Cunninghams Till Upgrade

[timbo343]

I have just had an email from my catering team saying that cunninghams are now stating that their systems are needing to be upgraded.

 

I was wondering if anyone else has had the information? I did mention to them when they were installing this why they weren't putting in Windows 7 devices - they kinda ignored the question.

 

I have attached the letter if you have not already seen it and waiting for someone to ring me back to explain it all to me.

 

Just thought i would make you all aware.

XP End Of Life.pdf

[forkies]

They rang up like before Christmas I think to get our version numbers... By the sounds of the guy on the phone we were well out of date.

 

They decided to come in yesterday and do the updates on our tills and server. However they (Cunninghams and the canteen) failed to tell IT Support they were doing this. This has lead to a few issues, the main being that our Impact software now does not have a password on it on launch. So any kid can go up to one of the outer tills and add some money on their account!

 

Will be ringing them in the morning.

[howartp]

Tim, my catering manager received it today and passed it to me.

 

We're on XP and Biostore 1, on Toshiba ST-10's.

 

However we're already investigating alternative suppliers (I'll keep that in another thread) so will compare upgrade costs versus other suppliers.

 

I've emailed them asking our account manager to ring me.

 

Peter

[IrritableTech]

Do the POS not use embedded XP? That's supported until 2017 I think.

[timbo343]

Tim, my catering manager received it today and passed it to me.

 

We're on XP and Biostore 1, on Toshiba ST-10's.

 

However we're already investigating alternative suppliers (I'll keep that in another thread) so will compare upgrade costs versus other suppliers.

 

I've emailed them asking our account manager to ring me.

 

Peter

 

Will be interested to see what the outcome is. Im not in the office tomorrow (wednesday) or thursday morning but ive asked them to give me a ring... heh, i asked them at 1.30pm today and not heard anything back. If you hear owt before thursday afternoon would you let me know at the NM meeting (providing its still on)

[timbo343]

Yeah they use embedded XP and i see you are right http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-gb/product-lifecycles.aspx. Maybe we dont have to upgrade just yet. Will see what cunninghams have to say.

[timbo343]

They rang up like before Christmas I think to get our version numbers... By the sounds of the guy on the phone we were well out of date.

 

They decided to come in yesterday and do the updates on our tills and server. However they (Cunninghams and the canteen) failed to tell IT Support they were doing this. This has lead to a few issues, the main being that our Impact software now does not have a password on it on launch. So any kid can go up to one of the outer tills and add some money on their account!

 

Will be ringing them in the morning.

 

Oh dear, sounds like someone didnt know what they were doing. Thats another thing that knarks me off about this company, all the tech support guys seem to have a major attitude problem and a chip on their shoulder.

 

Just out of interest, how much did they charge to carry out the upgrade?

[fiza]

I contacted Cunninghams about this a few weeks ago and I was told that they use XP embedded so no need to upgrade just yet.

[dezt]

I got the same email yesterday from our catering staff, turns out we need to upgrade all our tills and the 2 PC's we use for the system. I phoned them yesterday and they said they would get back to me, still waiting, time for another phonecall i think.

[forkies]

Oh dear, sounds like someone didnt know what they were doing. Thats another thing that knarks me off about this company, all the tech support guys seem to have a major attitude problem and a chip on their shoulder.

 

Just out of interest, how much did they charge to carry out the upgrade?

 

Well I believe the company who run our canteen paid for it (or has a support contract which includes this) as I haven't seen a bill.

 

Turns out they didn't upgrade the right folders so the outside tills (and our admin pcs) where still running the old versions exe which caused the application to not ask for user/password. So if you ever forget the password just load up the old exe and you are in.

[timbo343]

I have just had some more information about the till upgrade from cunninghams.

 

The Cunninghams cashless system will operate and be supported in the normal way. The reason that the information was sent is in a number of schools the school I.T department maybe configuring the school switches to NOT allow XP traffic to run across the school network. If your school I.T department is not reconfiguring the school switches / network then the school will NOT need an upgrade to continue to operate.

 

A large number of schools will continue with the XP operating system.

 

If you could confirm with your school I.T department the school plans regarding the XP operating system.

[FN-GM]

I have just had some more information about the till upgrade from cunninghams.

 

Sounds like they are making it up as they go along!

[howartp]

I have just had some more information about the till upgrade from cunninghams.

 

Sounds like they are making it up as they go along!

I reckon they've suddenly realised what a big job they've given themselves upgrading every school in the country* to Windows 7 during Spring Bank or the Summer Holidays, in addition to all the other Year End and new-customer installs they do, so they're wildly backtracking.

 

(*those on Win XP Pro, not EPOS edition etc etc)

 

Tim sent me that quote by email a short while before he posted it and I've been racking my brains to work out exactly how such XP filtering is possible.

 

I've concluded that MAC address filtering or a separate VLAN for XP clients would be necessary? I know WMI could do it for GPOs, but I can't think how WMI can be used to prevent file-share access etc, so it wouldn't particularly prevent them from getting on the network.

 

Their original email should have been along the lines of 'if you are on XP and you don't have network-level security such as Firewall/UTM and NAT at the edge of your network, you should consider upgrading to Windows 7. Anyone with those features in place doesn't need to do anything unless you wish to'. They could even turn on the local firewall on the till and lock down 80/443 and other non-required ports.

 

Peter

[FN-GM]

'if you are on XP and you don't have network-level security such as Firewall/UTM and NAT at the edge of your network, you should consider upgrading to Windows 7. Anyone with those features in place doesn't need to do anything unless you wish to'

 

That would be bad advise even with that networking Kit it shouldn't be on XP.

[howartp]

That would be bad advice even with that networking Kit it shouldn't be on XP.

 

But that's basically what they're now advising, albeit in non-technical speak...? Why is it any worse than what's currently in place?

 

I chatted about our situation with my colleague along the lines of 'if we weren't looking to leave Cunninghams, would we need to do the upgrade' and his comment, which I don't think is invalid, is why do they need upgrading? They never go on the internet, they aren't susceptible to the public internet because of the NAT and firewall.

 

If a new exploit is developed by Mr Nasty, it will usually come into the network on some other internet-enabled device on the network. If this device is Win7, it won't be blocked until an update comes out, so it doesn't matter than XP hasn't received updates; if the device is Win7 and an update has been released, it will block it before it gets to an XP device.

 

Am I wrong?

 

Peter

[FN-GM]

But that's basically what they're now advising, albeit in non-technical speak...? Why is it any worse than what's currently in place?

 

I chatted about our situation with my colleague along the lines of 'if we weren't looking to leave Cunninghams, would we need to do the upgrade' and his comment, which I don't think is invalid, is why do they need upgrading? They never go on the internet, they aren't susceptible to the public internet because of the NAT and firewall.

 

If a new exploit is developed by Mr Nasty, it will usually come into the network on some other internet-enabled device on the network. If this device is Win7, it won't be blocked until an update comes out, so it doesn't matter than XP hasn't received updates; if the device is Win7 and an update has been released, it will block it before it gets to an XP device.

 

Am I wrong?

 

Peter

 

Clearing it off the XP machine will be a pain, you might not even know it has an infection. Look at it another way. Those tills process personal data, such as names and finger prints. Any back door security holes won't get fixed so someone might be getting into it without you knowing.

[howartp]

Clearing it off the XP machine will be a pain, you might not even know it has an infection. Look at it another way. Those tills process personal data, such as names and finger prints. Any back door security holes won't get fixed so someone might be getting into it without you knowing.

 

Agreed - which is why the advice and fobbed-off explanation sent to Tim is bad.

 

Peter

[timbo343]

And the tills dont run any AV either. Im not even sure we can install AV onto them..

[fiza]

They told me the Tills use XP Embedded which will still be supported by Microsoft.

[timbo343]

They told me the Tills use XP Embedded which will still be supported by Microsoft.

 

I checked the tills the other day. The tills are running XP Pro and the Reval unit is running XP home.

[timbo343]

My bad, just taken the cover off a till and the license is for XP Pro embedded

[NikChillin]

When I log onto our Cunninghams tills I get a message saying XP will not be supported in 2015.....