Tag Archives: Windows XP

by Ben Trube | April 10, 2014 · 6:35 AM

After the XPocalypse: Zorin – As close to Windows as Linux can get

Say you have an old desktop that used to run XP. You don’t really want to spend the money to replace it, but you don’t want it gathering dust either. Bottom line, you don’t want to spend any money right now and you’re willing to try something new and radical, yet safe and familiar.

Look no further than Zorin:

Never heard of it? Well, you’ve probably heard of Ubuntu. Zorin’s a flavor of linux with Ubuntu as its starting point. Zorin’s mission is to provide a Windows like experience for people who are new to Linux. Be warned, it is still Linux. There will be a learning curve, but you can do it!

First off a word about versions. The version I’m recommending you install is Zorin 6.4 Core LTS (0r 6.2 Lite LTS if your machine is really ancient). LTS stands for “long term support” which in the Ubuntu Linux world means 5 years. Zorin 6.4 is the latest LTS available, based off Ubuntu’s 12.04 LTS. It’ll be good for about another three years, and then you’ll probably need to do another install. You can try something newer but support times are shrinking. They used to be 18 months and now they’re 9 months. So this OS should last you 2-4 times as long as any other option besides spending money.

For this install you will need:

An 8-16 GB flash or a CD or DVD you can burn
Zorin 6.4 Core or Zorin 7.1 Lite (for older crustier systems)*
Universal USB Installer
30-40GB free on your hard drive
About an hour or two of free time

*Clarification on support. Zorin 6.2 and 7.1 lite are no longer supported, but there is no version of lite for version 8 of Zorin (the latest). The 6.4 Core has the longest support of 2017. The reason for this is that Lite version is based on Lubuntu (lightweight Ubuntu) which has a different support cycle. I recommend using Core if your system can handle it, and the latest lite if not until a new version is released. (This differs from the version of Zorin I originally recommended for download, I am correcting the original post). A new LTS version of Ubuntu should be released sometime this month, but when that update affects Zorin is unknown.

You’ll be installing Zorin either with a live USB or live CD/DVD. There are some pros and cons to either solution:

Burning a CD or DVD from an ISO is pretty easy. If you don’t have the software on your computer, try InfraRecorder.
If you don’t have an optical drive (external or built-in), then flash is really the only way to go.
But not all BIOS’s support booting from a USB (more on this later).
Using a USB allows you to create a full linux live system with persistent files that you can boot on any machine (in other words kind of like a virtual machine).
But the data files are unencrypted and lost if you lose the USB.
USB will be faster, but DVD will be easier and will auto-eject when finished installing.

My suggestion is create both options (flash drive and CD/DVD) and try both to see which works. Flash drives can always be reformatted and CD/DVDs are cheap. Plus you have a backup of the OS if you ever want it.

Step One: Bring your USB to live

Assuming you’ve already burned a live disc, we’ll now create a live USB.

Pendrivelinux’s UUI has some pretty simple to follow instructions. Select the Linux OS you’re installing from a drop down list (Zorin OS is under “other”). Browse to the location of your ISO. Select your flash drive (and optionally format it).

The persistent file size is the area of your drive used to store any files or settings you create while running the live system. This makes it easy for you to try what you like, and then install everything you’ve changed without having to repeat it. If you’ve got a big flash drive, go ahead and slide this bar all the way to the end.

Click create. Be patient, this could take as much as a half an hour to complete, but probably more like 15 minutes. Get a coffee. Send some e-mail.

At some point it will start extracting the ISO image. This will pop up another window and will probably be one of the longer parts of the creation.

The only disadvantage to the persistent drive it takes a few minutes to create. The program has to create a virtual drive that’s formatted correctly. If the program doesn’t look like it’s doing anything, trust me, it is.

Some people prefer UNetbootin. Both work, there’s no real advantage to either. Use whichever you prefer.

Step Two: Get to your BIOS, or hit F2 repeatedly

Your BIOS is what actually runs first whenever you turn on a machine. Modern computers hide the BIOS so you don’t even see that it’s working, you just see Windows. But trust me it’s there. They’re all a little different, and you even hit different keys to get to them. You’ll have to look up which one works for your computer but good candidates are F2, F9, F10, F11 and F12. My older ASUS netbook (model eee 1005 HA), used F2.

You’re looking for a tab marked Boot settings or something like it. You probably will only be able to use your keyboard to move around.

On the ASUS there are two boot orders, one marked “Boot Device Priority” and the other marked “Hard Disk Drives”. Make sure to have your USB plugged in when you are making these changes. Make “Removable dev” your first boot priority, and make the USB the first of the two hard drives. This setting doesn’t seem to hold if you remove the drive or even shut the computer all the way off.

Most BIOS have CDs as the first priority item. You can leave this and make USB the second to cover all bases.

If you’re successful you should see UUI’s load screen and then the Zorin live system will boot.

Step Three: Look Around

There’s an icon on the desktop that might just be how we install this OS. It’s called “Install Zorin OS”. Before you click it, click on the network icon in the bottom right and connect to your internet connection. Make sure your device is plugged in. This install may take about an hour.

Feel free to play around with the menu, or any of the buttons at this point. Familiarize yourself with the programs that come pre-installed. Everything’s organized by category so it should be pretty easy to find what you want.

Step Four: Push the button

Click the “Install Zorin OS”. If you’re running from a live CD, be patient if it doesn’t respond immediately. After a few screens asking what language you speak Zorin will bring up this screen:

You can do one of a few things at this point. The first option is to install Zorin alongside the existing operating system. If you think you’re going to need XP in the future, just to run some programs you can’t get running anywhere else, go ahead and choose this option (I did).

Note: XP demanded a chkdsk after I finished installing Zorin (probably because of the repartitioning). This is normal and XP should run fine after it finishes the check.

If you think you’re ready to only live with Linux, go ahead and pick option two. Be aware this erases all your files and programs so hopefully you made a backup? If not, quit and try again.

Step Five: Figure out how big you want Zorin to be

After you hit continue you will see this screen:

On the left is your old OS (assuming you kept it), on the right, Zorin’s new home. 40GB is a pretty good size though you can always go bigger depending on your needs. Just click and drag the bar in the middle to manipulate.

Note: Ubuntu does not define a GB in this case as a true gigabyte. It is instead 1,000,000,000 bytes. A real gigabyte is 1,073,741,824 bytes. So our 40 “GB” drive is actually about 38.4 gigabytes, still more than sufficient.

Step Six: Click “Install Now” and Wait

Partitioning the drive for your installation will probably take a while, especially if your hard drive is really full and hasn’t been defragged in a while. When true installation begins there will be a few screens for determining time zone, keyboard layout, and login credentials. Once you’re done, Zorin may show you a video while it finishes copying all the files over.

Note: Your user icon can be difficult to change after installation so make sure you pick one you’re going to like (especially if you take a picture of yourself 🙂 ).

Step Seven: Reboot when finished

If you’ve plugged in a flash drive to install the OS you may want to choose to continue playing with the live so you can do a full shutdown rather than just a restart. Otherwise you might boot back up into the live system instead of the one you just installed.

Step Eight: Run updates

The shutdown icon in the bottom left will have a menu option that says either “System Up To Date” or “Check For Updates”. Click this either way, and then click “check” on the screen that comes up.

Zorin 6.4 had 337 updates as of this writing. After you click install you’ll be asked to authenticate:

Get used to doing this, this is linux’s user account control.

You may see this screen:

“If you don’t know why the file is there already, it is usually safe to replace it”. Not a great habit, but seems okay in this case.

Step Nine: Enjoy!

Here’s a few things to try:

Click on the internet category and use Zorin’s internet manager to install the browser of your choice.
Click on the system group to change the look and feel of zorin.
Take screenshots and see them auto appear in your pictures folder.
Try to use WINE to install a windows program (more on this another time).

This primer should get you started at least. Feel free to leave any questions in the comments, or show me something cool you’ve done with Zorin.

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Disclaimer: Any advice or tips given here will not be valid for all users in all circumstances. Do what makes sense to you and don’t do what doesn’t make sense. These posts are for educational, informative purposes only. Show these posts to your computer friends and have them tell you if I’m right on the money or out to lunch. In any case, please realize that anything you do to your computer is your responsibility. If you have a specific problem and need help, shoot me a comment, but if your computer bricks you were warned.

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Filed under Trube On Tech

Tagged as Computers, Linux, Ubuntu, Windows XP, Zorin

by Ben Trube | April 9, 2014 · 6:35 AM

After the XPocalypse: How to take the Vista out of 8.1

Windows 8.1 is Microsoft’s latest operating system, but it’s hardly the greatest. It has little business adoption, switching between apps and real programs is frustrating and disruptive, and it made all the visuals flat and boring so that they could maintain a consistent look between their laptops, desktops and the partial OS they run on the Surface.

But all is not completely lost. You can make Windows 8.1 into a system you’ll love, or at least won’t hate quite as much. And hey Microsoft’s gonna support you for another 9 years so if you can get used to it, you might learn to love it.

Get Office all the time, not 365 days a year

For starters buy yourself a copy of Office 2010 or 2013. It’ll cost between $85 to $139 for Home and Student, and into the $200s for anything pro or multi-user. But trust me, if you need Office, and unfortunately for a lot of you OpenOffice doesn’t quite cut it, this is a far better solution than Office 365. Don’t be seduced by fancy words like “Cloud” and”Your documents on all your devices” or “always up to date”. Since when has Word really gotten all that better? I like the equation editor they added in 2007 (used it extensively for my fractal book), but other than that and maybe native save as PDF support, I’m unimpressed. Unless you’re a student Office 365 is going to cost you $99 A YEAR! Where does Microsoft get off charging something like that?

Have you met Windows 7?

You could downgrade to Windows 7, if you owned Windows 8.1 Pro, which if you don’t know, you probably don’t. There are ways to try to do it yourself. This guide from PC Magazine might help.

Not Metro?

Hate booting to the Metro Screen? Here’s a few things you can do:

Right Click on the taskbar and click “Properties”.
On the box that pops up, click on the tab that says “Navigation”.
There’s two cool things you can do from here:

In the “Start Screen” section there are two boxes you should check. The first is “When I sign in or close all apps on a screen, got to the desktp instead of Start”. Otherwise known as “Boot to Desktop”. If you want Windows 8 to work like every other computer you’ve ever owned. Do this step.
The second is “Show the Apps view automatically when I got Start”. This is as close to the traditional start button as you’ll get without third party add-ons. Make sure the second box underneath is checked as well (as shown). You can click the up arrow on this screen to get to the Metro view if you ever want to.

Shut it down

You know what else the start menu had that this one doesn’t? A proper shut down button. Now you could go into the power settings and tell the computer to shut down when you close the lid. But if you want to watch what it’s doing, and bypass updates you weren’t planning on waiting for, do this instead:

Right-click anywhere on the desktop and select New–>Shortcut.
Type “shutdown /s /t 0” into the “location” line. This is an old DOS command Windows still recognizes. A full reference can be found here, but this line basically means shutdown this computer “/s” in 0 seconds “/t 0”.

This won’t have fancy icon, but you can pick one by right clicking on the shortcut, selecting “properties” and clicking “change icon”.

Command your computer

There’s a surprising amount you can still do with old DOS commands and I highly recommend you learn some. But one thing’s clear, you need a command prompt (or terminal as the Linux people like to say). The Apps view you brought up has this under the Windows System line:

Right click on the icon and click “Pin to taskbar” to send this to your desktop taskbar. While you’re there you can also get the task manager if you want it or the run command.

But command prompt does it all. Type the following for a few useful commands and programs:

msconfig – Brings up your system configuration and allows you to change what programs are running at startup.
taskmgr – Brings up the task manager. Which also changes startup configuration apparently.
regedit – Brings up the registry editor.
dir /s /b > output.txt – Takes the current folder and creates a human readable text file with basic information about every file and subfolder in that directory.
calc – The old school desktop calculator, not the app.

Send it in a letter

Your best friend is the send to desktop icon. If your program is not listed in the Apps view (and it won’t catch them all), go the the program’s location on your computer and right click, hover over “send” and select “to desktop”. Between the taskbar and the desktop you should be able to put most of the programs you use on a daily basis without even having to bother with the start button. I use the left side for applications and the right side for games, and the task bar for stuff I get into all the time. If you’re a gamer, this is Steam and Desura’s time to shine, as one icon can get you access to a whole library of games.

&*%$! Homegroup Icon!

Noticed that, eh? Microsoft has a bug on some computers which causes the Homegroup icon to mysteriously appear on your desktop. You can’t delete it, can’t even move it. And you probably would never use it.

Right click on the desktop and select “personalize”.
Click “Change Desktop Icons” on the left.
Check the box that says “Network” and hit apply.
Uncheck the box that says “Network and hit apply.

The icon should now be gone, but probably not forever. Hopefully a more permanent solution will be released soon.

I want my Start Menu!!!

Don’t we all. Two programs to try are Classic Shell and Start8. Start 8 is $4.99 and Classic Shell is better. From what I’ve read Start8 is closer to the real experience, and works better with 8 so it may be worth the money. For the moment I’m toughing it out to see if I can get used to the current configuration, but if not I’ll probably try Classic Shell. I personally don’t like to try a lot of third party programs I don’t know until I get to know an OS a little better.

Microsoft did recently announce it was bringing back the start menu, but with no clear roadmap as to when the update will be rolled out. Also the ability to use apps in the desktop environment. Probably by the time we’re ready for Windows 9, Windows 8 will be all it can be.

I have a feeling I could write another one of these guides in another six months with a whole bunch more useful information, but hopefully this will be enough to get you started. Please post any questions you have in the comments. I’ll play around and try to solve any new problems you might pose.

Tomorrow we’ll cover Zorin-Lite for the Windows crowd that doesn’t want to spend any money, and is really new to linux.

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Filed under Trube On Tech

Tagged as Computers, Microsoft, Technology, Windows 8.1, Windows XP

by Ben Trube | April 8, 2014 · 6:35 AM

XPocalypse Now

Today is the XP’s last day as a supported operating system. At midnight EST we enter the world of “Zero Day Forever.” The “XPombie XPocalypse.” A long day’s journey into digital night.

So download your Microsoft Updates now. Get your copy of Microsoft Security Essentials. And raise a glass to the late great XP. While we can hardly say you were cut down in your prime, there was always the feeling that you might outlast us all.

A few fun facts about XP (courtesy of Wikipedia):

XPs final development version was codenamed “whistler” after the Whistler-Blackcomb ski resort. It’s first designation was “Neptune”.
The metro screen, or at least a version of it called “Starting Places” and “Activity Centers” was proposed for XP. Thankfully it was removed.
XP was first available for commercial purchase on October 25th 2001. You could buy computers with XP installed until just a few years ago.
Instead of supporting USB 2.0 at release, XP included support for Firewire.
XP was the first operating system of Windows to include remote desktop and product activation.
XP shipped with Direct X 8.0 which was later upgraded to 9.0c, probably one of the more ubiquitous versions of DirectX, still supported by a lot of games today.
The XP with Service Pack 3 disc (the latest version available for sale) sill included IE 6.0. The latest version of IE supported by XP was 8.0. We’re now up to 11.
The N and KN versions of XP come without windows media player installed to combat the dominance of Microsoft’s own Windows Media Player.
XP is still the second most used operating system, at 27%.
XP’s version number is 5.1.
And of course, XP is short for eXPerience. Can you gain eXPerience points? If so I have thousands.

My XP

I have three (mine, my wife’s and my mother-in-law’s old machine) aging Pentium 4 desktops (more than ten years old) each of which came installed with XP, as well as my netbook, which came with XP Home Edition. My first computer I bought with my own money, which was also the computer I used throughout college, was a Dell XP I bought for six months worth of working at the library. My first work computer was XP. The physics lab I worked for at OSU had XP installed on an oscilloscope. This OS has been a part of my working, gaming, computing and writing life for years.

Most of the novels I’ve written to date were composed on XP machines. On my netbook I’ve written more than 300,000 words (not to mentioned generated thousands of fractals on all my computers). I’ve played some of my favorite games on that old desktop: Max Payne 1+2, Elite Force 1+2, Battlefield 1942, Half Life 1+2, Deus Ex and the list goes on.

XP was also the first operating system I learned to tinker with, and probably one of the last to trust me to know what I’m doing. Now we have user account control and Windows SmartScreen (more on those tomorrow). Aside from a little warning that maybe I want to be careful messing around “C:\Windows” or my Program Files, XP let me have it, tinkering my settings, learning my registry and just generally wreaking all kinds of fun havoc. Every other system has tried to hide my new powers from me because its afraid I’m going to mess up my machine without even trying too. Trust me, I remember the pain of messing up my boot INI and having to boot up my Windows 3.1 device with a boot disk for the rest of its life (though now that I think about it that wasn’t a bad security measure). I know what not to touch, and especially what not to delete.

It may be weird to get sentimental about an old operating system, but this is one that I knew really well. I could even use some of my old DOS knowledge even though XP didn’t officially run on DOS. I learned emulators, programming, graphics generation, and whole new worlds of games on this OS. To a certain degree, computers are our modern portal to the outside world. We tweak their backgrounds and icons to best suit our needs. We put them on our laps even when they’re called “notebooks”. We create, we play, we laugh at stupid cat videos.

XP was how many of us did that for 12 years. Let’s appreciate that gift and feel better for the eXPerience. Then let’s all get a beer and swear about 8.1.

But don’t worry, I feel your pain. Tomorrow we’ll talk about how to make 8.1 a little more bearable. A little.

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Filed under Trube On Tech

Tagged as Beer, Fun Facts, Memories, Windows XP, XPocalypse

by Ben Trube | April 7, 2014 · 6:35 AM

XPocalypse XPlained

ONLY ONE DAY LEFT!!!

If you haven’t yet, take a look at my post #XPocalypseIsNigh for XPocalypse survival tips. And don’t forget to stockpile bottled water. It’s kinda standard procedure for these things.

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Today I thought we’d cover the basics before we get into more technical tips and tricks.

XP EOL FAQ

Whoa, lot of acronyms there. What is EOL?

EOL is short for “End of Life”, or end of support life. It means your copy of Windows XP* will no longer get critical security patches, and may become increasingly vulnerable to attack.

*XP is short for eXPerience. And nothing is a truer Windows eXPerience than end of support.

Okay, so what does that really mean?

There’s actually a couple of parts to this:

XP has been in “Extended Support” mode after the end of mainstream support in 2009. Extended support means they’ll patch critical bugs and prevent against attack, but no more service packs and no more new features.
What ends of April 8th is patches to critical bugs and exploits. The malicious software removal tool (designed to help clean an infected computer) will still get monthly updates for at least a year.
Microsoft Security Essentials (Microsoft’s free virus scan) will no longer be available for download for XP users after April 8, so get the installer now from here.
Windows 7 Pros “XP Mode” will no longer be supported (Win 7’s built in virtual machine of Windows XP using Virtual PC).

That sounds bad, what should I do?

Well, for many people, buying a new computer is going to be the best option. Windows XP machines don’t tend to be up to running newer operating systems like Windows 7 or 8. It might be worth checking though. Microsoft has an upgrade tool to check if your system can run their new operating systems.

But I like XP, can’t I still use it?

Yes, at your own risk. It depends why you want to keep XP. If you use your computer a lot for the internet, which if you’re reading this blog I suspect you do, then you really shouldn’t keep it. If, however, you’re willing to take the bold step of unplugging, of living off the grid, and being content to transfer files on flash drives to keep your cherished programs, then go ahead.

Okay, I get it. XP won’t be that safe on the internet. But I don’t have the money for a new machine.

There are options. Later in the week we’ll be talking about Zorin-Lite, a lightweight linux solution (a flavor of Lubuntu for those of you curious). Zorin is designed with Windows users in mind and is actually surprisingly powerful. Download it here if you’d like to follow along at home.

Alright, you’ve convinced me, but I don’t like the look of 8.1. Can I still buy 7 and should I?

Windows XP was Microsoft’s most successful operating system until Windows 7. Windows 7 is used by 47% of desktop users today. Its EOL is January 14th 2020 (it goes off mainstream support on January 13th 2015). That said, it would kind of surprise me if Microsoft kept to that date, given the number of current users, and the anemic numbers for 8.1 (in the low single digits %). Most businesses passed on Vista, opting to stay with XP or wait till 7. As the XP EOL loomed, most chose to invest in a proven OS which is Windows 7. You can still buy copies at most stores or online, or you can purchase Windows 8 Pro with downgrade rights. And in my experience (if we’re talking laptops for a second) 5-6 years is a long life span for a laptop. Buy one you’re comfortable with and you’ll be happy for a long time.

I like to have the latest version, but I want to see my start menu and my desktop in 8.1.

We’ll cover how to make Windows 8.1 work as much like 7 as possible later in the week.

I have Vista should I be worried?

Vista is the next product to go out of support on April 11th 2017. Vista makes up about 5% of current PC users, and most of them bought their system years ago (the last machines with Vista pre-installed were sold in 2011 and many of these had upgrade rights to Windows 7). I hate to be blunt but, your laptop will probably die before Vista will. Buy an external hard drive, get used to backing things up and start saving. A new computer is in your future in the next 1-3 years. Upgrade to 7 if you can.

Is XP to Windows 7 or 8.1 an upgrade?

No, in the sense that Microsoft maintains all your programs and updates completely smoothly. However, I recently did an XP to Windows 7 install on a machine for my church. I had some documents still on the machine (backed up) but was curious to see if they’d be erased or maintained after the install. To my surprise they (and the whole XP OS) was placed in a folder call Windows.old. I can’t run XP on this machine any more, but at least I have access to everything created with it. I’d assume 8.1 can do something similar, but again it might not run on most XP boxes.

What about the Surface?

Well, there you run into a few problems. For starters the included keyboard is thin and tends to break down after vigorous typing, so you’ll need to buy a better case. And the Surface Pro is pretty expensive (nearly a thousand dollars). Your onboard storage space is smaller (think 16-64 GB). And most importantly, Windows 8 RT is not a proper operating system.

By this mean I mean that it runs apps not programs.

Apps are tiny little program-lettes that do a small segment of what a full featured program can do, and even if they have the whole suite of features, tend to present them in an over-simplified or limited way.

Remember programs, those things with EXE on the end? Can’t install those on a Surface. So your games from Steam, or your favorite open source compiler, or even that copy of Office you own that still has one more activation left in it, can’t install any of them on the Surface.

I heard RT is short for wRong Turn. Sounds about right to me.

If you want a tablet, you’re better off buying an Android with Bluetooth capability and a keyboard. There are way more games and cool apps, and you can keep everything under $300.

I’ve been hearing a lot about Chromebooks, they seem pretty cheap.

There’s a reason, and for the record, they’re not that much cheaper. You can get a full featured laptop with a 500 GB hard drive, 4 GBs of RAM and a dual core processor for around $300. Chromebooks are only about $50 cheaper (if that).

Also, more importantly, they need to be connected to the internet nearly all of the time to be useful. You have very little onboard space, and you can’t install all of your favorite programs. And forget about gaming.

There’s a reason they call it getting Scroogled.

Should I be worried about businesses still using XP?

This is a toughie. My favorite Chinese place down the block uses XP to create receipts and handle credit card transactions. Some of these are a flavor of XP called embedded which will be supported for about another year. But bottom-line, if it’s connected to the internet, it might be able to be compromised, and credit card fraud and identity theft are on the rise. Might be a good time to use cash. Or, if you can have a good relationship with the business, you could always ask their plans, or even offer to upgrade their computers (maybe for some tasty General Tso’s chicken).

What about ATM’s?

Again this is trickier. Most banks are trying to catch up to the end of support, and some are even paying Microsoft to continue to support them while they make the switch. ATMs are typically older and more expensive than your average desktop, and something more painful to replace. And you probably won’t be able to notice which OS your ATM is using as easily as other kinds of business computers. Best bet is to ask a teller, and maybe withdraw or deposit some cash with a real person (though if they use a computer too you might want to ask about it as well). I know this sounds picky, and kind of a pain in the butt. But if you’re friendly, patient, and courteous, most people will respond in kind.

What’s “Zero-Day Forever”?

It’s Microsoft’s designation for end of XP support. “Zero-day” is the day someone discovers a security flaw in Windows (or any Operating System) before Microsoft has a chance to patch it, or the computer conducts a Windows Update. For XP’s which will no longer receive updates, this zero-day will be permanent.

I want to keep using XP despite all the warnings. I’m sure I’ll be okay.

You laugh in the face of danger. I can respect that. Here’s a few suggestions if you’re ~~stubborn~~ brave.

Use a limited user account for most activity. Password protect your admin account with a strong password and almost never use it.
Use third party virus software that will continue to support XP. Most are pledging they’ll continue to offer support into 2015.
Consider using Tor for web browsing. It’s anonymous, a little more paranoid than most browsers, and warns you in many ways if you’re about to do something stupid.
Save your money and back up your files.
Don’t leave your computer connected to the internet unattended.

Why is Microsoft doing this to me?

Well, to be fair, it’s not just doing it to you. It’s doing it to millions of other computer users, 27% of the desktop market to be exact (though admittedly a lot of those are in China). XP is more than 12 years old and there are better things out there. And it costs a lot of money to support legacy systems (plus you need to have a talent base that even remembers how to work with older code). Working in the software industry, I can understand the need for EOL. Things don’t last forever, even though maybe they should. If you don’t like it, consider linux (though make sure you get an LTS version which is supported for 5 years or be willing to self-perpetually upgrade). It may be free but it still costs something.

Alright, you’ve pretty much ruined my day. Anything else you want to tell me?

Well, I hesitate to mention it but… Office XP and 2003 go out of support as well. Better try a new version of Office, or better yet OpenOffice (if you don’t mind that it likes to count open quotation marks as words).

I’m a Mac user

That’s nice. I say good day to you, sir.

But

I SAID GOOD DAY!!!

Well that about wraps it up for today’s knowledge dump. If you have any more questions please feel free to leave them in the comments. Tomorrow we’ll have an appreciation of the late great XP that was.

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