I wonder what the take up of Win 7 / 8 has been since they snuffed out XP?
Do we have any up to date figures yet?
XP was running on 27% of PC's globally just before the final update got pushed out.

One way is is to keep a check on the many market share statistics sites that provide O/S and browser reports.

One being http://www.netmarketshare.com/
Latest report here

Crikey, Windows 7 has expanded faster than 8 + 8.1 this year and now has nearly 50% of the total PC O/S market, with XP still at 27% in March, and W8 + 8.1 only at 11.3%.

Given most businesses have stayed with win 7 to reduce the training costs its not surprising that its crept up but i do wonder if a lot of these xp machines are in places like africa and are donated machines that came with xp installed

Also a lot of enterprises with XP are upgrading to Windows 7, not 8.x

The whole reason i'm going for Linux is that i do want to access the internet on my old XP computer. I'm not upgrading to Windows 7 at quite an expense for two reasons 1. It's some 9 years old and i don't know if one day soon it will just groan and die lol (although it handles 4meg video streams without a stutter with several other windows/apps open). 2. It may not have enough capacity to handle Windows 7 comfortably.

From various website reports, It's very clearly that many business and home users are upgrading to Win 7 and not Win 8 because of Win 8's interface issues. Win 7 is, like XP, user-friendly and, according to local PC repairers, that seems to be the favoured upgrade as well. I expect that Microsoft will end up having to extend Win 7's end of life too as so many people will still be using it.


Yep, that all makes sense now and here's a guide to possible Linux options right here http://www.pcworld.com/article/21076...-a-new-pc.html. That said, I would probably substitute Linux Mint for Ubuntu as an option since the Linux Mint interface options will probably be easier to get on with. Good luck with the changeover!

Plus Ubuntu Unity won't run properly with only 512MB RAM as suggested by that article.
Not sure if Mint Cinnamon would either mind?

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showt...7#post72407137

I posted in the IE11 thread a couple of times about the new 'limited attack'.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...l-9295068.html

It now translates to this " security flaw in the company’s Internet Explorer browser that could allow hackers to take “complete control” of a user’s computer."

TIn hat time. So recently we have had the update that never ends, then the update that brought down many a machine, especially card payment XP machines, and now IE 6 is officially unsafe (it always was to me).

Thinking abut it, timing anti litigation wise, I think they might just issue a fix on this. The fix will be similar across the board too so it is logical they should backtrack to origin. If it originated in IE6 then logically they should be held responsible.

I doubt they'll issue a fix generally but those who pay for extra support may get one but people have had plenty of warning and since its just IE they can switch to another browser and carry on

They sold a dud.

Seemingly only the bad guys knew it was a dud, sometime after August 27, 2001
A 13 year hole?

I think this hole interfaces with Adobe Flash.

Methinks anyone using Flash with IE 6 should uninstall it
Having it installed has always been a risk. Now it is not justifiable.

This bug affects all IE versions, on all versions of Windows.

A patch will arrive for Vista, 7 and 8, but not for XP.

So even if you are using IE 8 on Windows XP, it's time to switch browser for good.

Don't use my XP machine much (windows 8 made me a Mac convert) but I've noticed that the Norton updates recently have been huge and required a restart so I presume they are doing their best to make up for Microsofts disinterest.

That is good advice because that browser's best avoided since it is the target of so many hackers who try to exploit its weaknesses. The best thing to do would be to switch to one of the alternatives such as Opera, Firefox, Safari (yes, it is available for Windows too), Chrome and so on.


That is a very good point and earlier versions of Linux Mint might do the job if the specifications are too high for Linux Mint 16. Ideally, I wish the Linux Foundation or someone else would release a downloadable Linux Upgrade Advisor, similar to the Windows equivalents, which would advise which Linux distributions would be most suitable for the PC/laptop being scanned.

Adobe Flash is best avoided here. They work hard to please Microsoft so I have doubts anything fixed is forthcoming there.

Uninstall it and disable IE.

Microsoft Patches Windows XP IE Security Flaw Despite End of Support

"Even though Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft and is past the time we normally provide security updates, we’ve decided to provide an update for all versions of Windows XP (including embedded), today. We made this exception based on the proximity to the end of support for Windows XP. The reality is there have been a very small number of attacks based on this particular vulnerability and concerns were, frankly, overblown. Unfortunately this is a sign of the times and this is not to say we don’t take these reports seriously. We absolutely do."

They should of left it alone as from now on every flaw will get the end of world treatment in the media and MS having done one fix will be expected to release another patch everytime, bet the IE team was just thinking thats 3 code tree's closed down and whammo it's like they never had a few weeks off

It is just date overlap and anyway the IE11 bug originated in IE6

I'd day it is unlikely to set a repeated precedent.

I reckon it was a case of the patch isn't different for browsers on XP, so because it is available for all other platforms, MS release it as goodwill. It's a no-win situation, if they go hardball, they get criticised, if they take a softer line, they get criticised.

I certainly wasn't surprised that it's taken less than the first 'missing' patch cycle to find a 0-day.

If the next one isn't the same, I agree they won't repeat this. They could have just not pushed the patch via WU, a bit of tough love would be a better compromise, IMHO.

One last question if anyone can give a quick answer, i don't particularly want to open a new thread or divert this one so just a short reply would be fine. I'll go researching if i need to but trying to save time as i've a busy day today and would just like to satisfy my curiosity at this moment.

If i have a programme installed on my XP such as Paint Shop Pro can i leave it there if i decide to (temporarily) add Linux as a dual boot.

Will PSP run on Linux (i can transfer it to my W7 machine if need be) or would i need a purchasable or free Linux open source similar application. (i will create or look at previous specific threads when i switch to Linux next week)

Don't worry i'll research all such things myself when i go to install Linux and am deciding what to back up to to an external hard drive (or my W7), but i'm trying to think of a rough timetable to convert over the next week and wishing to get an idea of time involved and number of tasks to do.

As ever massive thanks in advance for replies.


EDIT I forgot to ask my main question all this time (it also applies to similar programmes/features pre-installed on my computer)......on my XP machine i have pre-installed an excellent CyberLink Power DVD burner, if i install Linux will it write over the disk and therefore delete it, or will the DVD burner not work with Linux anyway, and i'd only be able to use it if i also keep XP (as in a dual boot).

Depending on hard disk space maybe i am best keeping XP (but not use it for the internet) and only use when i really need to use an old programme such as Paint Shop Pro?

Yes to the bit in bold but there are broad linux equivalents of paint shop pro (see http://alternativeto.net/software/pa...platform=linux) and there's a linux programme called WINE (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_%28software%29, http://www.winehq.org/about/) that (mostly) allows Windows programmes to run within the framework of a linux operating system.

The Cyberlink software should be safe in a dual boot system but there's DVD and CD burning software available for linux (see http://www.techdrivein.com/2011/03/9...tools-for.html) plus there are assorted media players available too.

I think you'd be best advised to keep XP and dual boot with Linux, then you can boot into XP when you need to use Windows programs.
By all means disconnect XP from the internet.

You may find after a while that you can get by using the Linux equivalents to the Windows programs.

Puppy Linux will run properly with 512MB of RAM (although it would be advisable to add a swap file or partition to back it up a bit. Windows has the equivalent in the form of a page file).

You can try Puppy Linux and get full speed performance out of it by just running it as a Live CD. Just download the .iso and burn it as a disc image onto a CD and then boot with it in the CD drive. You don't need to install it. You don't need to set up a dual boot although you can if you want.

If you want to save some settings and add some programs, all you have to do is create a save-file on your hard drive or on an external hard drive or USB flash drive.

Those old XP machines can be made to run better and faster than ever, with no worry about viruses.

http://puppylinux.com

These days, Linux has pretty much a software equivalent to what's available on a Microsoft PC/laptop, e.g. office suites, photo and video editing, CD & DVD burning and now even gaming's arrived in the form of the Steam platform.