XP Market Share Climbs Again

Windows XP market share climbs again as customers dig their heels in- The Inquirer

"Last month, the 12-year old operating system accounted for 29.53 percent of the market, up 0.23 percent from January. On one hand, it's up only a fraction of a percent, but on the other Microsoft, which has been trying every trick in the book to lure or scare users away from Windows XP, is going to be disappointed that once again attention has been drawn away from Windows 8, which continues to underperform, despite gaining slightly, stepping out of the shadow of Vista at 0.68 percent market share."

 

[MasterChief]

Weeks before expiration date, Windows XP still has 29% OS market share | Ars Technica

Weeks before expiration date, Windows XP still has 29% OS market share

One thing is clear: come April 8, plenty of people are going to get owned.


"Exploitation of these people is inevitable, and it's hard to see this ending well."

I personally think that the risks are extremely overrated. If these XP machines didn't get owned by now, the operators probably practice some good security techniques, anyhow. A 3rd party firewall with outbound filtering configured well - and using Firefox as the browser with good add-ons - goes a long way against any risk of an operating system vulnerability found in the future.

 

[Rxd]

Honestly this sounds like it's going to be a repeat of the Y2K apocalypse.....


Remember that disaster? Neither do I.....

 

[adamf]

Honestly this sounds like it's going to be a repeat of the Y2K apocalypse.....


Remember that disaster? Neither do I.....

I was on call at quadruple time. Not one person called with a problem

 

[whs]

If I needed my XP system because of the programs I run, I would use a virtual Linux front end for all internet work and still use XP native for running all my programs. Firefox, Opera or Chrome look the same in Linux as they do in Windows. The user would hardly notice any difference.

 

[vrosa]

Most of my legacy programs that need XP to run do it well on a 5-7 year old computer, so why not to use my old hardware instead of virtualization.

 

[Coke Robot]

There's some question about this month's OS report, some say that it's margins of error that show xp and 8's usage increase.

Although seriously, if people are ACTUALLY installing Windows xp, I sure hope they'll like the STDs that xp is most vulnerable towards.....

 

[adamf]

Most of my legacy programs that need XP to run do it well on a 5-7 year old computer, so why not to use my old hardware instead of virtualization.

1. Electricity costs assuming you don't turn off other PC.
2. Desk Space
3. ......Can't think of a 3 actually

 

[whs]

Most of my legacy programs that need XP to run do it well on a 5-7 year old computer, so why not to use my old hardware instead of virtualization.

The virtual Linux is only for internet work so that you are protected from malware. The normal program execution is, of course, in native XP.

 

[lehnerus2000]

Honestly this sounds like it's going to be a repeat of the Y2K apocalypse.....

Remember that disaster? Neither do I.....

Billions of dollars were spent to avoid disaster.

The Y2K problem shows why people (especially politicians) generally won't act to prevent problems.

Credit can only be claimed for fixing disasters, not for avoiding them.
Thus politicians wait for disasters to occur, so they can claim credit for fixing the problems caused.