Sticking with XP as a primary OS? Well, I recently bought a new GeForce GTX970 card: no drivers for Windows XP.
So that's another reason not to stick with XP any more, as if you still needed any 😀
But yes, I do have some older systems with XP, because if at all possible, I do want to test the software I develop and sell, and make sure they work on XP if at all possible.
I guess it is my vintage/retro-vibe, but even with new software, I prefer to make the software compatible with as wide a range of systems as possible, including older OSes and hardware. Testing against older hardware and OSes can often uncover bugs as well. Besides, I just like the challenge of it. If there is no valid reason why something shouldn't run on older OSes and/or hardware, then I want to make sure it does.
In fact, some of the software I sell actually has some 'undocumented' support for older hardware. Eg, officially we require SM2.0 videocards or better. But just for fun I also enabled a fallback path that needs no shaders, only multitexture support, which I have tested successfully on a GeForce2 card.

gerwin wrote:

Maybe this saves someone the trouble:
Watch out with the latest version of Skype (v7.6) in combination with Windows XP

Source - This week we had problems with Windows XP SP3 computers becoming downright unusable. Today I traced it back to wheter or not Skype was loaded in the tray. With Skype loaded the system behaves as if it is running out of disk and/or memory space, including GUI corruption. After like 10 minutes of working it ends with a Blue Screen of Death titled BAD_POOL_CALLER.
Please Fix ASAP. Don't break your own MS software on purpose.

Skype 7.5.0.102 seems to work OK, and does connect. I am told Skype version 6 and earlier won't connect.
Skype 7.5.0.102 is available on some software sites that have not synched to 7.6 yet:
http://download.s32cdn.com/13/121066/1233450/ … peSetupFull.exe (42.896.000 bytes)

PS. it is not my intention to trigger a discussion with this necropost. Just a heads up.

Scali wrote:

I recently bought a new GeForce GTX970 card: no drivers for Windows XP.

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/7833 … win-xp-driver-/

robertmo wrote:

Scali wrote:

I recently bought a new GeForce GTX970 card: no drivers for Windows XP.

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/7833 … win-xp-driver-/

Ah right, thanks for the tip!
I just assumed that because it's a newer architecture, there would be no driver support at all. But I tried the .inf patch, and apparently the drivers more or less work.
That is, both XP and XP x64 boot up, and can run accelerated stuff, so all seems well at first glance. But when I switch to 3840x2160 resolution, the monitor goes into standby for some reason. I'm not sure why exactly, because with the default VGA driver, it could do that resolution (but only in 16-bit).
But switching to 2560x1440 works, so good enough really 😀

gerwin wrote:

Watch out with the latest version of Skype (v7.6) in combination with Windows XP

Microsoft hasn't fixed or even acknowledged this issue in the last six months, despite plenty of complaints.
Fortunately there is a workaround that seemingly prevents the system instability:
Tools -> Options -> IM & SMS -> IM appearance
only disable "Show animated emoticons"
confirm and restart Skype.

There is now also a nag in the Browser Palemoon v26 for Atom/XP. It checks for the Posready registry entry and won't run in case it finds it. Workaround: download upx and unpack palemoon.exe: "upx.exe -d palemoon.exe". Then use XVI32 or similar to search for the UTF-16 formatted string "PosReady" inside palemoon.exe. Change it to XosReady or something.

gerwin wrote:

... There is now also a nag in the Browser Palemoon v26 for Atom/XP. It checks for the Posready registry entry and won't run in case it finds it. Workaround: download upx and unpack palemoon.exe: "upx.exe -d palemoon.exe". Then use XVI32 or similar to search for the UTF-16 formatted string "PosReady" inside palemoon.exe. Change it to XosReady or something.

Not anymore, in a display of human greatness Moonchild has listened to his customers and has deactivated the POSReady check from Pale Moon 26 Atom-XP.

See here: http://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=49& … start=40#p76147

Some people are just being paranoid. If you are a normal person just surfing the web and playing older games you have nothing to worry about. Nobody is going to waste their time to specifically target you and try to screw up your computer. Hackers target big banks, government institutions and corporations, not Joe the mechanic. There is no need to go berserk and install a thousand antiviruses, firewalls and so on to stay protected. That's like buying a Patriot Anti-ballistic missile system to guard your house. I've been using no active antivirus and no automatic updates for years and i've never even had to reinstall XP once. Just don't run sketchy executables and you'll be totally fine, visiting Youtube is not going to get you infected with a virus. The only problem with continuing to use XP is lack of drivers for new hardware and incompatibility with some newer programs cause they use .Net Framework 4.5 or DirectX 10 and above.

TLDR: XP is fine, don't buy into Microsoft's fear mongering. They just want you to spend money on their newest product.

TELVM wrote:

Not anymore, in a display of human greatness Moonchild has listened to his customers and has deactivated the POSReady check from Pale Moon 26 Atom-XP.

That is a relief. At least in the open source world one can have a direct and constructive discussion with the developer.

I still stick with Windows XP. Yeah, some new stuff doesn't run on it, but hey, it works! Windows XP is WAY more mature than Windows 7 and 8 and even 10. That awesome Luna theme is still great. You can use Windows XP if you are careful, and don't go on shady websites. It still works because a lot of programs still run on it. Heck, even programs that require Vista or later run on XP. And, this may be minor, but Windows XP's updating takes WAY less time than 7 and Vista. It took half an hour to install 126 updates, whereas 7 took a DAY AND A HALF for just 90. And plus, this may be my opinion, but I don't need a shiny and all-the-bells-and-whistles OS. As long as I can get what I need done in it, fine. Drivers are still available for a lot of hardware for XP. If you have a computer with XP on it, stick with it 'til nothing runs on it. Then upgrade. If you have a new computer, go ahead and get the latest Windows. Or, try Linux. It is free, but if you are a Windows user it is likely you may want to go back.
So, I'll step off my soapbox. Yes, Windows XP is perfectly fine for today, and possibly for years to come. Some may say "Go Windows 7!" or "Go Windows 8" or "Go Windows 10!", but I am sticking with XP. That's my choice, even if those XP haters disagree.

My attitude towards Windows is tied to my attitude towards Microsoft - which I have to admit: got increasingly tied to politics. This board is not for talk about politics, So not much use to go beyond sharing a bunch of XP technical tricks for the ones that care for it. So far XP is holding up surprisingly well, with a few tweaks.

Then why are you giving tips for others to fix various problems in XP?

brotalnia wrote:

Some people are just being paranoid. If you are a normal person just surfing the web and playing older games you have nothing to worry about. Nobody is going to waste their time to specifically target you and try to screw up your computer.

Most security measures are not to protect against a determined attacker, but to deter automated attacks. Those are more effective against software with known exploits that are no longer getting patches.

The point is also usually not to screw up your computer. It's to steal your information (logins) or extort money from you by scamming you (fake AV software) or holding your data for ransom.

I've been using no active antivirus and no automatic updates for years and i've never even had to reinstall XP once. Just don't run sketchy executables and you'll be totally fine

That's also a common misconception, that you actually have to run an untrusted executable to get infected with something. Plenty of other infection vectors. Automatic updates help mitigate them a lot.

Well, people usually write viruses and other programs to scam people specifically targeting the OSes that most people use. So, even though this may be considered "Off" in thinking, using an older OS may actually be safer than the new one that everyone is using.

HardwareExtreme wrote:

Well, people usually write viruses and other programs to scam people specifically targeting the OSes that most people use. So, even though this may be considered "Off" in thinking, using an older OS may actually be safer than the new one that everyone is using.

Except on a new OS, when a security vulnerability is found it gets patched. On an old OS, it will stay around forever.

And exploits are very often not OS specific.

There is no safety advantage in using XP.

HardwareExtreme wrote:

Then why are you giving tips for others to fix various problems in XP?

My reply was not as to criticize anyone. Just that I kinda realised it has gotten awckward to talk about motivation to choose this or that, because it is part politics.

I give technical tips in hope others give tips too, like TELVM did earlier.

HardwareExtreme wrote:

Then why are you giving tips for others to fix various problems in XP?

I don't see how giving tips on how to optimize running a certain Windows OS has anything to do with politics

brotalnia wrote:

Some people are just being paranoid. If you are a normal person just surfing the web and playing older games you have nothing to worry about. Nobody is going to waste their time to specifically target you and try to screw up your computer. Hackers target big banks, government institutions and corporations, not Joe the mechanic. There is no need to go berserk and install a thousand antiviruses, firewalls and so on to stay protected. That's like buying a Patriot Anti-ballistic missile system to guard your house. I've been using no active antivirus and no automatic updates for years and i've never even had to reinstall XP once. Just don't run sketchy executables and you'll be totally fine, visiting Youtube is not going to get you infected with a virus. The only problem with continuing to use XP is lack of drivers for new hardware and incompatibility with some newer programs cause they use .Net Framework 4.5 or DirectX 10 and above.

TLDR: XP is fine, don't buy into Microsoft's fear mongering. They just want you to spend money on their newest product.

This pretty much echoes my stance on this. I have and will continue to use old operating systems as desired, including some older than XP. In 20 years of using the internet I think I have a pretty good grip on reality, and this has never been a problem except with other people in my extended family. They apparently do foolish things on occasion with their computers, probably out of lack of understanding. As such I will be a bit paranoid when setting up a PC for those people, but not for myself.
Some of the family are still using XP, and they're getting along as well as they always did. Discontinuation of support did not make any practical difference in anything.

The attitude towards security in much modern software centers heavily on taking away the user's control of their own computer, because users are stupid. Whenever they wreck the car they blame Microsoft (or whoever, but not themselves) so Microsoft took away the keys and made themselves chauffeur and chaperone.

XP holds up surprisingly well.... Luckly you can disable Luna: it was never good to begin with, and has dated pretty horribly - to the point the Classic theme with a nice color scheme looks more modern than that. IMHO Aero will go the same route (age poorly). Anyway, XP is only as useable as it is because people use it: Windows 2000 is basically the same thing without a theming engine and without some API functions but using that as a main OS is A LOT more hassle because software dropped Win2k support sooner.

Sticking with XP being a smart move depends GREATLY on what you use it for. Intel dropping XP support from Haswell and beyond is a good indication that software vendors are finally letting XP die. OSS might support it a bit longer, but ultimately they will end up dropping it like they did Win9x. So if one uses XP for tasks where you can stay with your current software versions, then it will be fine, but if you need to browse the Internet, where you need a somewhat recent browser to do so well enough, XP will be unsuitable as soon as browsers drop support.

I would not use Windows XP for internet banking though, and I would not be surprised some banks' security plug-ins don't even support XP anymore.

I'd say that generally speaking, people just want their computer to work and be secure by default. That doesn't make them "stupid" - it seems like a reasonable request to me. More often than not, the people who asked me to "fix" their XP or Win7 machines had gotten themselves into a mess with multiple virus scanners, or no virus scanner.

I like having settings to play with and they're buried deep in Windows 10, but I bet most people are digging on having 1 on / off slider over 10 drop down lists!

shamino wrote:

Discontinuation of support did not make any practical difference in anything.

While you're right about the rest, this statement is wrong. Discontinuation of support does have serious security consequences, you're no longer getting patches for serious security vulnerabilities.

If you're surfing the internet on a Windows 98 computer for example using the latest patches getting infected is as simple as surfing the wrong page (maybe even just being connected to a network is enough too).

If Windows 98 was still under support, it would get a patch for such problems that would be easily available and every information channel available would be used to get that information to you. If Windows 98 had a decent automatic patching system it would be automatically delivered to you.

Right now you would to specifically look for unofficial patches for such vulnerabilities. Assuming they even exist. That is a huge difference. Right now Windows XP has no such problems, but it's really only a matter of time.

That's why if you must use XP at least consider either keeping it offline or if you must have it online, use a good antivirus and a firewall with decently paranoid rules. It won't be as good from a security point of view as actually using an up to date OS, but it's better than believing that a OS that's no longer getting patches is somehow still as magically secure as one that is.