The XP Hermit

I’ve been a Windows XP user for over 10 years.  Come tomorrow, when support for the XP operating system will have withered and died, I’ll still be an XP user, at least in part. 

I have three computers.  Do I need three?  Not really, but I like having a backup so that if things go wrong, there’s still a computer available to me for both work and play.  It was two at one point, an older (11 years) desktop and a newer (5 years) laptop.  Although one ran Windows XP and the other Windows 7, I was able to get them to interact enough to trade files, which is all I needed.

In May of last year, the network card on the desktop was fried by a lightning strike nearby.  Surprisingly, nothing else was damaged and I could still use it.  But, my two computers could no longer “talk” to one another and exchanges between them became a thing of the past.  Shortly after that, though, I received a free laptop.  Well, a free laptop with keyboard damage and a slowness issue its previous owner no longer wanted to deal with.  It was an older model and also running Windows XP, but it more than met my needs.  So, for the cost of having a new keyboard installed and a few hours of my deleting a bunch of software that was clogging up both memory and drive space, I had a third computer, although the newest member got stored away as a “just in case” machine as I continued to use the other two.

Cut to late last year, when Microsoft officially announced it was dropping support for the XP operating system.  I was like most XP users, without the funds to upgrade to a bigger, better, faster machine.  But unlike other XP users, I was fortunate for one thing.  The laptop was purchased back in the days of job and extra funds. At the same time, I also bought Windows 7 software.  It was intended for the older desktop, but I found out after buying it and opening the package that the desktop would need so many hardware upgrades that buying a new computer made more sense.  I didn’t want to do that, so the software sat unused until this year.

I didn’t try to load it onto the XP laptop when I got it because I figured it would be similarly unable to handle the new OS.  Well, that was wrong.  On a whim last week, I tried it and it worked.  It required over 100 updates  and 5 hours of frustratingly waiting for them to download and install and restarting it over and over and over, but it was worth the aggravation.

So, Windows 7 is now the two-thirds majority in the house.  If Microsoft follows the same timetable for dropping operating system support that it did for the XP, I’ve got at least a decade before Windows 7 obsolesces.  The younger laptop will likely be able to handle an OS upgrade, but the most recently acquired laptop probably won’t. 

As for the desktop unable to upgrade and still running Windows XP, it’s alive and well and will continue to be so off the internet grid even after tomorrow.  It won’t get updates for any software anymore, but since it’s not communicating with the outside world and doesn’t do much beyond word processing, a few spreadsheets and some games, it’s no big deal.  It’s isolated, but still very functional. Eventually, it will meet its demise, its innards recycled and its shell, sadly, likely ending up in a landfill somewhere.  But for the time being, it will continue on in spite of Microsoft’s choice to drop it like a hot potato.

It’s a hermit, not by choice, but by necessity, and it’s a working hermit at that. 

On Being Kicked Out of the Land of Windows XP

If you haven’t already heard, Microsoft will no longer be supporting the Windows XP operating system as of April 8th of this year.  Computers running Windows XP will continue to run.  It’s not like you’ll turn on your computer on April 9th and be greeted by a death rattle and a blue screen saying, “Goodbye, I’ve gone to that big OS place in the sky.”  It only means that Microsoft won’t be writing anymore software to protect it against cyber-villains who love to find vulnerabilities in any operating system and take control of it for their purposes or just ruin your day by accessing and deleting or rewriting  everything precious to you.  Yes, it is potentially that bad.

You might think that up-to-date anti-virus software is the answer.  Partly, but not completely, and none of the AV software developers are guaranteeing continued support of XP beyond 1-2 years.  Microsoft wasn’t writing those updates for giggles.  Computer attacks come in different forms and they’re not all in a way that even the best AV software will catch.  Even at their most perfect, all operating systems have flaws, little cracks in their programs that hackers just love to find and exploit.  That’s what those updating patches were for, to fill those cracks, and after April 8, they’re not going to be coming to an XP computer near you.

So, no more updates, no more security patches.  Windows XP has reached its expiration date and like a can of soup that’s marked as should have been eaten two years ago, you use it now at your own risk.  You might ask why Microsoft would do this to so many people, folks who may not be able to afford to upgrade to something still supported by them or buy equipment with their newest operating system bells and whistles built in.  I’m sure there’s an official statement as to why, but let me give it to you simply.  Microsoft is a business and one of the things they do is create operating system software.  You want bigger, better, faster, they can make it happen, but it’s at a price.  Yes, price, cost – MONEY.  They’re providing updates free of charge.  It’s damned nice of them, but it’s not profitable for them to continue to write software code and provide it free for every operating system indefinitely.  How are they going to make any money when you’re forever happy with what you have? 

Some call it keeping up with the cyber-times, creating a better computer experience and keeping the hackers at bay in the process.  Maybe, but much as it’s been 15 years of Microsoft supported bliss for all of us Windows XP users– yes, I said “us” – I think you can also throw a bit of planned obsolescence into the mix as well.