LATEST MOAN FROM YOU AND ME - 2022

I just want to use my old one, it still works. But they want to stop it working so I have to buy a new one.
Followed the stupid links in the message about finding a suitable replacement and it came up with some piece of rubbish for $300, Obviously nobody uses windows outside the US.

Still winking.

 

You won't have to. You can upgrade to Windows 10 for free. Your PC might not run 11 depending on how old it is but 10 should be fine.

 

You certain it's really from Microsoft?

 

Well it did an update last night when I shut down.
It took the usual long time to come on when I started it today, after a short time I got this message saying microsoft will not support windows 8 after January.

 

Got a letter today from Natwest saying they were going to raise the interest rate on my credit card.

I'm now waiting for the letter stating they are raising the interest rate on my savings account.

 

Windows 8 is indeed going end of life. It won't stop working. It just means it won't receive updates, which means Putin will hijack your computer and use it to spread images of far fetched fantasy military gear for his propaganda campaign.

If you Google Microsoft upgrade to Windows 10 you should find it. I can't share the link because it detects I'm not on a Windows machine and redirects to the ISO download.

 

I still have an old boat anchor of a tower that runs on XP. I only keep it because it is the only one that will talk to my embroidery program. And it keeps telling me that it is not supported, blah blah blah.

The program I need keeps running so I don't care!

 

I hope it's not connected to the internet. It's about as vulnerable as it gets now.

When that machine eventually croaks, you should still be able to run your program on newer windows in compatibility mode.

 

Support for Windows 10 stops on October 14, 2025.
I have a laptop running Vista. I use it on the internet but I have virus and malware checkers installed. And if anyone hacked it I would just do a clean re-install. There is nothing on it to lose.
I would update my Windows 10 machine to 11 if I knew what new hardware it needed

 

Common misconception about malware. The hackers are totally disinterested in the target machine. The average ordinary person has nothing of value to them on there.

The reason we all have a responsibility to secure our machines is that the malware nowadays uses vulnerable machines as part of a botnet, a collection of potentially thousands of ordinary machines, from which to launch their real attack, which could be anything from a simple DDOS attack (distributed denial of service), to a brute force attack for data theft. Every unsecured machine is a potential entry point for such malware. Ordinary anti malware is rarely enough now. The malware writers have got smart. Apart from the fact they regularly change the signature so it goes undetected, there's usually a double payload now. The first goes in and embeds the second. The second is disguised as a system file, and part of its job is to download the payload again if the antivirus software detects the original.

The bottom line is, when you connect a device with outdated security to the internet, it's not just your own data that's at risk. The unsecured device becomes a risk to everything else on the internet. It can cost the economy hugely. A few years ago pretty much the entire NHS was shutdown for a few days because one windows XP machine was used as an entry point.

 

Well maybe Microsoft should be a bit more responsible for what they create and continue to look after it, instead of just dumping it a telling you you need to buy something different.

 

I'm going to defend Microsoft on this one. They're a commercial company. They hire software developers. They have many development teams to work on each of their products, and every one of those developers want to be paid for their time and expertise.

Continuing to support an operating system that is over 20 years old means keeping the XP development team. That would either mean that XP users would have to keep paying to cover the costs, or the cost would have to be covered by other products, thus making everything else more expensive.

Think of it like an old car. When you buy a new car, when it needs maintenance the parts are widely available. If the car is old, it starts to become harder to source replacement parts. Eventually there comes a time when you have a choice, either hunt down the part on the enthusiast forums and get a used replacement, or spend a fortune to have the part custom made. It's not quite the same thing, because software isn't physical parts, but the point being at some point, the manufacturer makes a decision that it is no longer commercially viable to keep supporting the obsolete product.

 

Pete I agree with Clueless about updating to Windows 10. My old laptop computer is nearing 8 years old and when new had Windows 8 installed. At that point W10 had not long been released and still had gremlins but I installed it anyway and it's worked fine since. However, it's not possible to update to W11.

 

My old machine is on and on the net once in every ten blue moons. it is a backup for the odd occasion I have issues with my main machine. Now I have a Smartphone I could probably ditch it but it is a nice Sony Vaio and I am reluctant to just dump it.
The security I use is updated every time I switch it on.