Well, XP was good while it lasted. Today, it is officially is no longer supported by Microsoft.

 

http://blog.newegg.com/xp-officially-retiring-today-os-upgrading-to/

 

What are your thoughts?

Windows 7/8.1 will fill its role nicely. Both OS's make a good replacement for it. It just comes down to a matter of preference for which one you want to use. They both do the same thing in the end.

But will either Win7 or 8.1 see off other OS's that MS might have on the drawing board like it----XP---- did seeing off Me and Vista, both botch-ups from MS. I lost count of the businesses who when I worked for an IT company wanted Vista removed from their Dells and revert to XP.

I think 7 will take over XP's place, and be the OS that MS supports for a looooooooooong time.

 

 

But will either Win7 or 8.1 see off other OS's that MS might have on the drawing board like it----XP---- did seeing off Me and Vista, both botch-ups from MS. I lost count of the businesses who when I worked for an IT company wanted Vista removed from their Dells and revert to XP.

Honestly I didn't find Vista bad at all. I actually really liked it. It looked better than XP and worked better in many ways, but XP was still #1 choice for most people.

"Windows XP End-of-Life Starts Today"

Strange because I just turned on my two Windows XP machines and they are alive and well....

"It's Alive....IT"S ALIVE" 

My thoughts? Things move to quickly in this wolrd of ours. The amount of computers using Windows XP is still pretty significant and I'd like MS to keep supporting it. I couldn't care less though as I'm now using Windows 7, which will be my last ever Microsoft OS unless a new magical flight simulator appears on the market with 64bit code, DX12 graphics and in-game addon store. I rarey use desktop computers these days, and when I do I prefer Apple to Microsoft.

With end of support Microsoft has just created an opportunity for a Billion Dollar industry with after market support. The anti virus/malware companies will continue to support it.

 

Microsoft should have extended its end of support by offering a paid subscription to support it, but they have only offered that to some government agencies. Those contracts are worth approximately $10,000,000.00 per contract with each government agencies signing up. Now if they extended that into the private sector this is a billion dollar industry.

 

But I guess they would prefer to sell cheap upgrades to Windows 8 instead.

Seems I got its very last message perhaps?

No less than 5 Windows Updates offered, just 2 hours ago... no I did not install them.

I look at it like this...

 

I don't run a business, only online shop using Gift cards, and don't have any sensitive information on my hard drive (Tactical Battle Plans, blueprints of a Caterpillar Drive, nekkid, scantily clad girls...).

 

If some hacker wants me bad enough, I guess he'll get in. Otherwise, XP stays on the rig until it kacks.

 

Besides... wasn't FS9 and FSX written at a time when there were only single core computers, and that they still only access one core? If that's the case, then my P4 3.2 gig CPU is just chugging along.

 

What will I get next? Another P4 rig, I guess!

 

 

wasn't FS9 and FSX written at a time when there were only single core computers, and that they still only access one core

 

FSX uses all four cores here, been that way for a long time now.

 

Seems I got its very last message perhaps?

No less than 5 Windows Updates offered, just 2 hours ago... no I did not install them.

Those would be the last 5 updates to ever be released. The first Tuesday of every month is update-day. 

I look at it like this...

 

I don't run a business, only online shop using Gift cards, and don't have any sensitive information on my hard drive (Tactical Battle Plans, blueprints of a Caterpillar Drive, nekkid, scantily clad girls...).

 

If some hacker wants me bad enough, I guess he'll get in. Otherwise, XP stays on the rig until it kacks.

 

Besides... wasn't FS9 and FSX written at a time when there were only single core computers, and that they still only access one core? If that's the case, then my P4 3.2 gig CPU is just chugging along.

 

What will I get next? Another P4 rig, I guess!

Well to be honest, if you're not a "dumb" internet user (I.e., someone who goes on sketchy sites or torrents a lot), I don't see why this affects you in any way. Sure, it'd be nice to see them still support it, but, they won't. 

 

Well to be honest, if you're not a "dumb" internet user (I.e., someone who goes on sketchy sites or torrents a lot), I don't see why this affects you in any way. Sure, it'd be nice to see them still support it, but, they won't. 

 

 

Diego, you hit the nail right on the head. No Torrents, Banners, Pop Up's or sketchy links for me!

Well, XP was good while it lasted. Today, it is officially is no longer supported by Microsoft.

 

http://blog.newegg.com/xp-officially-retiring-today-os-upgrading-to/

 

What are your thoughts?

 

 

FSX and FS9 hit end of life along time ago and they still are very much in use.  I read a report that most ATM's, hospitals, and government agencies still use XP.  While MS is on it's high horse they better hope all these agencies don't have service affecting problems do to hackers.  End of life is not when a company decides but when a product is truly not in use on the market anymore.  Especially true when essential Agencies around the world (Police Departments, Hospitals, Governments) who Microsoft has marketed their products to are still very much in use.  Windows 7 was solid but with the economic downturn around the world the last few years have been rough.  If something serious happens because of this Microsoft may have spelled the death nail in their dominance around the world.  Linux Red Hat and Ubuntu will never reach end of life only get expanded upon.  That's a safer bet for agencies controlling the money flow, aircraft in the sky, and electronic health records to name a few.  For essential agencies like the FAA, FBI, and other agencies that still use XP Microsoft's chain yanking may be cause to seek another solution.  World Banks have already done this... The two dominant OS's in use around the world today is Windows 7 and XP.  Trying to force the market to bend to your will causing unintended consequences will hurt MS more than it helps their effort in pushing everyone over to Windows 8 (their true goal).  Make a decent product and people will come.  Everyone in our community (98%) switched from FS2k2 to FS2k4 when it was released.  If your offering is crap you'll have a serious market split as many people will stay with what works.  It's going to be interesting seeing how this all plays out, Bill won't be able to save the company if this effort/agenda goes south...  There are many hackers around the world who's whole life purpose is to hack the hell out of 'The Man's' infrastructure.  Maybe virus solutions like Symantic and McAfee will save the day for Microsoft by keeping most of this at bay.  We'll see...

 

 

Here's one report I found:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2014/0408/Windows-XP-end-of-life-exposes-vital-industries-to-risk.-Where-s-the-panic-video

FSX uses all four cores here, been that way for a long time now.

 

I was not aware of that; thanks for the clarification! I based my statement on posts that I had read in the past.

 

Is that the case with FS9 as well? One of the things that has kept me away from even using W7 are all of the horror stories about UAC, and how some add ons are really hard to get working in W7.

 

 

Is that the case with FS9 as well? One of the things that has kept me away from even using W7 are all of the horror stories about UAC, and how some add ons are really hard to get working in W7.

 

FS9 will only use one core.

UAC can be turned off, it even has a slider to allow you to do this.

 

 

Some addons will need installing outside of C:\Program Files (x86)\ due to the special protection this location has which can effect how the addon writes its data files to the user directories.

 

The Author of Flightsim Commander explains it thus

 

For applications installed under C:\ Program Files (x86) which generate files for the
outside world (= other applications), Vista and Windows 7/8.x place these file into a
virtual store which other applications may know nothing about. Consequently, the other
applications may look for these files in a specific folder which, however, does not contain
the expected file.

 

So basically be aware of this issue with C:\ Program Files (x86) and install somewhere else and you are fine.

Windows 7 is a far superior OS than XP and I was a XP64 diehard, but Win7 is definitly Microsofts most solid OS to date.