I am surprised MS doesn't get more credit for XP which could be seen as a relativity dependable workhorse. Problem is for MS of course they ended the need for the users to upgrade.
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/default.aspx?LN=en-us...
I've been running unsupported XP SP2 on one of my older machines for over a year now. It's connected, runs applications, email, and internet services. No hacks, no worms, no rootkits, no nothing.
Just use a good antivirus and you'll be fine. AFAIK there hasn't even BEEN a 0 day patch for XP in more than 3 years.
However, what security can one speak of when it's only (enhanced) security against uninformed third parties? With features such as SmartScreen snarfing your requests, security goes only as far as the will of the vendor or their cooperation with an institution of power.
Windows malware threats still seem to be going quite consistent.
[0] http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/feature...
It's a matter of opinion I suppose, but I'm strongly inclined to disagree with this. Unless we're just talking about "where the equivalent to the 'Start' button is", or other very superficial things.
Even in exceptional cases, such as users whose entire interaction with the OS is launching a web browser (and I expect this is far rarer than most people think because they forget about how often those people end up needing to print, or save off a set of PDFs, or a million other minor but common tasks), I'd still expect XP->CentOS to be at best equivalent in retraining cost compared to XP->Windows 8.
(though Firefox lack of mpeg4 support is annoying because we don't have windows media foundation on XP)
Will grudgingly look at Windows 7 in 2014 when security fixes cease.
I also see OS/2 on some ATMs.
Me: CTO, we're switching to Linux instead of Windows 7
CTO: Great! How much functionality will we lose with our applications?
Me: All of it!
CTO: Let's do it!
I guess it's this some attempt to quantify how often XP machines get infected vs Windows 8. But a good part of that is probably because XP users are less technically proficient than the kind of people who've upgraded to 8.
If you're a CTO for a business then most of these details probably don't matter. All they really need to say is "no more updates next year, so soon you'll be directly vulnerable".
http://blogs.technet.com/b/security/archive/2013/08/06/the-r...
I think using that that something is "more vulnerable" is misleading though. Do we really think that 8_32 is 4 times more vulnerable than 8_64? Isn't it more likely that 64-bit users are less likely to run random malware?
Of course I definitely agree that XP is "less secure" and everyone should be planning to move away from it. But for a well-managed corporate network it just doesn't seem like such a big deal as MS are making out.
http://www.geek.com/news/korean-presidential-hopeful-pledges...
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/ubuntu-to-become-the-offi...
In my feeling, by analogy, Windows 2000 was like when they first put modern electronic ignitions and truly reliable fuel injection in passenger cars (making a whole class of maintenance and problems a thing of the past). Now it's just like buying the latest boring mid-sized sedan with slightly different styling.
For me, Mac OS X, ten years ago, was like getting a Tesla. Desktop OSes have become such a commodity since then though.
As much as I don't like the iOS model and its restrictions and business model, it's probably the first serious innovation in "desktop" OS products in a while.
sidenote: For those that believe that these guys can upgrade to Linux, that will only happen on the basis of a single piece of software - Excel. And no, OO/LibreO is not good enough.
Most people over there are running pirated XP. I worked at a company that had Asian partners and we found even legitimate companies over there had office consoles on Pirated XP. That was a shock to us.
The really shitty downside of this is most users are using IE8 or lower and sometimes newer versions of .NET couldn't be used in our software builds. Business dudes always wanted us to design our web pages to appease these customers, which became increasingly difficult as technology goes forth.
