News:

"The phone is a remarkably complex, simple device,
and very rarely ever needs repairs, once you fix them." - Dan/Panther

Main Menu

The final curtain . . . for XP/Firefox and Alternative Advice

Started by TelePlay, April 08, 2014, 07:59:44 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

DavePEI

Windows patching for Zero Day in XP!!! An emergency patch is coming out for XP to protect against the new Zero Day flaw. As was their practice in the past, Microsoft is issuing patches for really severe vulnerabilities though XP has reached end of life.

Windows Xp: http://tinyurl.com/mgs5sn8

Note This update is being done despite that the actual attacks in the wild didn't work on Windows XP (in other words all the hype about it and affecting XP was incorrect.)

This goes to my point about virus/vulnerability authors writing them for the newer operating systems, so if you have a currently fully patched version of XP, there is not a whole lot of worry about most future bugs.

Dave
The Telephone Museum of Prince Edward Island:
http://www.islandregister.com/phones/museum.html
Free Admission - Call (902) 651-2762 to arrange a visit!
C*NET 1-651-0001

TelePlay

Quote from: TelePlay on April 08, 2014, 07:59:44 AM
Microsoft ends support for XP today. As such, my WiFi USB receiver will be detached from my main, desktop computer and my work shop computer to keep them off the internet, forever. Anything I do online will be with a smaller laptop and any files down loaded transferred to my desktop for processing, and back to the laptop for uploading. I never upgraded to Windows 7 because of the major hassle factor involved thanks to Microsoft's failure to provide good upgrade software. This new hassle will keep me from being as active as I was on the forum. The news people this morning claimed there are 500 million computers still running XP in the world today. What a mess.

And just got a message from Mozilla saying they will no longer support Firefox on XP systems (or Vista systems), provide security upgrades, etc.

To me, that means the desk top I am currently using will no longer be online as of September 2017 but will continue to use it offline becasue a lot of the productive software I have installed on it in XP can not be transferred or re-installed on another computer. And, would be lost if this desk top were upgraded to Win7.

It's a shame to junk a perfectly good working Intel Quad Core computer.

unbeldi

Quote from: TelePlay on March 10, 2017, 06:26:16 PM
And just got a message from Mozilla saying they will no longer support Firefox on XP systems (or Vista systems), provide security upgrades, etc.

To me, that means the desk top I am currently using will no longer be online as of September 2017 but will continue to use it offline becasue a lot of the productive software I have installed on it in XP can not be transferred or re-installed on another computer. And, would be lost if this desk top were upgraded to Win7.

It's a shame to junk a perfectly good working Intel Quad Core computer.

You don't have to. You have finally peace from MS.  You can just happily keep using it without having to fight them in their struggle with bad software.
XP was the last MS system I used. It was actually ok after years of debugging. I still use it as a virtual machine under Unix, and will for years to come for software that requires it. It actually works much more smoothly than running on old PCs. Starts up almost instantly, faster than some modern apps.

TelePlay

Quote from: unbeldi on March 10, 2017, 06:37:18 PM
You don't have to. You have finally peace from MS.  You can just happily keep using it without having to fight them in their struggle with bad software.
XP was the last MS system I used. It was actually ok after years of debugging. I still use it as a virtual machine under Unix, and will for years to come for software that requires it. It actually works much more smoothly than running on old PCs. Starts up almost instantly, faster than some modern apps.

Thanks, that sounds interesting. But, not my strongest area. So you install Unix as the operating system and run XP already on the machine as a program in Unix? And if so, which browser do use?

unbeldi

Quote from: TelePlay on March 10, 2017, 07:11:33 PM
Thanks, that sounds interesting. But, not my strongest area. So you install Unix as the operating system and run XP already on the machine as a program in Unix? And if so, which browser do use?

One installs a virtual machine subsystem on the host computer, such as Virtual Box by Oracle, and then one can run other operating systems in parallel.  It is a bit tricky to copy an existing system, but possible. I have transferred a laptop myself once.
This can be done not only on UNIX, but even on Windows or Linux. Virtual Box is pretty popular.

oldguy

You can get Window 7 pretty cheep on eBay. It worked for me even though I still like XP better. I'm still running XP on one of my laptops & it's works ok.
Gary

TelePlay

Quote from: oldguy on March 10, 2017, 11:00:52 PM
You can get Window 7 pretty cheep on eBay. It worked for me even though I still like XP better. I'm still running XP on one of my laptops & it's works ok.

I considered that when XP support first ended. Problem was the conversion wasn't the same as going from Vista to 7 or 7 to 10, The hard disk would be totally written over and all of the installed software would be lost, would have to be installed again in Win7. Nothing installed in XP would "automatically" transfer over to Win7. That's why I never did the change over.

andy1702

Don't bother with anything Microsoft! I use linux mint wugh the matte desktop. It looks a lot like Windows XP, so no problem re-learning basic use. It's also a lot lighter on system usage so runs a lot faster. It feels like you've gone out and bought a new machine!

Best of all, pretty much all software for linux is free. The installation process for software is a bit different to windows, but once you get used to it then it's a lot easier. Linux is also not so prone to viruses as Windows.

I rebuilt an old PC with a new motherboard about 5 or 6 years ago and installed Linux Mint. However I kept my daily use box to one side just in case I found anything I still needed windows for. Since that date I have never switched on the windows machine once!

I run office software, photo manipulation, video editing and even a live video switcher for multiple cameras broadcasting to Youtube Live. All of this from an ordinary PC with no add ons such as graphics cards etc.

Why anyone would still pay for software is totally beyond me!

Andy.
Call me on C*net 0246 81 290 from the UK
or (+44) 246 81 290 from the rest of the world.

For telephone videos search Andys Shed on Youtube.

jfisher

I second Linux Mint, although it's not for every computer. I had used it for several years but when I recently purchased a new Lenovo laptop I had problems with wifi connection and found that Linux (Ubuntu and Mint) has issues with my internal wifi card. Investigate your system and see if Linux will work properly. There is plenty of info on the net concerning Linux and the Linux community is very helpful. Just my 2 cents. ;)

andy1702

That's the first case I've come across where there have been any issues. Maybe it's because it was a brand new computer? With anything new it takes everyone else a while to catch up and support it.
Call me on C*net 0246 81 290 from the UK
or (+44) 246 81 290 from the rest of the world.

For telephone videos search Andys Shed on Youtube.

compubit

Probably the case.  If the vendor isn't supporting a piece of hardware from the start, then there's the period of someone reverse-engineering a Linux driver.

The bad part is some of the manufacturers are in bed with M$ and lock the BIOS from booting anything but a "secure" OS (i.e., Windows 8 or 10), as well as make some hardware bits (network cards especially) driverless, except for Windows.

I run Windows 10 for work (and prefer it to Windows 8 ) - first thing I do is shut down all of the infernal tiles - just give me a classic start menu and I'm happy!

Jim
A phone phanatic since I was less than 2 (thanks to Fisher Price); collector since a teenager; now able to afford to play!
Favorite Phone: Western Electric Trimline - it just feels right holding it up to my face!

TelePlay

Does "never say never" apply here? Looks like it.

"Microsoft officially ended its support for most Windows XP computers back in 2014, but today it's delivering one more public patch for the 16-year-old OS. As described in a post on its Windows Security blog, it's taking this "highly unusual" step after customers worldwide including England's National Health Service suffered a hit from "WannaCrypt" ransomware. Microsoft patched all of its currently supported systems to fix the flaw back in March, but now there's an update available for unsupported systems too, including Windows XP, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2003,"

I don't know if the auto update function of XP did or did not upgrade my only machine running XP (I did experience an update a week or two ago but thought it was for Word, didn't look), and didn't know Microsoft released this security update until I heard about it on early morning AM radio today. You can get the upgrade download here:

     https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55245

I'm probably the last person to find out about this, nothing new there.

mariepr

XP is still out there, most famously the UK's National Health Service computers were still running it when the WanaCry encryption virus attacked their system.  Thus the Microsoft XP patch although they had officially ended XP support. 

I still have an XP laptop that I use for travel as it's largely scrubbed of personal files and is very lightweight.  Only drawback is that I have to access email through the web as the Outlook Express is too outdated to work with my internet service provider's servers.  In the back of a closet is a 98 machine.  Guess I keep it in case I come across some floppies and want to see if anything worth keeping can be transferred.  (Although if I haven't missed the files after all this time.....)

TelePlay

It's interesting that I started this topic 3 1/2 years ago and today, and knowing that Mozilla won't support FireFox on XP and Vista after September 2017, my daily driver desk top with XP and FireFox is dying.

Display PCI card is failing (try to find a PCI card these days) and I've run into registry problems that I think are beyond repair. As such, I'll be down one computer and have another tower sitting in the dungeon - they want real money to dispose/trash one of these in my area.

Undecided if a new tower will be purchased (dirt cheap with 1 TByte drives) or just go with my 2 1/2 laptops.

All good things must come to an end, unfortunately.

Pourme

Got to admire the fact that you just rode that horse into the ground!
Benny

Panasonic 308/616 Magicjack service