ECN Forum Forums Technical Discussion Re: Computers and the Internet When will XP run out?

Both my laptop and desktop systems still use Xp, but as for discontinuing support for the operating system I haven't heard anything yet. I did hear windows 8 will no longer have the traditional desktop screen, instead it will be like the ipad's version.

And to think I still have a windows 98, all it needs is an audio driver.

According to Wikipedia first week of April 2014 is the end of support of XP

I am still running several W/98 machines. The software may not be supported at microsoft but that just means they have finally fixed all the bugs

Software never goes bad, you just start getting hardware that won't run on it. (drivers) but before you give up, look at the manufacturer's site. There may be a driver for an older piece of hardware that still works. If you run old hardware, the old software is perfect for it.
New software is just a trap to make you buy new hardware.



Want to see a screaming fast machine? Run W/98 apps on a machine that was made to run XP. (any P4 with a gig or so of RAM).

Bill Gates seems to have dropped that deal about loading XP on another machine too. It used to be that you had to jump through hoops to move the registration from one machine to another. Now it just goes through when you do the register on install option. I haven't tried to run the same S/N on two at the same time tho. I bet it will gripe about the first one the next time you hook into microsoft.com and it runs the verify routine.
I know the last one you registered the software on works tho. (downloading media player or one of the other things that wants to run verify)

Youtube has videos of folks running WIN95 on modern 3GHz machines and WIN7 on 386's, etc.

Although I use XP at home and WIN7 at work, WIN98 seems to have had everything I needed. The only problems you run into are missing drivers and internet browser capability.

I am not sure what internet browser capability you lose.

You can go to oldversion.com and get the appropriate version of Firefox for W/98. You can also get the old versions of flash and whatever else you need.

It really depends on what you are doing with that machine. My main machines are on XP with some upgraded products (like Word) but my "appliance" machines are still W98 (weather station, MP3 players etc) mostly because the software I run is not XP friendly but I still want to be able to get to the internet and they all hang on my network.

For the few hardcore DOS users out there, you can run DOS on XP using a free program called DOSBOX but it runs seamlessly on W/98.

Bill Gates makes sure there are not any easy ways to bootleg a copy of windows since W/XP but the XP versions seem to be a lot looser on the verification these days.
Typically every copy of windows is only licensed to one machine and they poke around your machine for MAC IDs CPU IDs and some other unique identifiers when you authorize it.
Lately I have noticed XP is not picky when I move it but I am sure 7 and 8 will be.

Sorry to drag this old thread up again, apparently M$ is planning to end all support for XP on April the 8th 2014.
My XP computer is now starting to nag me to upgrade to W8.1.

Like that is ever going to happen.

I think what will happen is a lot of people will just turn off the notifications, I know I will be, come the 8th of April.

I have not seen that nag screen yet but I have 6 running XP and it is not likely to change any time soon. I have 2 W/98 machines.

My wife is not going to change her 12 Point Of Sale machines either. They still work and there is no reason to think they will stop working.

The primary push for up-grading the operating system is the DRM crowd... aka Hollywood.

The number one reason to not upgrade is your CPU and system.

8.1 requires drastically more chip speed -- and is written for 64 bits NOT 32.

Silicon Valley hasn't shipped a 32 bit machine in years.

I must conclude that some provision has been made for emulation of 64 bits -- but -- on the whole -- older machines actually can't use 8.1.

Just as XP can't run on 16 bit machines. Any attempt at emulation causes the machine to slow down to the point of futility.

This transition to 64 bits goes back quite a ways. It's really designed for Hollywood.

32 bits was plenty for all other uses. The old IBM 360 could run an entire Fortune 500 company with 32 bit 'words.' 64 bits was a double-word, 128 bits was a quad-word.

Of course, the cheapo towers being thrown to the curbs these days are fantastically more powerful than an IBM 360 -- which would not be able to drive an iPhone.

I am not sure what needs that blazing speed anyway. I was watching video on a 266MZ Pentium 2 machine with a video accelerator card. (my first DVD player).

A 2mz P4 seems to do just fine on most things and once you get up to 3mz I am not sure what the average person can't do.

I suppose if you are into gaming big time or doing video editing it is useful but certainly not for the things I do every day.

Of course if you load it up with a bloated operating system that eats CPU cycles for the sake of eating them you need a new machine. They just have not showed me what 7 and 8 can do for me.