So is the IRS.
http://consumerist.com/2015/05/29/the-irs-is- … -of-363-people/

(You'd think that they'd consider virtualization, at least.)

I still like how the IRS tried to bribe Microsoft to extend support even further.

DracoNihil wrote:

I still like how the IRS tried to bribe Microsoft to extend support even further.

"Bribe"? Source/citation for this?

From a bit of searching, it appears the IRS is not "bribing" anyone, but has in fact paid Microsoft for extended support for Windows XP (and paying for goods and services is not a bribe - they aren't doing anything illegal). Example source: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2488189/ … aining-pcs.html

Microsoft offers different support/service options for enterprise customers than consumers, and will provide legacy support (for a fee) to organizations that need to run legacy software/hardware. These organizations (e.g. the Navy, IRS, etc) are also exceptionally large - they own hundreds of thousands of machines, and upgrading their infrastructure to a new version of Windows (or whatever else) is a very big and involved process, especially if they're running proprietary/custom software or hardware on their networks (and in the case of government/military stuff, that proprietary stuff may also be protected/classified/whatever). Microsoft does offer virtualization tools for migration here (e.g. MED-V), but even that requires significant testing prior to deployment. From both sliderider's article, and the Computer World article I linked, both of these organizations have been working towards upgrades for years now (and nowhere has it been specified what function the upgraded, or non-upgraded, machines serve; they may not even be web-connected); this isn't "caught with the pants down" or anything of the sort, but you sell more newspapers by screaming "government incompetence!!" at the top of your lungs than you do by explaining the glacial pace of bureaucratically managed enterprise IT. 🤣

I don't know where I read it the first time but the word "bribe" cropped up in my head. Sorry if I sound stupid...

But it is very insane how much the governmental infrastructure relies on Windows, you'd think most of this stuff would be better suited to some form of *NIX...

DracoNihil wrote:

But it is very insane how much the governmental infrastructure relies on Windows, you'd think most of this stuff would be better suited to some form of *NIX...

I worked in a lab once that seemed permanently glued to a fork of CentOS 4, long after CentOS 5 was released – meaning the computers had some ancient version of Firefox and no NTFS support. No one wanted to upgrade and risk breaking everything.

So what?

I also use XP (x64) on my main desktop.

The UI is much more intuitive than anything else.

Vista/7/8/10 is nice, as in the new features are nice and all, but I don't use an OS to be the latest and the greatest. Their UI is absolutely horrible and a thousand steps backwards from WinXP.

DracoNihil wrote:

But it is very insane how much the governmental infrastructure relies on Windows, you'd think most of this stuff would be better suited to some form of *NIX...

AFAIK more "serious" stuff doesn't use Windows - like I don't think airplanes are using Windows for their flight controls or stuff like that. My guess is that the Windows systems here probably perform similar roles to what you'd find in schools, universities, businesses, libraries, etc (and all of those kinds of organizations also seem to be struggling to move past XP too) - these are probably mostly office computers, not the machines that control "the bomb" or anything like that. Then there's also probably the smaller percentage of them that have some specialized role like in a lab or running some in-house app, and it's the same situation as Jorpho is talking about. I've seen that with Internet Explorer 6 stuff in the past for example; you'd be amazed how much intranet junk still requires IE6 or is just barely catching up to IE8. 😒

Mockingbird: the point is NOT about usability. XP is a security nightmare. Sure MS lets them pay for extended security but they are throwing money away at an OS that is just flawed in regard to security...

I do recall somewhere something as old as MS-DOS 5 is still used for rationing systems.

mockingbird wrote:

The UI is much more intuitive than anything else.

To you. What is intuitive is mostly what you are currently used to. Mac users claim that the Mac UI is the most intuitive and everyone else would agree if they just used Mac. When Windows users get on a Mac they can't find anything. Even switching between versions of an OS can be irritating. As much as I used and liked XP I now find it irritating when I have to use anything earlier than Vista. Let a Windows user use only a Mac long enough and he will start to find it "more intuitive". I have see ex-Mac users move to Windows and eventually prefer it. It is a matter of perspective and usage.

DracoNihil wrote:

I do recall somewhere something as old as MS-DOS 5 is still used for rationing systems.

I think I've seen pictures of that! 🤣

Quick-search and here's an example on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS#/media/F … he_aircraft.jpg (dated 2011, and the caption says it was apparently on the way out)

Dominus wrote:

Mockingbird: the point is NOT about usability. XP is a security nightmare. Sure MS lets them pay for extended security but they are throwing money away at an OS that is just flawed in regard to security...

How exactly is XP a security nightmare?

1) If you just use your computer with a little common sense (i.e. you're behind a firewall and you have a resident virus scanner), how exactly are 0-day exploits going to affect you?

2) XP will still get security updates until 2019 via POSReady updates. How exactly is XP less secure than Windows 7 for someone who keeps up with the updates?

collector wrote:

To you. What is intuitive is mostly what you are currently used to. Mac users claim that the Mac UI is the most intuitive and everyone else would agree if they just used Mac. When Windows users get on a Mac they can't find anything. Even switching between versions of an OS can be irritating. As much as I used and liked XP I now find it irritating when I have to use anything earlier than Vista. Let a Windows user use only a Mac long enough and he will start to find it "more intuitive". I have see ex-Mac users move to Windows and eventually prefer it. It is a matter of perspective and usage.

Ignoring the fact that the UI was designed over years and years of customer feeback, and not the customer feedback of today, but the feedback of people who used Windows in productive environments since the 90s, then yes, to me alone.

You see, the UI of Windows XP was the culmination of years and years of perfection. When Vista came out, people hated it, not really because of all of the quirkyness, but really because of the counterintuitive design. The design of the OS was given to the programmers, and allowing programmers to design the program is always a big mistake, because programming can be so tedious and boring which leads them to start "challenging" themselves, by way of introducing new features which 99% of people will never use.

If you want to use a touchscreen, use a tablet... There's a reason why people here like to play the older games, and for the same reason, I find myself attracted to an older OS. Sure the newer stuff has all the bells and whistles, but something very important was lost in the meantime.

A good example of where I came across this recently was GTA 5. A large part of the GTA 5 game is driving many different types of vehicles. Guess what? This sort of thing has been around for years in the form of the Desert Combat mod for BF1942. And DC still has a very healthy playerbase. GTA 5 couldn't get the control implementation right for all the different types of vehicles, something EA's people did brilliantly more than ten years ago. So the folks at GTA spent all that time fiddling with this and that, and DirectX 11, and guess what, after all the delay of releasing the PC version, after trying it out, I have no desire to play it whatsoever. The game is a big fat abomination, and so is any Windows past XP.

And that's why Windows today is so bloated and useless.

When Vista came out, people hated it, not really because of all of the quirkyness, but really because of the counterintuitive design. The design of the OS was given to the programmers, and allowing programmers to design the program is always a big mistake, because programming can be so tedious and boring which leads them to start "challenging" themselves, by way of introducing new features which 99% of people will never use.

I disagree. While the UI changes bothered people, it was less-so a functionality problem but more like a "people don't like change" problem.
The biggest thing that gave Vista a bad reputation was poor performance on period hardware. On the other hand, Windows 8 DOES have a serious usability issue.

I love the start search in Vista/7 but they relied way too heavily on in in 8

Mockingbird: google "windows xp security nightmare" to learn a bit about it, written by people that know more about it.
Especially companies are at risk because employees are NOT sensible at their workstations and Anti-Virus-Software does NOT protect against 0-day exploits.
Windows XP default user/admin settings are also problematic. As much as later Windows version annoyed with that, it was the right step away from just running every user as admin by default...

To be honest no OS is airtight on security, especially when connected to the internet and having them to develop completely new software only for it to run on a newer OS is waaaaaay more costly than those millions they spend on MS extending XP support, plus if it ain't broke don't fix it.

This message is brought to you from a machine running Windows XP. 😀

mockingbird wrote:

. The design of the OS was given to the programmers,

This sounds an awful lot like conjecture. Microsoft isn't five dudes in a garage thinking "Let's give the UX design to the coders lololol."

Companies like Microsoft don't make major decisions on UX without years of focus groups, consultation, user interaction study, and UAT.

mockingbird wrote:

2) XP will still get security updates until 2019 via POSReady updates. How exactly is XP less secure than Windows 7 for someone who keeps up with the updates?

Hmm, I missed that story. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle … Filter=FilterNO says 2019, but http://www.zdnet.com/article/hacked-windows-x … ill-a-bad-idea/ says 2016, which is kind of confusing. It also says that it's not quite as good as it sounds.

When Vista came out, people hated it, not really because of all of the quirkyness, but really because of the counterintuitive design.

I did not get that impression.

obobskivich wrote:

these are probably mostly office computers, not the machines that control "the bomb" or anything like that.

John Oliver did a piece on the US missile silos a while back; they're still using 8-inch floppies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1ya-yF35g

I'm still using XP on my laptop and it's A-OK.

where i work we've been actively moving away from xp and onto 7, with some way still to go, and virtualising wherever we can. it's very complicated with such a huge user base - everything needs to be tested to ensure it won't fall over, all sorts of bizarre compatibility issues crop up that can't be foreseen, and it's pretty amazing just how many packages a department might have, as well as how deeply and differently they get used. ensuring that end-user programs work with new versions of software is a real nightmare, and understandably there are often other upgrades at the same time - hardware, software, network infrastructure, storage. in those circumstances it's no surprise that govt departments and other big organisations might pay for extended support and still be on xp - it's a big task, and they have to do the day job too.