Less funny when you realize it’s mostly banks, government agencies, and militaries still using it.
I’d say more likely it’s labs, hospitals, and other scientific stuff where you have to deal with old instruments cause lack of money. I’m fairly certain the military uses some other OS, I believe NATO uses Solaris for example.
Also that machine only works under very specific circumstances, so you fear changing anything in case your entire protocol breaks and you have to start from scratch.
“Windows for Submarines”
It’s XP for Vanguard subs. I really hope none of them provide any telemetry for these stats though.
doubt they’re connected to the internet. In fact I’d wager 99% of shit running windows XP is not connected to the internet (and shouldn’t be)
if it’s not connected to the Internet, it won’t show up in the stats
You know there’s other ways to do these kinds of estimates, right?
As a former banker I can tell you that most ATMs run Windows NT 4.0.
However since the network is completely clamped down and the OS boots via network as well (no hard drives in ATMs), they are pretty secure.
I’ve also indeed seen some Windows XP terminals in use just lately - one in fact in a hospital my current company collaborates with - but it’s isolated and used to run some sequencer that was never ported to a 64 bit architecture, and apparently doesn’t run in compatibility mode either.
Also Cobol mainframes.
Yeah seems about right.
In my lab we have a spectrometer and an HPLC with computers that use windows XP.
Tho I noticed the HPLC one is connected to the internet, gonna have to ask them of that’s necessary
Tho I noticed the HPLC one is connected to the internet, gonna have to ask them of that’s necessary
Someone had to download the Doom installer at some point, of course.
The current company that owns the old model installed in your hospital and sells the new version, bought the company that bought the company that made the version you have and can’t update the firmware and code to work on a modern OS because all knowledgeable staff were lost in the buyouts.
The best they can do is sell you the new version that does the same thing your current working version does for $500,000.
Maybe they even have a new ecosystem that they want you to move to, because they don’t make support/subscription revenue with the current stand alone server that moves the image or telemetry results from the machine to the viewing workstations and records database.
If the U.S. military is anything like it was in the 90s, they may very well still be using Windows XP for all kinds of things. My mother-in-law ran an army reserve center through the late 90s and they were using DOS machines well into the Windows era because the army wouldn’t update their computers.
And hospitals. Don’t forget those.
And ATMs. Lots of ATMs.
Add industrial automation to the list.
I’ve seen Citrix used a lot in hospitals to host apps. Xp isn’t used any longer since it’s not supported.
I highly doubt it. I work for a large bank, and it’s all W10/11 due to the need for continuous security patches/currency updates. Large banks don’t mess around with EOL software that has a risk of vulnerabilities
Yeap, on the workstations. In the atms and cash recyclers etc… got bad news for you…
Large banks don’t mess around with EOL software that has a risk of vulnerabilities
Well, more complex modern software has an higher risk of (yet unknown) vulnerabilities.
And medical. Suppliers if CT, MRI and X-Ray gear are notorious for wanting to sell new gear and not providing software updates to work on new operating systems.
Why do you think it’s less funny this way?
Mainstream support ended 15 years ago. Extended security support ended 10 years ago. The last version to have any kind of update at all was their embedded OS version for things like cash registers, with the last security update 5 years ago.
So it’s wildly insecure against any new attacks targeting an OS that’s largely used by major corporations, governments, and medical facilities that are juicy targets for theft and ransomware attacks.
There is a service called 0patch that offers live microcode updates for XP. They’ve even won bounties for a few things they caught before Microsoft.
I pay about $30 a year to live micropatch my WIn7 gaming partition and have had no issues despite also being a bit less than diligent when it comes to digital buccaneering on that machine.
More funny in my book.
Might not be so funny when you’re slowly dying of radiation sickness.
What? First time I hear XP gives radiation sickness.
Because they stick with what works.
It’s moreso that they have some abandonware that only works on windows XP.
Windows XP itself is abandonware and you shouldn’t use it in any other case, just use Linux if you don’t like newer windows. You certainly aren’t doing any photoshopping on XP nowadays so that’s no concern.
I guinely hate windows as a product. But man XP was a banger for it’s time
As usual I think that sentiment was retroactive, certainly once Vista came out. At launch, people hated the Fisher-Price look of the Luna default UI. Like, a lot. The switch to the NT based kernel for the home version of Windows also caused a shitton of people’s hardware and peripherals not to work anymore because they needed new drivers and the manufacturers of said gadgets – if they were still in business – could not be arsed. Some of this could be alleviated by bullying that hardware’s Windows 2000 drivers into working with XP. Some of it could not.
They should’ve just used the Silver theme instead of blue luna. Unless it didn’t exist on launch.
I liked XP in its own era, it’s not just nostalgia. Although computers and the Internet in general were very exciting to me back then.
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XP’s stability was a wonder at the time. Not many people remember how unstable Windows 2000, ME, and ALL the predecessors were.
Win98 meant rebooting a minimum of four times a day.
Why in the world are you being downvoted for that comment?
apparently I picked up a few comment stalkers earlier, frankly I didn’t even know downvoting was an option here.
Windows has its ups.
The only problem people should have with it is that it’s on 70% of ALL desktops which is about half a billion too many.
A fair competition should be there. Linux, Mac and Windows should have around 33% market share in an ideal world.
You may count whatever Google is doing or Samsung/Huawei can do as separate in a dream world.
Vista was underrated though.
No. It was a crash test dummy for windows 7.
It was a beta that wasn’t stable.
it was as stable as windows 11, but the uac system and other security chnages broke a lot of apps, including some system services. As soon as the apps adapted it became pretty decent.
About the performance, win7 isn’t lighter than vista, vista just came out too earlyWindows 11 has been pretty rock solid for me.
Vista was not and working in IT for a long time I saw enough examples of vista to never recommend it.
XP was better at everything until windows 7 came along.
It doesn’t matter how light an OS is if it isn’t stable.
Windows 11 is in its beta phase. Like windows 10 was until 2018.
And 11 is the beta for 12.
Even though it was hated, it was the first successful 64bit OS from Microsoft. XP 64bit edition was terrible. 7 obviously perfected 64bit.
I wouldn’t call vista successful. Windows 7 replaced XP, Vista did not.
Like I said, it was a beta.
It was just doing its job as the ‘every other version of windows is terrible’ sacrifice.
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Vista was the warcrimes of OSes
If Vista was a person, it would be a hot looking drunk tourist that gives you crabs after a one night stand and steals your change bowl when they sneak out in the early morning.
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My first laptop ever came with Vista and it’s was so bug ridden and crashed constantly. It was so nice when windows 7 finally came out.
At least it wasn’t a virus magnet
It really was though. UAC didn’t actually work until windows 7.
Newest versions of windows 11 make it incredibly hard to find the screen that shows all your network adapters. It is now easier to use device manager to disable and reenable an adapter.
How do I know? Because all the shit tier screens and tools that offer to help you with a network issue didn’t work. ONLY reenabling the NIC did.
Had to do it on my whole network
Learn the ways of the run prompt: ncpa.cpl launches you right to the classic network adapter control panel screen. I have to get in there so often that I’ve taught myself plenty of those little shortcuts because MS can’t leave shit where it was.
JSYK they are planning to drop .cpl support in a future w11 update. I know it sounds like crazytown to anyone who has worked in IT but here we are.
They hate control panel now and I cannot figure out for the life of me why.
…And it all has to be there for legacy compatibility, because some Fortune 500 company somewhere has some rickety piece of shit in-house “enterprise” software that relies on some obscure aspect or another of a past Windows version.
I am sort of partial to those rickity old systems that force them to keep legacy software compatibility.
I can still load up and use a program that was written 20 years ago for windows XP.
It also gives third parties like classic shell or startallback the ability to restore all the functionality that the newest start menu disaster tries to push.
IT person here: this is absolutely correct. I know of two buildings in a ridiculously expensive zip code known for international trade that their entire HVAC system is run by a grey case XP box that MUST always have internet connection.
It was considered a cost saving method at the time as opposed to real building services control panels and the company that wrote and sold the software to the local companies went out of business in 2001. There are more businesses in this position just these are the only two I’ve personally been called to service.
In both cases neither machine had been allowed to reboot for more than a decade because of the legitimate fear that the hard drive bearings would fail if they were allowed to spin down.
And neither were interested in replacing it
Why don’t you just use control panel?
I never use the windows settings menu unless I absolutely have to because, like you insinuated, it’s really not that great.
Control panel on the other hand is still there and will get you exactly where you need much quicker.
i find the best solution to this problem is to install linux
Yeah, my primary is Kubuntu. I have windows on the side for the few games I have that I need it for.
You can also just search “network” and the screen they want is either the first or second result. I rarely ever go into any kinds of settings menus anymore, i just search on the start menu.
Why are the settings for a single device spread across multiple sections of the OS though?
Because windows 11 is an updated version of windows 19 and windows 10 is an updated version of windows 7/8.1.
Each one of them has had holdovers of previous versions of windows. And each one has tried to bring in a new standard to bring them all together but they’ve always moved on to the next standard before finishing it. Windows 11 has actually came the closest but we’re not there yet and because it’s actively replaced old methods of doing things in this process it feels more fractured than before because we’re not used to looking in the new places for them.
I feel like making important changes was easiest with XP. It feels like they’re trying to obscure administrative functions behind layers of abstraction.
Even easier in powershell:
Get-NetAdapter
Disable-NetAdapter
Enable-NetAdapter
its
To be fair, whomever decided to use an apostrophe to indicate possession AND abbreviation clearly didn’t think through all the possible conflicts before going ahead and making it a thing. Should have made a separate symbol for one of them.
Windows XP outliving two of it is successors.
When I was working security for a hospital they wanted to send imagery from an MRI (or maybe CAT, I forget) upstairs to be interpreted without allowing any network traffic to be able to reach the host machine because it was running XP. I asked why, and they told me that in order to replace it the vendor was requiring a $7 million replacement of the whole MRI.
That should be illegal and the vendor held accountable for security incidents happening because of this.
I’ve worked in hospitals that still run DOS based programs for certain things. It’s madness.
Same shit is starting to happen with cars. No way to get the new headunits without replacing the whole car. I know Porsche offers electronic upgrade kits, but I can’t think of any others that do.
What worries me more is what eldritch horrors await us in other versions
“Please watch this advertising video that is relevant to what you were discussing with your wife in the other room this morning before your browser can be launched.”
Lmao too true
7
excuse you sir, windows 7 is still one of winblows highest points far from being horror, eldritch? perhaps, but no horror there
Wasn’t as good as 8 (.1)
I have a copy, I just need to find an old-ass pc to install it on.
Maybe an ATM.
You can install it on a new-ass PC and it’ll be lightning fast!
There’s tons of legacy shit still running XP and there probably will be for at least another decade.
Yea I think most ATMs work on XP.
$20 says there’s at least one person out there still running Win3.1 daily.
I know of an older couple running 3.11, wife is a writer and she refuses to use anything other than wordperfect.
No internet, and just a printer.
Every time they call me out to service it they treat me like a long lost grandson with food and the occasional knitted gift so I don’t mind despite the fact that just keeping their (no joke) Pentium II (the edge slot version) alive is frankly one of the hardest projects I’ve ever had in my career. And I’ve had to service government software…
Set them up with a VM on a newer machine
100% computers are out there still running it. But I doubt it is anyone’s daily driver. More like a secondary rig.
More like a critical computer running at the heart of a billion dollar company running software written in a long forgotten language against apis that no longer exist.
Yeah, I have a w3.1 machine and I play with it regularly, but it really lacks as a daily driver. On the other hand, my w98 machine can do basically everything I need for work, except web browsing. It’s fascinating how little have operating systems progressed in the last 25 years, user-facing wise.
I collect vintage and iconic computers as a hobby, and the only reason i bought a win98 machine was so I could play DOS games on the real hardware. But otherwise yeah, it can do most things youd use a modern computer for very well other than it shouldnt connect to the internet.
You can connect it to the internet, just be in the mindset that anything you do on it someone else can see it.
Just please don’t connect it to a network
George RR Martin writes all his books on an old ass computer:
https://www.daskeyboard.com/blog/how-george-r-r-martin-writes-on-an-old-school-dos-computer/
But you are right, if it was his daily driver we’d have more books out by now…
these are mostly enterprise systems right? like terminals/pos stuff where the system is responsible for just running the ui?
Possibly. There is an embedded version of XP that’s meant to be run on kiosks, control panels, thin clients, and such. Its support was finally ended in 2016, but I’m sure there are still machines around someplace still working that have it baked-in. Probably in ROM in some cases.
in the early 00s there were a few companies that made building services panels based on embedded XP kiosk partitions, things like HVAC and lighting.
It has been my genuine hellish curse to have to work on two of them.
More likely to mostly be 3rd world countries
I don’t even know why people use Windows 10 (or 11) other than momentum.
I haven’t used Windows for years, but my daughter’s new online school required either a Windows 10/11 computer or a Mac and we can’t afford even a new decent Windows notebook, let alone a Mac, so we ended up getting a refurbished Thinkpad running Windows 10 from NewEgg.
Windows 10. Is. Annoying. As. Fuck.
We are constantly getting interrupted by unnecessary popups (or were until I took the time to disable everything I could think of, which was a pain in the ass).
After running updates, it made me go through a bunch of screens turning down paying for things. Twice. And those popups still asked me about paying for things. Motherfucker, I already paid $300 for the computer, I’m not paying you shit.
And wow is stuff counterintuitive in how to do it compared to either any Linux GUI I’ve tried or Mac OS. Just trying to figure out how to get to a File menu is baffling half the time.
I don’t blame anyone for using XP over that shit. Let alone Linux or even a Mac.
I don’t even know why people use Windows 10 (or 11) other than momentum.
Security updates. That’s it, that’s the only reason I recommend anyone unwilling or unable to switch operating systems all together to move to Windows 10.
Just wait until they start putting ads in the file menu and make you sit through a 30 second commercial every time you want to open an application unless you join windows premium + subscription only 15$ a month
Drink verification can to continue your Windows™ experience
Microsoft reserves the right to collect and sell any genetic information exposed to drink verification can via bodily fluids.
Proceeds to transmit your entire genome to their cloud servers in plaintext
For me I use Win11 for one reason: Auto HDR. Fixes every issue I have with HDR in other OSes cause it just works.
I can see that, but is it really worth running it as an OS other than for that specific use? Because if not, you can just run it in an emulator or on a partition when you need that.
armenia
What’s up with Armenia and terrible PC’s tho? I have honestly fished better equipment from literal trash cans than what’s offered in most the PC stores over there. Is there like some ill-concieved embargo on electronics in place?
This will be 7 one day
I don’t think so, main reason is XP was still heavily backwards compatible to 95, 98, even DOS based software. Many control software for industry only support to XP, because jump to windows 7 was too heavy. If anything supports windows 7, it is really easy to port to windows 10. Main reason is the driver support, because win 7 having new driver architecture.
Windows 10 will be the next “forever stuck” OS, because end of Internet Explorer on it means that there are tens of thousands of industrial software that require IE, and cannot ever be ported to win 11.
Yup, same reason modern games all get ports but some old ones never will. Everything has the same architecture now so it’s easy to port an Xbone game to W10 and the new Xboxes.
I’ve been looking for advice. I’ve been wondering if it was worthwhile to upgrade from 10 to 11. I heard 11 had ads and even more bloatware, a disgusting UI, and just general worse. But i was wondering if those are fixed/avoidable. I was thinking of upgrading before it gets too late, or idk…
No, they’re not going to be fixed or fully avoidable and you want to stay on Windows 10 or just go to Linux.
Windows 10 is genuinely better in every single way and it is incredibly sad.
And also, there is no “too late” as you can always upgrade whenever you want.
Thank you. Just the news of windows 8 being unsupported got me thinking.
And i’ve never touched linux. I might have to take the plunge and learn once win 10 becomes obsolete and unsupported.
Linux is not much different depending on what you do, all I recommend is stay away from distrobutions that use snap packages and the like. Linux Mint is a common recommendation.
I mainly use it for gaming. Whether it be triple a games. Or indy niche gaming. Plus like the ability to run like anything.
I heard there was a better alternative than linux mint for amd cpu/gpu users, but really i havent looked into anything for linux yet.
If you don’t mind not being able to run games with anticheat other than easy anticheat you’re good, people recommend “Nobara” as a gaming distribution but I always think tailored distros are a bit silly as something like Mint can do all of it anyways.
There’s not much you can’t do on Linux nowadays anymore thanks to Proton.
There is a company called 0patch that makes microcode patches for legacy Win systems.
I pay about $30 a year for microcode patching on my WIn7 partition and have had zero problems despite it being always internet connected.
Plan on doing the same once win10 goes end of life for my everyday driver.
Full disclosure: Not paid for this, they are a legit digital wonder.
This seems like a lot of hassle for no reason? It also doesn’t sound like it’d protect against much if it’s just microcode patching.
What’re you doing with Win7 where you still need it so desperately?
You’re not in IT, are you?
Do you know what microcode patching even is and why it is in many ways superior to simple file patching?
There is no effort. You just sign up for an account and install their systray program. It’s as easy to set up as a subscription VPN service. All the patching is done live in memory first and in 4 years I’ve needed to reboot exactly twice.
I have a huge stack of retro games and code projects that work very poorly on Win10, as well as the fact that my Win7 version is Ultimate so I make a lot of use of XP mode virtual machine and booting from virtual disk on bare metal for my moderately older games (something I can’t do with my win10 home license). Can’t even get win10 drivers for half of my hardware on that box.
Also kind of annoyed by your hostility so you’re blocked now.
I’m sorry, but there was zero hostility in my comment whatsoever. Quite literally just questions, and I am in fact in IT and was curious.
Nothing you’ve said seems like it’d need full internet access but it’s at least interesting, but asking more is pointless now.
It’s also quite easy to upgrade your Windows licenses for free, I would’ve been interested in what old games you’re playing.
Windows 11 is miserable. You are now required to add Microsoft accounts at the OS level. Tons of bloatware, embedded ads in start menu, heavy user tracking. Shitty AI implementation pushed on all apps including notepad. And all of the windows 10+ elements are built in the windows 8 base image so all of the settings are nested on top of the new settings UI, on top of control panel.
local accounts still work, even on home edition
ads in the start menu work the same way as they do in windows 10 (pinned tiles that download actual apps from the store, you just need to unpin 'em)
I still don’t have any of the ai stuff, and pretty sure they should be controllable with a simple group policyYou can poleaxe the start menu ads with group policy as well. Same as with Win10.
Win11’s telemetry load is significantly higher than already outrageous win10’s to the point I feel it is a legitimate security risk.
Things like passing off your wifi passwords in plaintext to MS servers is really only the tip of the iceberg.
When w10 goes End of Life, I’ll be buying 3rd party microcode patching from 0patch.
Screw w11 with every fiber of my being.
It’s totally fine to upgrade from Windows 10 to 11, it’s basically the same thing. Overall it’s better in some regards (like better HDR support, direct storage is coming and so on) and a bit worse in others (I do hate the new right click menu). No ads though and barely any difference to Windows 10 as far as I noticed in over a year of using it.
Windows 10 already had all that stuff, telemetry, a link to Candy Crush in the start menu, it’s the same shit. Windows 11 didn’t get worse in that regard at all.
So just do a fresh installation of Windows 11 (don’t upgrade Windows versions, it’s a mess in the background) and have fun.
Not from what I can tell. While upgrading will not detrimental from what I’ve heard (since you can upgrade a local account), there’s a lot which I personally don’t like about with Windows 11 which will make me want to not upgrade. If you have no intention of moving away from the Windows, it may be best to upgrade while MS is offering it.
Otherwise, if you are willing to take the plunge Linux is the better option if you are looking for an OS which has no ads, no adware bloat, and a UI to your liking. Mint or Zorin are a Good Windows like starting point if you are looking to get started.
MS is offering it
Massgravel my friend
Ive used MS my whole life. So im just stubborn to move to linux. But really i think just have to put in the effort and i’ll be happier in the long run.
They way I see it is this. I look at my computer as a tool and ask is it working for me right now? What software do I need for it to work? Is that software Windows only, if so can I move to an alternative software that cross platform?
Your computer is a tool that lets you do things. If some software, even the OS is holding you back take a look at what is holding you, and see if its worth the negative of staying to keep that software.
For me that answer was Yes Windows is holding me back, but for years I was shackled by Professional Software, games and Legacy apps which kept me to the platform.
Steam with proton fixed the games issue
Swapping myself to different cross platform software helped with my Professional software.
Legacy was managed with a cheap $20 thrift store laptop with Windows xp installed.
Imam now free to move away from windows, I chose Linux since I idealize a “do it all” pc, but Mac OS is also a viable alternative.
I just built a desktop for Windows 11, unfortunately I need a Windows desktop in the house even though Debian is my main OS. Last desktop was 13 years old and just wasn’t working for my needs anymore. Default 11 install is horribly bloated but I actually like the desktop environment now. Here’s some stuff I did:
Customized USB image to bypass Microsoft account with easily found steps if you Google. Used Chris Titus Tech’s tool to remove a bunch of shit, install apps, disable telemetry, configure windows update to security only. Used “Reclaim windows” script from github and customized for my purposes. After that I confirmed if all the shit was gone and did a remove-appxpackage for anything left, like widgets etc.
So I have a bare bones install, no Microsoft account, no Microsoft store, no “apps,” no default associations to builtin tools, and a bunch of common foss utilities and all my favorite windows-dependent apps working. Can’t believe it took the amount of effort it did but I like it now, given what my expectations were it definitely exceeded them.
I think with that much effort, ill just learn linux…
Yeah pretty much, most linux distros are at a usable state by default and you spend productive effort learning how to manage it, it’s probably easier than Windows at the end of the day especially for general use. I’m a heavy user of Ableton Live with plugins and using Windows is the only way to run it on your own hardware. Also becomes my gaming machine, but everything else is Debian.
i think it’s better.
the only downside is minor visual bugs with the taskbar, and the edge causing issues if uninstalled (may cause update loop or permanently break all pdf files unless you set another handler and previewer beforehand)
explorer got little bit slow ever since the tabs got added but it’s definitely not unusable, and I’d rather take 1 second hit to the loading time than an explorer without tabsInstall Windows 11 using UK English and you’re basically dodging 99% of the complaints people have, I support 5 computers with W11, no issues with any of them and no adverts bothering me.
Now go donate to reactOS and fund your own rescue.
