Still using Windows XP? Worried about the April 8, 2014 deadline? Look here.

bigfatfurrytexan
reply to post by Bassago

 

i have a 5 1/4" floppy with TRSDOS on it. I think its ca 1986(ish)

ETA: i may dig it out. its in the garage. My son would get a kick out of it. I have a few old floppys. I think the trsdos was on 2 disks. I only have 1. And the very first Madden that we played on a 386sx machine. Still have the original game, but no box for it.

It's been a while since I installed Windows 98 but think it would fit on a relatively small number of 3.5" floppies. Windows 8 seems a little bloated in comparison, doesn't it?

I fired up a old lappy of mine with windows xp sp2 and spent hours today setting it up to sp3 to get all the updates 159 of them and it is still running sweet i will be sorry to see it go out of service

But get a usb drive and download linux mint and a few others and try them it is easy

www.pendrivelinux.com...

another good one is this

www.pendrivelinux.com...

and for older slower computers try this
www.pendrivelinux.com...

may the force be with you

I wouldn't be too worried about not getting updates. Maybe there is a little threat if you are in a huge network with many computers that might be infected to spread over to yours - more likely happy to get less spy feature updates
Thinking about not getting any Win 7 updates either, so nothing new will come after known spy features were turned off.

But as you might expect, the default website of the browser, from Microsoft, made the browser crash once loaded (intentional?) when I installed Win XP a half year ago.
The service pack update was also hard to find on google and had a strange new name on the MS website.. something like network installation for IT-specialists .. while actually being the direct and only SP installation around.
Many might already give up when they don't find a way to download another web browser or change the default website.

The only thing I'd worry about would actually be that very few of the new programs and games coming out won't run on XP, because they use a new DX version that MS made to only work on new Windows versions (simply made brighter to fake looking better, got some new functions that programmers could create themselves).

oneoneone
I wouldn't be too worried about not getting updates. Maybe there is a little threat if you are in a huge network with many computers that might be infected to spread over to yours - more likely happy to get less spy feature updates

Thinking about not getting any Win 7 updates either, so nothing new will come after known spy features were turned off.

But as you might expect, the default website of the browser, from Microsoft, made the browser crash once loaded (intentional?) when I installed Win XP a half year ago.
The service pack update was also hard to find on google and had a strange new name on the MS website.. something like network installation for IT-specialists .. while actually being the direct and only SP installation around.
Many might already give up when they don't find a way to download another web browser or change the default website.

The only thing I'd worry about would actually be that very few of the new programs and games coming out won't run on XP, because they use a new DX version that MS made to only work on new Windows versions (simply made brighter to fake looking better, got some new functions that programmers could create themselves).

edit on 24-3-2014 by oneoneone because: (no reason given)

how many hospital's and banks still run on xp idownloaded all the updates to disc just to be safe for the future but microsoft and internet explorer are a joke vista /win7 and 8 epic fail

i once had a computer with all the safety turned off to see what would happen 9 years ago and not once did i get hacked i stripped xp down and just let it run 4 months later it still was ok


freeware all the way now

reply to post by 999zxcv


I agree, Windows 95 was already ready to do anything on nearly the same interface and any new OS uses computer ressources inefficiently.

Would've liked to stick to XP, but after some years I chose compability for my specific situation.

I'm one who thought of every angle how a computer or a device could be taken over, knowing how they internally work. Of course people are scared when they hear they won't get updates, because they're always called security update .. whatever they really are .., but it won't be a threat. Just old versions of web server programs or anything well known that opens itself to the outside world is highly vulnerable.
Opening websites can infect you often, because Java, Flash and Javascript have holes, but that's the case on any OS and has to be resisted or the viruses removed with high experience. Sadly you can never be sure if you really removed them, because they can be outside of your OS. There is no Antivirus program that could safely detect most viruses.
After all not only the normal programmers have to fight and change their programs until they're not detected as virus, but the virus programmers do the same.

reply to post by _BoneZ_


So will I lose all of my bookmarks, saved documents, pictures, passwords and the rest of my stuff? I am more than worried and feel like they did not give enough time for me to make educated decisions on my future and just received the notice today. I really dont have time or PC understanding to make an informed change this fast.

I am so worried now, what do I do? I went to the link provided here and went to the download area of Linux and could not figure out how to download the system.

Help me.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I LOVED 98, it had features that were so amazing. Stuff that got flushed when the newer ones came out.

You will love to hear that there is a completed project called "media player classic homecinema" for any new Windows
Though I don't have a simple qualitative sound recording program like the old one yet.

If you really wanna switch, you should take Windows 7, cause 8 seems more likely made for phones - rather unhandy in practice.

I use an old version of opera to have the same style as the old IE favorites and turn the turbo mode off, because Opera was bought a year ago and thereby belongs to the spy circle like MS and Google.
You can transfer them by googling the favorite folders of IE and opera and just copying/moving them I think. At least I got all my old ones somehow.

Either way you need a storage device, or one from a friend, another computer or online storage to transfer your previous data.
If you have 2 hard drives in 1 PC you can also install more than 1 Windows and keep both!

antar
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

I LOVED 98, it had features that were so amazing. Stuff that got flushed when the newer ones came out.

98 was unstable and crashed a lot, and didn't support NTFS which is also more stable (the more modern file system). Windows 2000 was one of their best products, because it was stable and not too bloated. I used that for about a year after they stopped supporting it. If there was a 64 bit version, I'd probably still be using it.

antar
I am so worried now, what do I do?

Keep using Windows XP for a few months if you want, you don't have to switch by April 8th though Microsoft would like you to think you do so they can sell you a newer OS.

If you want to try say Linux mint, google is your friend, find a Linux Mint forum where you can find faqs and other Linux users are glad to help.

oneoneone
If you have 2 hard drives in 1 PC you can also install more than 1 Windows and keep both!

Or you can make multiple partitions on a single hard drive, so you don't really need 2 hard drives. Another alternative is to boot windows from the hard drive and boot Linux from the USB drive, or CD. That way you can try out Linux before committing to the switch.

Bumping since the deadline is now upon us.