XP Die Hards who refuse to upgrade

[sinetheo]

Depending on which statistics you read Windows XP is still insanely popular and makes up 1/3 of all internet traffic.

 

PC Magazine has an article on the XP die hards who blow off EOL and refuse to get with the times and stick to what is familiar. One user uses Windows XP because he feels gmail is too slow and bloated compared to outlook express. Others feel doing a weekly image backup all the time is more convenient to install Windows 7. Many others see no reason to change as what they have already works.

 

The article is here http://www.pcworld.com/article/2139352/true-confessions-from-windows-xp-faithfuls-why-they-refuse-to-move-on.html

[McKay]

Let them use XP if they want. They know the risk if its connected to the internet. Just don't expect to have people do anything other than say "I told you so" if something bad happens. 

 

They should know their complaining holds zero weight anymore regarding XP vulnerabilities. 

[MtnDewCodeRedFreak]

^  Yup, exactly. Let them live in the past and ignore any whining about them being hacked into.

[Raa]

I've still got quite a few clients on XP. Many won't have any issues as these are offline machines that do simple tasks.

 

Others... well... I gave them the warning!

[Hum]

Let them use XP if they want. They know the risk if its connected to the internet. Just don't expect to have people do anything other than say "I told you so" if something bad happens. 

 

They should know their complaining holds zero weight anymore regarding XP vulnerabilities.

There is no risk if you prepare a XP cloned drive. ;)

[ATLien_0]

And...there were plenty of Windows 98 die hards when EOL happened. If they haven't upgraded by now, they probably still won't now

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

i hate to compare computers to cars, but there are always people that refuse to buy a new car b/c their 12yr old car "works just fine"

 

you know youre probably driving a ticking time bomb, but it works just fine right now so who cares to upgrade?

[+Warwagon MVC]

So how many Windows Exploits come in via firefox?

 

I honestly think just getting the hell off IE8 will greatly reduce the risk of infection. I mean you will always have Flash, java, Adobe Reader which will give you trouble on XP or any other version of Windows.

 

I would also recommend removing any old version of office (2000,xp,2003) on an EOL XP machine and install something like kingsoft office.

[Dot Matrix]

So how many Windows Exploits come in via firefox?

Depends. How gullible are the users?

[+Warwagon MVC]

Depends. How gullible are the users?

 

Exploits and Gullible are 2 very different things.

 

Gullible is fooling some idiot to running an EXE file. Which would can easily happen no matter which version of Windows you are running.

 

Exploit is when the user is sitting on a previously safe, recently compromised website and gets their computer taken over doing nothing. I will admit like in the case of Facebook users can't be duped to going to a site that has an exploit. But most of the time it's sites that are trustworthy that have been compromised.

[MikeChipshop Member]

Let them use XP if they want. They know the risk if its connected to the internet. Just don't expect to have people do anything other than say "I told you so" if something bad happens. 

 

They should know their complaining holds zero weight anymore regarding XP vulnerabilities. 

 

In theory i agree. But what happens when these XP computers get infected and are used to attack the rest of us? Those people need to get with it and upgrade.

[vcfan]

eventually their psu will splode,and they will be forced to upgrade to a modern os.

[Dot Matrix]

Exploits and Gullible are 2 very different things.

 

Gullible is fooling some idiot to running an EXE file. Which would can easily happen no matter which version of Windows you are running.

 

Exploit is when the user is sitting on a previously safe, recently compromised website and gets their computer taken over doing nothing.

Not on Windows 8 - While you *can* run an .EXE on Win8, if it's malicious, SmartScreen filter will catch it, and alert the user. On XP, there are no such security features.

 

A user isn't automatically behind a steel wall by running Firefox. An exploit on XP now isn't a question of if, it's a question of when.

[+Warwagon MVC]

Not on Windows 8 - While you *can* run an .EXE on Win8, if it's malicious, SmartScreen filter will catch it, and alert the user. On XP, there are no such security features.

 

True but in that example that is not effected by the EOL

[Joe User]

So how many Windows Exploits come in via firefox?

 

 

According to this (http://www.extremetech.com/computing/178587-firefox-is-still-the-least-secure-web-browser-falls-to-four-zero-day-exploits-at-pwn2own), quite a bit.

[+Warwagon MVC]

According to this (http://www.extremetech.com/computing/178587-firefox-is-still-the-least-secure-web-browser-falls-to-four-zero-day-exploits-at-pwn2own), quite a bit.

 

Those are Zero day's In firefox which would also effect other versions of windows. I'm talking about  windows XP specific vulnerability which can be exploited via firefox.

[Dot Matrix]

Those are Zero day's In firefox which would also effect other versions of windows. I'm talking about  windows XP specific vulnerability which can be exploited via firefox.

So.. you're moving the goal post?

[McKay]

In theory i agree. But what happens when these XP computers get infected and are used to attack the rest of us? Those people need to get with it and upgrade.

 

Hopefully the more modern systems will be patched and unaffected by the attacks from XP machines. Or at least able to fend off the attack.

[+Warwagon MVC]

So.. you're moving the goal post?

 

I would guess IE8 would be a much larger audience on XP to exploit. Which is why I think firefox would be safer.

[Chasethebase Veteran]

Topic moved

[Tha Bloo Monkee]

Why fix what ain't broken?  They'll have to move on once their machine dies.

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

And...there were plenty of Windows 98 die hards when EOL happened. If they haven't upgraded by now, they probably still won't now

 

Or the hard drive has failed, and they can't find an ATA drive to replace and reload it with.

[Dot Matrix]

Why fix what ain't broken?  They'll have to move on once their machine dies.

XP is broken, and has been for quite a few years now. ;)

[COKid]

I would also recommend removing any old version of office (2000,xp,2003) on an EOL XP machine and install something like kingsoft office.

 

Yeah, I think I'll pass on some Chinese-made office suite. If anything, LibreOffice.

[Guest]

Not on Windows 8 - While you *can* run an .EXE on Win8, if it's malicious, SmartScreen filter will catch it, and alert the user. On XP, there are no such security features.

 

Not always. If the .exe file is a new / unknown one, quite a few users can get infected until information about the file is sent by SS to Microsoft, gets analysed there, definitions are created, and those are propagated to the users. To make things worse, if the users for some reason do not have SS running or have blocked it from reporting unknown .exe files to Microsoft, it could be even harder to create a knowledge base for those files.