Win XP End of Life

[studebaker]

I use Cumulus on an old computer running Win XP to power my website, as I'm sure many others do. Of course MS will no longer provide XP security updates after Apr 8 2014. Does anyone have any comments on how vulnerable this will leave not only my Cumulus machine, but all other computers/tablets that are also connected via my WiFi network?

http://web.ripnet.com/~mbkerr/index.htm

[mikechristelow]

There will definitely be an increased - and possibly increasing - risk by remaining on XP after official MS support ends. You should consider migrating to Windows 7 (or, of course, a non-MS platform) sooner rather than later.

Protection offered by Anti-virus and internet protection products, free or paid, will not offer cast-iron protection against new exploits developed to take advantage of the fact that (a) official XP support has ended and (b) considerable numbers of XP instances will remain in service for some considerable time yet.

If the vast majority of XP was likely to be replaced in short-order, hackers would be less likely to spend too much time writing exploits but given that evidence suggests there'll be a lot of users still dependent on XP well past April 2014, there is a large community for hackers to target.

Of course, it's a personal choice and where the hardware is a determining factor (older PCs not necessarily being suited to or capable of running a newer OS) many will be faced with replacing both PC and OS. They may find the potential cost a problem but there are plenty of outlets available for reconditioned PCs or workstations with contemporary OS e.g. Windows 7 at very reasonable rates.

My recommendation is - upgrade. You really don't want to have your network and data compromised. It might not happen, but if it does...

[studebaker]

Thanks MikeChristelow. We are thinking along the same lines. I doubt my old machine will run Win 7, but even if it would, how long before Win 7 end of life? It seems that MS is really pushing Win8 touch screen and all. BTW that is what I'm writing this on. Not sure what the situation in the UK is, but here in the "great white north" it seems to me a lot of small business etc are still using XP. In fact some medical facilities are still on XP . Now that's scary! I'll probably look for another old "beater" that will run Win 7.

[BCJKiwi]

XP will be running on a lot of machines for many years yet. Most of it in places you would not expect - e.g. ATM machines.
There is a lot of embedded XP around on all sorts of systems. XP was still available for this purpose recently (and still may be?).
Now none of this is a problem and never will be if it is in a closed system.

The internet and email are the primary vectors for infection and spread of infections to other systems these days so if you have XP that never connects to the internet then there is no issue.

Most PCs that run XP are capable of running win7 but it is more expensive to buy than win8, so an 'old beater' is an option - just make sure you get the license key and it matches the one installed.

Alternatively you could 'isolate' the XP box from the net for everything but FTP and wait for Steve's 'new' Cumulus and then run it on R Pi or whatever you fancy from the new supported hardware .

[studebaker]

I bought a Pi a few months ago with the idea of using it to run my site using PYWWS. I'm afraid Linux is a bit of a steep learning curve for me Guess I'll just wait for Steve's new Cumulus Must say I do enjoy messing around with the Pi however.