XP exit

Comedy of errors with XP exit

Windows XP has less than 12 months before it it’s officially dead, unsupported, consigned to the history books.  Really, is that important?  Well, for the half million XP computers (yes 500,000) here in lil’ ol’ New Zealand that is important.  (What can the world population be if we still have half a million of the critters?)

How is it that an operating system removed from sale over 4 years ago still has such a large user base?  How can a computer last that long and still be worth booting up each day?  That’s the thing about the maturing computer market.  Step back 10 years and that wouldn’t have been the case.  Technology was changing so quickly and you really needed to keep upgrading just to stay in the game.  But for the last few years a Pentium 4 or above, partnered with a reasonable amount of RAM, a decent sized hard drive and just a budget graphics card is really all you need to surf the web in some style.  Sure, if you like blitzing aliens or want to run the latest first person shooter that spec is going to be wholly inadequate, but for many people, a reasonable web experience and the ability to process some words from time to time is really all that’s required from your workhorse.

A 3 or 4 year PC running Windows XP will tick those boxes.  There’s the rub.  It’s enough.  It represents a $1000+ that I don’t need to spend now because it’s enough.

So what are these XP users going to do come April next year when the evil empire stops supplying patches

All or nothing - I've given up on MSIE on all my machines

and security fixes?  Well, I guess they’ll do what they’ve already been forced to do regarding their web browser – since Microsoft stopped allowing XP users to run their latest IE browsers people have been looking elsewhere.  I tried Firefox and Chrome and was pleased with what I found so the loss of IE for me on my XP machine was no great trauma.  Actually, Microsoft lost me as surfing customer as I no longer run IE on any of my Windows 7 machines either as I'm now a born-again Chromer.

Microsoft are trying to tell the XP user base that they can, subject to some hardware constraints, purchase a copy of Windows 7 for the bargain basement price of $249.  Really?  Does that make any sense at all?

If I’m going to invest $250 in technology I’m not going to squander it on an OS that was never intended for my aging but dependable hardware.  By the time XP's imminent death rolls by I’ll be ready to put that money to good use on a new web surfing device.  And guess what, Microsoft, it may not necessarily be running your operating system.  If you want to lock me in as customer, make it worth my while but don’t wait too long.

Clock ticking for XP users (Stuff)

No more IE upgrades for Windows XP users (Cnet)