still out there makes them a much fatter target for viruses and whatnot.
No, I don’t think so. I’m a get-behind-the-wheel-and-turn-the-key sort of driver, not a look-under-the-hood sort of guy.
But it’s a matter of concern not just for my XP netbook, but for this Vista machine, maybe 4 years old, that I’m on right now. Vista came out in, what, 2004? Sounds like I might not have much time left on this OS, either. If they’re not going to support XP for more than 12 years, you think they’re likely to give Vista more than 10 or 11?
They’ve made it explicit since the mid-nineties at least that they will support their OSs for ten years*.
Vista came out in early 2007, so you’ve got a bit over 3 years left. If your machine runs Vista, it will run Windows 7 or 8, though, so you’ll be able to run some form of Windows, fully patched and updated, on it until at least 2022 if you choose.
*Theoretically that support used to only be for business releases after 5 years, but in practice all the security updates were released to everyone.
“planned obsolescence” is often just another name for “engineering tradeoffs”. Sure, it’s possible to make a widget that will last for 100 years, but it takes so many resources that people won’t pay enough for it. People will pay for one that lasts a few years, since they figure they’ll buy a new one by then anyway.
In this case, it’s even less apt. If Microsoft knew, 15 years ago, how to make an OS that would last for many decades without future effort, they would have. Fact is, software is really hard to do right. We’re still in the very early stages of figuring it out. We still don’t know how to make software that will last for years, let alone decades, without changes down the line.
And, again, a lot of this is due to the fact that there are malicious actors out there trying to take control of hardware via software.
I think you misunderstand what that means. The security hole is the problem, and the update is the fix. It’s not like they have a stockpile of security updates like spare parts and they’ve decided to stop selling them. Every exploit has to be investigated and a solution custom-built.
The Windows XP that exists in April 2014 will be the best Windows XP that has ever existed. In the last decade, they haven’t just maintained their product; they’ve tirelessly improved it. They added dozens of features absolutely free. They protected against threats that no one had even dreamed up when they first created the system. They’re simply going to stop improving it. And then someone else is going to break it.
That’s pretty much what they (and everyone else) is doing in the smartphone/tablet market.
It’s only in a (relatively) mature market like desktop PCs where people all of a sudden expect things to work for a decade.
Note that Microsoft’s competitors aren’t doing any better on this front. Most of them went out of business and Apple certainly isn’t issuing patches to 10+ year old software or supporting 10 year old hardware with their new OS releases. There’s Linux, but that’s a different sort of thing.
The cool thing is that you can run the program directly from your DVD or thumb drive: you can try it before you take the plunge. Microsoft hasn’t permitted that since DOS.
Rah rah, go-go linux! ::Waves flag, marches in parade::
Here’s another tip.** If you are a small business** and you websurf and use email on the same machine that you contact your bank, you are asking for trouble. The bad guys are very professional now: virus writing advanced beyond sophomore pranks decades ago. The solution? Access your bank via a dedicated computer loaded with Linux. Not practical? Use a linux bootable CD/DVD. Very hard to crack.
Brian Krebs: Online Banking Best Practices for Businesses – Krebs on Security
In fact, that strategy might work for those running XP after April 2014. Do what you want with the program, but do your banking and ecommerce on a bootable DVD. The problem with that strategy though is that you have to do this all the time, no exceptions. That might be easier for a business with 3 machines than for a single home installation. Know thyself: this businessman couldn’t stick to his security strategy and lost $100,000.
I gently remind my fellow posters that the central topic of this thread is pro-active: what should various different sorts of users do about this? Like others, I have and will veer off from the core topic.
I’m no huge fan of Microsoft. In fact, I pretty much despise them and their practices against Linux and Android. They are pretty terrible, but all gigantic corporations pretty much are.
If it weren’t for my love of PC gaming, I’d be all Linux all the way.
That being said, XP is old as dirt and expecting Microsoft to indefinitely dump money into supporting that OS is ridiculous. I don’t expect to be able to send in my NES to Nintendo and have them repair it, either. And I’m not upset that Nintendo hasn’t made a new NES game in the last decade or two, either.
IPv6 wasn’t officially supported in the first release of XP (it was present, but was described as ‘developer preview’) - it became fully supported as of SP1 and was further improved in SP2.
But even in a fully-patched XP machine today, it’s still a bit of a ‘bolt on’ - a separate entity with its own stack, and limited support for some protocols.
I fly a lot. Not as much as some but 7-12 times per year.
So, everywhere I’ve been terminal wise has the Win XP Pro logo on idle machines throughout the terminal. Now, if these machine on the visible spectrum of air travel use XP it’s not far fetched to think the behind the scenes machines are Xp as well.
I guess the question is how deeply is Xp embedded in air travel? Is it Xp behind the scenes of the ATC monitor? Is XP anywhere in the cockpit? I don’t know. I’d like to know.
Air travel is only as safe as the weakest link in the system.
If those are truly just embedded versions of XP, it is quite likely that any patches will be leaked and unofficially released to the public for free by third parties. That’s what happened with Windows 98, ME, and 2000. Heck some Windows Vista/7/8/9 stuff will probably be modified to work where possible. It’s unlikely that every single component of Windows Vista depends on the new kernel. Heck, the Vista-only games were already modified to work on XP.