Windows XP support to end.

[Touchtone]

Microsoft has announced it will discontinuing support & security updates for Windows XP from the 8th April 2014.
Therefore it may be time for XP users to start thinking about a new operating system for their XP computers. Without support & security updates XP will become very vulnerable to cyber attacks.
Microsoft has supported XP for 10 years, so it would be unreasonable to criticize them for ending it, as in this day & age things are updating & changing so often that it is sometimes hard to keep up with it.

[bruce45]

some time ago the date set for this was April 2013 but it was extended to give users more time to upgrade there systems. I think that was the reason for offering windows 8 with the free media package for a little over £25. its not just home users that is effected but many businesses still use xp as a there server system and upgrading to vista was one of the only choices until windows 8 was released. there is a poll / posting about windows 8 that could be helpful to those who are not sure what system to upgrade to.

just found the topic about windows 8

https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewtopic.p ... ows+8+poll

[RayProudfoot]

I'll be staying with XP. The netbook used to upload weather data is not used for any other purpose. It's wired into my network behind a router with a decent firewall so I don't see a problem.

In any case the netbook can't run W7 without a hardware upgrade.

[water01]

Slipstream SP3 with all the latest patches prior to April 2014 to CD and you will have a perfectly adequate Operating System to run Cumulus for years to come, especially as Ray says most machines are behind a Firewall and a Router with a Firewall as well.

This is simple scaremongering by Microsoft to force people to switch from what is still the second most popular OS in the Windows environment behind W7 and is old news as they have been threatening this for years with very little effect. After all quite a lot of people still use DOS based systems to run very old versions of business software!!

[RayProudfoot]

One of my Cumulus pages shows what OS I'm running. I think I'll play safe and remove that entry shortly. No point advertising the fact my OS will soon be unsupported.

It might be prudent for others to consider doing the same or even replacing it with a Windows 7 entry.