xp and vista stopping updates .

[Still Farming]

Looks like it coming to the end of these systems as windows stopping updates and support apparently.
Any ideas to keep em going without suffering.
Seem's good old systems ?

 

[neilo]

I can't remember anyone describing Vista as a 'good old system' before.XP maybe, but only as it seemed reliable after Vista.

After holding off from upgrading to W7 (& then W10), because of the horror stories from the 'experts', in hindsight I wish I hadn't listened to them.

 

[Roy_H]

Vista was a truly awful system.

 

[Still Farming]

Never had much trouble aside ?
So just scrap laptop then is it ??

 

[Peter]

XP support stopped over a year ago. Only ones that come are for office, if you have it.
Sill using XP pro on a 16yr old Toshiba laptop, works fine but slow. Goes with my pace now. Just got to do regular backups, don't do anything important on it. Fine for just web surfing. Great for travel, if lost or when goes poof no loss.

• 

 

[neilo]

Never had much trouble aside ?
So just scrap laptop then is it ??

Can you not just upgrade the OS? There's a few companies on eBay that are selling OEM operating systems from scrapped office PC's for not a lot. My copy of W7 cost about £40 that way IIRC.

 

[J B]

Never had much trouble aside ?
So just scrap laptop then is it ??

Can't you go with 'ain't broke = don't fix'?

It still works, so why are you worried about 'updates'?

As long as you have a *non* M$ A/V and browser, then just carry on as normal and enjoy life!

When I was at Manchester Airport in November, they were still using XP, so it can't be that bad!!

 

[Dman2]

Don`t worry about updates
Have an old xp machine that runs ok and has never been updated
Switched updates off on windows 7 machine when they decided to automatically update people to windows 10

 

[Still Farming]

What about essentials or defender also on it just forget is it

 

[J B]

What about essentials or defender also on it just forget is it

Can you say that again please?

 

[ChrisPCarter]

Support and updates for Windows XP stopped in April 2014 so you're a bit behind with things!
Main support for it actually finished in 2009 but important security patches were released until 2014.
Most antivrius and antimalware software has ceased support for XP since then as there is no way they can guarantee security when the underlying Operating System is full of holes.
It's a big security risk as nothing has been patched since.
I've had customers who stuck with XP despite the warnings and had ransomeware on their systems because of it, losing data and costing them a fortune in recovery costs and lost work. In some cases it's not even recoverable as it even encrypts backups so there's no way of restoring back to a previous date. They were demanded to pay £30K (a percentage of turnover) to get the encryption key from the hackers but they often just take the money and don't put your files back.
Vista support finished April 2012 and there will be no more patches after April 2017 so that will be in the same boat.
Windows 10 was a free upgrade from Windows 7 and 8 for the past year but that finished in October and it's now a paid upgrade.

Chris.

 

[ChrisPCarter]

Don`t worry about updates
Have an old xp machine that runs ok and has never been updated
Switched updates off on windows 7 machine when they decided to automatically update people to windows 10

This is the most ridiculous advice I've heard in a long time.
Seriously, you are just asking to get a virus, be hacked and get your bank account raided.
Have you not wondered what these updates are for or why they want you to upgrade to Windows 10???

 

[Dman2]

This is the most ridiculous advice I've heard in a long time.
Seriously, you are just asking to get a virus, be hacked and get your bank account raided.
Have you not wondered what these updates are for or why they want you to upgrade to Windows 10???

I will upgrade to windows 10 when the robbing barstewards supply me with new software that will only run on W 7

As for security
Kapersky is one of the best out there and it is updated regularly

 

[ChrisPCarter]

What software is it? I've not heard of any software that will only run on Windows 7, it's pretty much the same as Windows 8 and Windows 10 in the way it works and there are backawards compatibility modes for the few things that don't work. Windows XP/Vista to Windows 7 was a big change but not much from Windows 7 onwards.
Antivirus software is only a small part of security and if your operating system is out of date and not patched then you are throwing your money down the drain on antivirus software. Antivirus software does not ensure the security of your operating system, that's what the software updates are for from Microsoft - which you have switched off. Antivirus can stop files getting onto the PC but it doesn't make the operating system safe from attack.
You're also missing out on all the new features and improvements that you've paid for.

 

[Storeman]

This is the most ridiculous advice I've heard in a long time.
Seriously, you are just asking to get a virus, be hacked and get your bank account raided.
Have you not wondered what these updates are for or why they want you to upgrade to Windows 10???

Really?
If you're carefull about what sites you visit and what links are clicked, it is possible to stay virus free. Not advisable, especially in a business environment.
Those updates are mainly to patch shoddy code, released before it's fully tested and they want you to upgrade so they can open your wallet.

 

[ChrisPCarter]

Keeping your operating system up to date is probably THE most important thing you can do for your data security and machine reliability as without it your antivirus isn't effective either. If you're careful what you click on it does help but most people don't know what is and isn't safe and they can easily be fooled.
Even genuine sites get compromised and ads placed with popups that can install and run malicious software on un-patched machines.

You don't need to go to a website to get hacked, there are bots scanning every machine on the internet to see what vulnerabilities they have, to gain access and antivirus software doesn't protect against that.
Antivirus is the very last line of defence and shouldn't be relied upon.
It takes on average 48 hours for antivirus companies to detect and write code to remove new virus types, yet new ones are released on an hourly basis. The security companies are always playing catch up.

A small client I'm working on now gets over 4000 attempts on their system every day and that's just random attacks, not including bad web links or email attachments. You get pretty much the same on any PC that's online unless you have a good firewall in place and most people would never have a clue it's going on in the background.

Microsoft introduced "Patch Tuesday" to improve the way they handled security updates. This system accumulates security patches over a month, and dispatches them all on the second Tuesday of each month, so that system administrators may prepare for it.
The following day, known as "Exploit Wednesday", is the time when exploits may appear which take advantage of un-patched machines with the newly announced vulnerabilities. Most people just think it hasn't happened to them yet so they are safe but I deal with it on a daily basis. I had someone the other week who had £9K taken out of their bank. They had antivirus installed but they had no patches installed so they were using an out of date web browser with holes in it.

If they just wanted you to upgrade so they could open your wallet they wouldn't be giving Windows 10 and Mac OS X away for free would they?
It saves them money only having to support one operating system instead of things like Windows XP that was released in 2001 but they still have to have a team supporting it for 14 years afterwards when it's no longer making them money after you bought it.
Imagine having to check every app and software application, printer and graphics card drivers etc is safe and works on XP, Vista, Windows 7, 8, 10. Imagine the cost if car manufacturers had to service every car for free for 10 or 15 years after you bought it. That's where the cost is.
It's a massive job and open to far more security issues than if everyone just used the same thing and kept it up to date so they had far less holes to patch.
I spend hours on the phone trying to fix obscure faults only to find it was fixed in an update months or years before but they haven't installed it. It's the first thing we do now, install all the updates and see if the fault is still there.

You've effectively paid for 10 years of support from Microsoft when you bought Windows so why not install all their patches and bug fixes?
Otherwise you're still using the same buggy software as the day you bought it and likely to have someone gain access to your machine sooner or later.

 

[Dman2]

The main one for us is Quickbooks
2012 version will not run on Win 10
Also have an access control program that last time I looked was not suitable for 10
And apart from that I just do not like the way 10 is laid out

 

[Dman2]

Oh
and just to clarify
My cousin is a seriously good tech guy working in Vienna for a large software company, and he suggested turning of updates on Win 7 machine

 

[Storeman]

Keeping your operating system up to date is probably THE most important thing you can do for your data security and machine reliability as without it your antivirus isn't effective either. If you're careful what you click on it does help but most people don't know what is and isn't safe and they can easily be fooled.
Even genuine sites get compromised and ads placed with popups that can install and run malicious software on un-patched machines.

You don't need to go to a website to get hacked, there are bots scanning every machine on the internet to see what vulnerabilities they have, to gain access and antivirus software doesn't protect against that.
Antivirus is the very last line of defence and shouldn't be relied upon.
It takes on average 48 hours for antivirus companies to detect and write code to remove new virus types, yet new ones are released on an hourly basis. The security companies are always playing catch up.

A small client I'm working on now gets over 4000 attempts on their system every day and that's just random attacks, not including bad web links or email attachments. You get pretty much the same on any PC that's online unless you have a good firewall in place and most people would never have a clue it's going on in the background.

Microsoft introduced "Patch Tuesday" to improve the way they handled security updates. This system accumulates security patches over a month, and dispatches them all on the second Tuesday of each month, so that system administrators may prepare for it.
The following day, known as "Exploit Wednesday", is the time when exploits may appear which take advantage of un-patched machines with the newly announced vulnerabilities. Most people just think it hasn't happened to them yet so they are safe but I deal with it on a daily basis. I had someone the other week who had £9K taken out of their bank. They had antivirus installed but they had no patches installed so they were using an out of date web browser with holes in it.

If they just wanted you to upgrade so they could open your wallet they wouldn't be giving Windows 10 and Mac OS X away for free would they?
It saves them money only having to support one operating system instead of things like Windows XP that was released in 2001 but they still have to have a team supporting it for 14 years afterwards when it's no longer making them money after you bought it.
Imagine having to check every app and software application, printer and graphics card drivers etc is safe and works on XP, Vista, Windows 7, 8, 10. Imagine the cost if car manufacturers had to service every car for free for 10 or 15 years after you bought it. That's where the cost is.
It's a massive job and open to far more security issues than if everyone just used the same thing and kept it up to date so they had far less holes to patch.
I spend hours on the phone trying to fix obscure faults only to find it was fixed in an update months or years before but they haven't installed it. It's the first thing we do now, install all the updates and see if the fault is still there.

You've effectively paid for 10 years of support from Microsoft when you bought Windows so why not install all their patches and bug fixes?
Otherwise you're still using the same buggy software as the day you bought it and likely to have someone gain access to your machine sooner or later.

You are looking at this from an extreme point of view.
Your client with the 4000 random attacks per day.................... is that against a firewall? Or is it against machines on the network? If the latter, you should suggest they get a better IT guy.
Yes, there are nasties out on the web, probing machines it finds online to see if there is a way in. Thing is, the vast majority of us use a router/modem to connect via adsl/vdsl. That router will more than likely have a built in firewall, and if it doesn't (unlikely), the router still runs NAT, which will protect against random 'drive by's.

Oh, and Windows 10 is no longer free.

 

[ChrisPCarter]

The main one for us is Quickbooks
2012 version will not run on Win 10
Also have an access control program that last time I looked was not suitable for 10
And apart from that I just do not like the way 10 is laid out

I really don't see why you'd still be using a 2012 version of QuickBooks???
It's not exactly expensive and all the tax settings and calculations will be out of date.
Fair enough if the access control won't work, some of those things can be slow to get changes made but Windows 10 really isn't that different to Windows 7 and has compatibility settings so you can usually get them working with a few settings changes.
You can change settings on Windows 10 and have it look very much like Windows 7 too.