Time to Move On From Windows XP

http://www.welivesecurity.com/2014/03/25/time-to-move-on-from-windows-xp/

 

Well, at least this gives Luddites something to complain about.

 

My XP boxes haven't been plugged in for quite a few months... I've lost count of how long it's been.
I just need to wipe the drives and do something with them besides serving as the proverbial glorified doorstops. Maybe a pair of planters of some kind? That might work.

~ Removed Copyrighted Image ~

 

No such thing as 'fair use' in the USSA ?

 

Yeah XP - XP/SP2 & then XP/SP3 if you want

 

Am I running Windows XP ?

http://amirunningxp.com/

 

This begs the question: are there really people who need such a site to know whether they are running XP?

 

I highly doubt XP users will need Wilders to remind them to upgrade.
Microsoft to start nagging Windows XP users about April 8 end-of-support date
http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-to-s...about-april-8-end-of-support-date-7000026932/

 

http://www.welivesecurity.com/2014/...cting-windows-xp-machines-after-april-8-2014/

 

I saw that was included with this month's Windows update, and it created a scheduled task, which I promptly deleted.

 

About time man. You will not regret it.

 

About the technet blog article that Ronjor posted, it says that changing browsers will not help.

The paragraph was talking about web surfing and malicious web sites. I don't understand why changing to a up-to-date browser doesn't help.

 

Depends on the exploit. e.g. An exploit against the browser's rendering engine can be avoided by using a different browser. An exploit against the operating system's font renderer, which could be exploited through the browser, would not be avoidable.

 

China's Unsupported XP Machines Hold the Potential to Become a Massive Botnet Army

The danger these XP machines in China represent already exists, says Cesar Cerrudo, CTO at
IOActive Labs. "It seems most [XP users in China] never applied security patches," he says.
That may be because many were pirated copies of the operating system and so couldn't be
updated because they had no documentation. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says 90% of
Microsoft software used in China, including Windows XP was pirated. That means the bulk of
XP computers in China have never been updated and so are ripe for exploitation, he says.


http://www.networkworld.com/news/2014/033114-xp-china-280233.html

 

I personally think that article is dangerous and can give people a false sense of security moving forward. There's only 1 thing that can truly protect people staying on an unpatched version of Windows and that is an advanced end user with a "truly" intimate knowledge of the OS. And I'm not just talking about someone that can create a few granular FW rules and disable a few services. I mean knowing every nook & cranny inside and out... hardening what you must and eliminating completely what you can. Leaving hardly any attack surface or potential for vulnerability there period to be exploited. To the point you'd have to have a serious lapse of judgement or intentionally infect yourself just to F' up... and even then be a reboot away from undoing the damage anyway. And keeping nothing important on there in the first place that could get leaked anyhow before you could do so.

Telling people to update their AV's and drivers... seriously? If that's the best you've got you'd better upgrade, and do it yesterday.

But there are actually still people running 98SE and getting by just fine because they (again, "truly") know what they're doing.

 

That botnet argument is a cheap scare tactic. There's already botnets big enough to knock entire countries offline. They're composed of everything from new and old versions of Windows to linux servers. Microsoft's "latest and greatest" isn't immune by a long shot.

 

There is no way you have an intimate knowledge of Windows without being a MS developer.

 

I shall NOT cease use of XP any time soon. I clone every 3-4 days to an external drive & have ample (some would say "excessive") security. I keep each clone 2 months.

XP forever!

P.S. My Apple //c still runs great.

 

I intend to extend the life of my Windows XP system a bit longer using AppGuard.

http://www.blueridge.com/support/downloads/AppGuard Protection for XP 2.pdf

 

We've been over this about a dozen times already, and I really don't have anything to add. People will believe what they want to.

Re knowing Windows inside and out, I would guess that very few people do, even among MS developers. I don't think anyone knows the workings of e.g. the entire Linux/KDE desktop stack, and that's of of similar size to XP (and smaller than Windows 7).

 

Would something like DeepFreeze or Returnil help maintain XP ?

 

Only if it used a hypervisor or something, and I don't think anything on the consumer market does. If it uses a Windows driver, forget it.

 

The only hypervisors I know about are used in managing virtual machines. Just so that we are on the same page, DeepFreeze promises to keep the system unchanged and a reboot will bring back a clean machine. And why is implementation with a Windows driver bad? Please explain.