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No more support for Windows XP

Desert Fox said:
I have a pair of older machines. They are dual core with 4 GB of ram so will do fine with Win 7.

Just I like XP and for what I use those two machines for, it is fine.
Planning to around Christmas get a used quad core laptop
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What's quad core?

Yuri
 
Yuri Nalyssus said:
I've discovered, according to the link to the upgrade suitability check which someone kindly posted, apparently I can upgrade to Windows 7.
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You're welcome.

Yuri Nalyssus said:
But I've only got 1Gb of RAM on my laptop so I'm not convinced and also I can't find where to get a copy of Windows 7 - half the web-sites I've seen which sell software looked like the "dodgy websites" I was warned about earlier - all flashing buttons and "download now"!
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Well 1GB really is all you need for the 32bit version of Windows 7 to run.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7#Hardware_requirements

That said it is the bare minimum and I'd prefer to have more.

If you can upgrade memory then that may well be worthwhile.

Check here to see if your laptop will accept a memory upgrade

http://www.offtek.co.uk/

If not, it's not the end of the world. My son's netbook runs windows 7 on 1GB of ram. It's fine.


Yuri Nalyssus said:
Also, some of the feedback on Amazon from people having bought update versions of Windows 7 tells how they've been ripped off by buying illegal copies accidentally - how do I know what is or isn't an illegal copy? Where is the best place to go to get an upgrade copy of Windows 7, and will there be any point on a laptop with 1Gb RAM?
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If you're unsure see if you can buy a Windows 7 upgrade from a bricks and mortar shop rather than online.

This is an ubelievable situation - I've got an old, but perfectly functional laptop and I'm having to look at getting rid of it. Not right - thanks for all the help though, it's much appreciated.

Yuri
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Don't get rid of it. It'll be fine with linux on it or working offline. The bad guys are those internet villains trying to take over your machine, not Microsoft for only manning the barricades for 12 years.
 
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Yuri Nalyssus said:
Yes, the final update was to get my own laptop to tell me that Microsoft weren't doing any more updates - oh the irony.

I've discovered, according to the link to the upgrade suitability check which someone kindly posted, apparently I can upgrade to Windows 7.

But I've only got 1Gb of RAM on my laptop so I'm not convinced and also I can't find where to get a copy of Windows 7 - half the web-sites I've seen which sell software looked like the "dodgy websites" I was warned about earlier - all flashing buttons and "download now"!

Also, some of the feedback on Amazon from people having bought update versions of Windows 7 tells how they've been ripped off by buying illegal copies accidentally - how do I know what is or isn't an illegal copy? Where is the best place to go to get an upgrade copy of Windows 7, and will there be any point on a laptop with 1Gb RAM?

This is an ubelievable situation - I've got an old, but perfectly functional laptop and I'm having to look at getting rid of it. Not right - thanks for all the help though, it's much appreciated.

Yuri
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It's really not an unbelievable situation. You are running a 12 year old Operating System. That's a long time in computer OS time. I think you got your money's worth out of what you must have paid for the OS.

And it's still going to work, and continue working, even after MS stops supporting it.

It's been pointed out by a few posters that a few precautions and some common sense should continue to keep you safe for many years to come if you want to continue running XP.
 
TheL8Elvis said:
It's really not an unbelievable situation. You are running a 12 year old Operating System. That's a long time in computer OS time. I think you got your money's worth out of what you must have paid for the OS.
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There's only been a viable MS OS upgrade from XP for 5 around years mind you.
 
To reiterate: XP will not stop working.

But you may be more at risk from infection due to potentially unknown vulnerabilities which will not now be patched.
 
commandlinegamer said:
But you may be more at risk from infection due to potentially unknown vulnerabilities which will not now be patched.
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Theoretically it would still be quite possible for third parties to patch exploits. For their own software it is usually trivial, obviously, but it is quite possible for a 3rd party to release a patch for certain types of exploits system wide, even without full access to the OS.

(That last phrase refers to full access from Microsoft obviously, hopefully not the user. :D)
 
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Ocelot said:
... The bad guys are those internet villains trying to take over your machine, not Microsoft for only manning the barricades for 12 years.
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TheL8Elvis said:
It's really not an unbelievable situation. You are running a 12 year old Operating System. That's a long time in computer OS time. I think you got your money's worth out of what you must have paid for the OS.
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Thanks, that gives me a better way of looking at this, I'm calming down now - the wording of that last MS "update" didn't help I'm sure.

I've got reasonable anti-virus so I'll beef up my password protection for important files and keep on with XP.

Cheers,

Yuri
 
I'm wrestling with what to do with my 5 year old ASUS netbook. It runs XP slowly, I presume that an upgrade to Windows 7 will kill it entirely (although I suppose it could be a "shot to nothing" even if it goes horribly wrong). I only use the PC to surf the 'net while watching TV so it's no great loss if the upgrade does go wrong.
 
The Don said:
I'm wrestling with what to do with my 5 year old ASUS netbook. It runs XP slowly, I presume that an upgrade to Windows 7 will kill it entirely (although I suppose it could be a "shot to nothing" even if it goes horribly wrong). I only use the PC to surf the 'net while watching TV so it's no great loss if the upgrade does go wrong.
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That's my worry too - an upgrade to windows 7 could be the final straw for my already creaky lap-top.

The simplest solution might be to steal my wife's one!

Yuri
 
The Don said:
I'm wrestling with what to do with my 5 year old ASUS netbook. It runs XP slowly, I presume that an upgrade to Windows 7 will kill it entirely (although I suppose it could be a "shot to nothing" even if it goes horribly wrong). I only use the PC to surf the 'net while watching TV so it's no great loss if the upgrade does go wrong.
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Windows 7 needs at least 2 GB RAM to run well on a 32 bit machine.
:)
 
The Don said:
I'm wrestling with what to do with my 5 year old ASUS netbook. It runs XP slowly, I presume that an upgrade to Windows 7 will kill it entirely (although I suppose it could be a "shot to nothing" even if it goes horribly wrong). I only use the PC to surf the 'net while watching TV so it's no great loss if the upgrade does go wrong.
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I also own an Asus netbook of similar age. It will run Win 7 reasonably with 2gb ram, but I've also added Lubuntu (Ubuntu with the LXDE light weight desktop environment) in a dual boot configuration, and it runs a lot faster than Windows.
 
BazBear said:
Lubuntu (Ubuntu with the LXDE light weight desktop environment) in a dual boot configuration, and it runs a lot faster than Windows.
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I was going to make that suggestion. Unless you use some Windows specific software, Lubuntu is great for giving those old computers a new-ish lease of life.
 
BazBear said:
I also own an Asus netbook of similar age. It will run Win 7 reasonably with 2gb ram, but I've also added Lubuntu (Ubuntu with the LXDE light weight desktop environment) in a dual boot configuration, and it runs a lot faster than Windows.
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ohms said:
I was going to make that suggestion. Unless you use some Windows specific software, Lubuntu is great for giving those old computers a new-ish lease of life.
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From the OP
Yuri Nalyssus said:
<SNIP>
Are there any other decent operating systems which will run the same programs I run now - open office and a whole load of Serif stuff mainly - and would be straightforward for a semi-competent computer user?
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Serif is windows only. And I doubt someone who describes themselves semi-competent wants to go chasing drivers, etc. to make sure laptop functions like the lid, and sleep and hibernate all are supported/work properly.

*nix is great and all, but it is not the answer for everything.

OP - you can buy a 2GB stick of ram, and replace the 1GB for 10-20 dollars (US). It will make things a bit quicker if you stick with XP, or go with win7.
 
dudalb said:
Frankly, surprised you did not know about Microsoft ending support for XP. They announced this about three years ago.
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Let us be blunt here. . . .
XP is nice and stable, does almost anything you want to do (still), and there has been little need to change.
 
Desert Fox said:
Let us be blunt here. . . .
XP is nice and stable, does almost anything you want to do (still), and there has been little need to change.
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Not really, after all the patches it is really bloated, Win7 is nice if you have teh system run it, very stable compared to XP.

XP is hardly stable, even after SP3, but then I worked with a lot of machines with XP. It is nice for what it does, yet Win7 is even nicer and I hear good things about 8

Just for explanation, I was a tech aide in two buildings, over 300 machines running XP, it was a mess, the level of vulnerability was atrocious, even with SP3, even legacy worms could crawl through a field of XP machines.

Now when a virus or scareware hacks Win7 it is usually a booger to remove.
 
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