Extended XP support for Birmingham schools?

[Trapper]

Just had an email from Link2ICT pointing schools still on XP to the Cabinet Office regarding their XP extended updates purchase.

 

Looks like some schools maybe eligible to get the updates via Central Government.

 

What do other folks think after reading it?

[sparkeh]

Pretty sure this covers all UK schools. In fact I think some people on here have already signed up if you do a quick search.

 

Here's the link for everyone: Custom Support | Crown Commercial Service

[free780]

Xp is dead its time to move on.

[Michael]

I really like this part of the above link:

 

Details on how to access the security patches for organisations with less than 250 devices with Windows XP and Office 2003 are currently being confirmed. We will confirm these details directly to your organisation.

 

Which I interpret as Microsoft have no way of knowing whether the device is school owned, business owned, or by an individual. I fear it really is going to be a ball ache, so you may as well continue deploying Windows 7. You also have to question whether these newer updates will be available via Windows Update, WSUS or downloading manually. I'd be very surprised if Microsoft make it straight forward.

[spacebar]

XP is still in place in many schools and companies, because it still works and does what it needs to do. Why Microsoft have pulled the plug is all down to money, All they want you to do is upgrade. They should have left it at least another four years.

[Arthur]

XP is still in place in many schools and companies, because it still works

That's debatable. XP is an awful OS.

[Michael]

XP is still in place in many schools and companies, because it still works and does what it needs to do. Why Microsoft have pulled the plug is all down to money, All they want you to do is upgrade. They should have left it at least another four years.

 

Yes it works, but have you tried buying a new notebook with Windows 8.1 and getting Windows XP to work on it? Not as simple as it first may seem and the time wasted sourcing drivers and ensuring the workstation's running to its full potential... that doesn't make business sense at all.

 

The security in XP is less than desirable (especially in 2014). XP reached its peak when XP SP2 was released (mid 2004) after the disastrous issues with the Blaster virus with XP Gold and XP SP1. Money of course comes into it, but you could argue (for example) that Windows 7 has a very fine tuned version of UAC (from the lessons learned from Vista). Could Microsoft have made a version of UAC for XP? Yes possibly, but you'd end up re-writing a good chunk of the OS as a result. Sometimes starting again with many parts of code makes sense.

 

I think Microsoft are getting to the point where Windows 8 and 8.1 itself are big re-writes of code, but hopefully this is where Windows 9 will probably shine as a result.

[mac_shinobi]

Wasn't there an article somewhere that stated by getting rid of admin rights reduced infections etc by quite a large percentage

[chrisredfield93]

I not tried this after all since Microsoft extended life of xp to the selective few aka governments etx then it was bound to be hacked or someone let it slip within the chain - I don't think microsoft could prevent it anyform.

 

Since reading few sources Microsoft don't seem that concerned of it reading online as they say the hack is for that version of posxp then it up to users but those updates not been tested agaimst xp - so I guess could say the finders of who found it out was close but not close enough.

 

If I recall correctly someone correct me if wrong but since the only diff between the xp editions were just hidden not disabled as I read ages ago media center cant connect to domains but if upgraded you cannot change it but it still would be connected and xp home don't have group policy but copying them from xp pro and few register dlls regedit then it work. Think these types of things now been proper fixed

[jb2201]

XP is still in place in many schools and companies, because it still works and does what it needs to do. Why Microsoft have pulled the plug is all down to money, All they want you to do is upgrade. They should have left it at least another four years.

 

Come on now, its been on the go 13 years. You can't expect Microsoft to keep supporting it in a sector where things change so rapidly. I would say anyone who purchased Windows XP has well had there moneys worth. You're right it does do the job, but as time goes by now, more and more vulnerabilities will be exposed, Microsoft are patching them for a price, but even that won't last forever. People have had plenty of warning of this coming, its time to upgrade and move on.

 

Besides, if you supported it for an extra 4 years, anybody in school at the time of the next d-day for XP wouldn't have even been born when XP was released. Now that really does make you feel old!

Edited June 5, 2014 by jb2201

[Davit2005]

XP is still in place in many schools and companies, because it still works and does what it needs to do. Why Microsoft have pulled the plug is all down to money, All they want you to do is upgrade. They should have left it at least another four years.

 

Windows 7 was a bit of pain with some aging software, I can't see why schools would want continue to use it (unless some old MIS or Finance software really needs it for a historical data point of view) or they really are that strapped for cash.

 

We migrated the place I first worked in 2010 over to Windows 7 that was almost 4 years ago.

Edited June 5, 2014 by Davit2005

[MatthewL]

You could say DOS is dead but its still part of Windows.

[Arthur]

You could say DOS is dead but it's still part of Windows.

The last version of Windows to include MS-DOS was Windows ME.

 

The Command Prompt definitely isn't MS-DOS, although it might look very similar.

[MatthewL]

I apologise, was before my time really!!

[unixman_again]

Windows 7 was a bit of pain with some aging software

Windows 7 is a pain with some current software too. If you use The Gimp, you have to disable several features to get it to run under W7, but it runs perfectly under XP.

 

I do miss XP; it was a lot quicker than W7 but times move on. We will stick with 7 and there is no reason for us to upgrade to 8. (I can imagine the complaints from staff if we did go to 8.) I don't know what happens when we get the 60 new machines we've ordered. Presumably we have to downgrade, but that's not my problem.

[Crumpet]

That's debatable. XP is an awful OS.

 

It's a product of it's time, i'd strongly disagree that i was an awful OS. It was pretty good up until when Win 7 was released.

 

Windows 8 is pants though, it actually makes me realise that Vista wasn't all that bad.