Windows XP Now Has Less Than 800 Days of Support Left
It seems like just a short while ago that I was writing about how Windows XP had just 1,000 days of support left but now that number is down to under 800! Microsoft reminded us of this on the weekend with a blog post encouraging companies to migrate to Windows 7 as soon as possible saying "It takes 18-24 months to plan for and deploy a new operating system."
They're not wrong either as all of your software and hardware needs to be properly tested, which usually involves picking one or two choice non-critical departments and migrating them immediately to see what if any incompatibilities and problems occur. Once this testing process is finished, normally after a couple of months, the deployment plan for sometimes hundreds of thousands of workers can begin and, as any IT Systems Administrator will tell you, that is a massive planning job. It's difficult in small companies as well because the same process needs to be observed to minimise any downtime that might result from problems arising in the deployment process.
The question arises then if Microsoft should continue support if so many people find XP as comfortable as an old shoe, and much more compatible with their older software than Windows 7? Microsoft have already extended the support life cycle for Windows XP and it's very unlikely that it would ever be extended again. In fact I'd simply say that it will never happen.
So where does this leave businesses and home users who need to upgrade? My advice is simply not to wait any longer. This problem isn't going away and unlike the millennium bug of twelve years ago, is a very real threat to businesses everywhere. It's not just their own systems too that can be compromised but all of the sensitive data they contain, much of which is about the general public.
Microsoft have many deployment tools that can help ease the burden of a migration and third-parties offer free virtualization environments that can help you keep older software running for a while longer. If you have bespoke software that you need to use however that will not run, or not run properly under Windows 7 this needs to be addressed urgently. The problems associated with XP software and Internet Explorer applications have been highlighted for years now. Everybody knew the end of life was coming and too many businesses seem to be simply ignoring it because XP has always been here, and they expect that it always will. They simply aren't looking at the bigger picture of security, data protection, hacking and the associated fines that accompany these, some of which can be extremely hefty indeed.
But what will these companies do? Will they wait until Microsoft report there's just 600 days left? 500 days? 300 days even? After all, can a company physically manage the process in under a year? It's good that Microsoft are actively highlighting the problem, but bad that many people are taking it as a marketing exercise to try and sell more copies of Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Office 2010. It really isn't that at all. It's a serious issue, it's not going away and it needs to be dealt with quickly.
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Are these articles AI generated?
Now the duplicates are more obvious.
This is below AI generated crap. It is copy of Microsoft Help website article without any relevant supporting text. Anyway you can find this information on many pages.
Yes, but why post the exact same article under a different title twice on the same day (19 march 2023), by two different writers?
1.) Excel Keyboard Shortcuts by Trevor Monteiro.
2.) 70+ Excel Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows by Priyanka Monteiro
Why oh why?
Yeah. Tell me more about “Priyanka Monteiro”. I’m dying to know. Indian-Portuguese bot ?
Probably they will announce that the taskbar will be placed at top, right or left, at your will.
Special event by they is a special crap for us.
If it’s Microsoft, don’t buy it.
Better brands at better prices elsewhere.
All new articles have zero count comments. :S
WTF? So, If I add one photo to 5 albums, will it count 5x on my storage?
It does not make any sense… on google photos, we can add photo to multiple albums, and it does not generate any additional space usage
I have O365 until end of this year, mostly for onedrive and probably will jump into google one
Photo storage must be kept free because customers chose gadgets just for photos and photos only.
What a nonsense. Does it mean that albums are de facto folders with copies of our pictures?
Sounds exactly like the poor coding Microsoft is known for in non-critical areas i.e. non Windows Core/Office Core.
I imagine a manager gave an employee the task to create the album feature with hardly any time so they just copied the folder feature with some cosmetic changes.
And now that they discovered what poor management results in do they go back and do the album feature properly?
Nope, just charge the customer twice.
Sounds like a go-getter that needs to be promoted for increasing sales and managing underlings “efficiently”, said the next layer of middle management.
When will those comments get fixed? Was every editor here replaced by AI and no one even works on this site?
Instead of a software company, Microsoft is now a fraud company.
For me this is proof that Microsoft has a back-door option into all accounts in their cloud.
quote “…… as the MSA key allowed the hacker group access to virtually any cloud account at Microsoft…..”
unquote
so this MSA key which is available to MS officers can give access to all accounts in MS cloud.This is the backdoor that MS has into the cloud accounts. Lucky I never got any relevant files of mine in their (MS) cloud.
>”Now You: what is your theory?”
That someone handed an employee a briefcase full of cash and the employee allowed them access to all their accounts and systems.
Anything that requires 5-10 different coincidences to happen is highly unlikely. Occam’s razor.
Good reason to never login to your precious machine with a Microsoft a/c a.k.a. as the cloud.
The GAFAM are always very careless about our software automatically sending to them telemetry and crash dumps in our backs. It’s a reminder not to send them anything when it’s possible to opt out, and not to opt in, considering what they may contain. And there is irony in this carelessness biting them back, even if in that case they show that they are much more cautious when it’s their own data that is at stake.