Windows XP

googler

Miroslav wrote: »

Yes, I know the it becomes unsupported in April 2014...

So what? I've been running Win XP on two machines for years. I've never asked for support from Microsoft. I always find solutions to my computer issues from google searching, rather than by calling software providers.

I don't know ANYONE who has called Microsoft for 'support'. Not one person.

Do you?

Miroslav

NiftyDigits wrote: »

Example here

!!!!!!, that wasn't there when we bought ours.

Ours is/was/should be

HP DC5750
Processor : AMD Athlon 64x2
RAM : 4Gb DDR2-5300 (upgradeable to 8gb with 4 banks of RAM)
Optical Drive - DVD Multirecorder
Hard Drive : SATA 160Gb
Operating System : Windows 7 64bit SP1
Integrated/On-Board Graphics
Windows 7 64bit SP1

Only, Windows 7 is pirated, the DBD Multirecorder is actually a DVD Multiplayer and the seller didn't include the Windows 7 disc as promised.

Reckon I should fork out for that one rather than put Windows 7 on this mess?

Is the processor a little slow? Only use it for internet browsing, football manager 2009 and watching TV on the internet (iplayer etc)

Miroslav

googler wrote: »

So what? I've been running Win XP on two machines for years. I've never asked for support from Microsoft. I always find solutions to my computer issues from google searching, rather than by calling software providers.

I don't know ANYONE who has called Microsoft for 'support'. Not one person.

Do you?

No, but will there be any security downloads from April 2014?

I'll still put XP on the bad machine.

ianders

If you're only going to be using it for internet browsing then why not have a look at ubuntu? Great OS that'll run well on older hardware.

https://www.ubuntu.com

Miroslav

ianders wrote: »

If you're only going to be using it for internet browsing then why not have a look at ubuntu? Great OS that'll run well on older hardware.

https://www.ubuntu.com

Thanks - i'm looking into this now.

EDIT - I have an old 256MB machine that i'm going to try and install this on first.

Apparently it will work....

googler

Miroslav wrote: »

No, but will there be any security downloads from April 2014?

I'll still put XP on the bad machine.

Maybe not, but again - who cares?

Again, I'm running two XP machines, and I haven't downloaded ANY updates from Microsoft, as far as I'm aware.

Conventional wisdom says I should have two buggy, virus-laden machines, but the last time I had a virus was when one of them was running Vista....

Miroslav

googler wrote: »

Maybe not, but again - who cares?

Again, I'm running two XP machines, and I haven't downloaded ANY updates from Microsoft, as far as I'm aware.

Conventional wisdom says I should have two buggy, virus-laden machines, but the last time I had a virus was when one of them was running Vista....

Fair enough and I wish I was that fortunate.

I do like XP though. My first impressions of Vista and 7 are not great.

bluesnake

Miroslav wrote: »

Thanks - i'm looking into this now.

EDIT - I have an old 256MB machine that i'm going to try and install this on first.

Apparently it will work....

"Ubuntu 12.10 is 768 MB of memory and 5 GB of disk space for Ubuntu Desktop." So will either run slow, or will not work in 256M. Puppy linux should though.

Personally Miroslav, I side with googler about using google and answers can be found on there, you just have to explore all possibilities.

To be honest we have Dells like similar to these at work, and we pay companies to scrap them. We are not allowed to take them, and they have XP licenses on the box.

Johnmcl7 wrote:

I find the same, rebuilt many XP OEM machines of differing brands using Dell XP OEM CDs and the CoA on the machine itself but for some reason could never seem to get them to work on HP machines. However that's in no way definitive for HP machines as I've only rebuilt a handful.

The CDs can be tied down in a multitude of ways, some apparently in a very grey area, if not illegal of uk law. Dell and most other manufactures tie their products down with SLIC. Google is your friend.

Johnmcl7

bluesnake wrote: »

The CDs can be tied down in a multitude of ways, some apparently in a very grey area, if not illegal of uk law. Dell and most other manufactures tie their products down with SLIC. Google is your friend.

I'm well aware of how they work as I use them on a regular basis, no googling required - Dell don't tie their CDs down at all, they're just slightly customised. For XP manufacturers use both SLIC and a CoA so an OEM machine will activate automatically with a matching OEM CD but will also activate manually with another OEM's CD and the CoA. The only machines I've had issues with are HP which won't activate with the CoA for some reason but rather than pursue it further I just sourced their own media and used that instead.

It's not a grey area at all so maybe you need to some reading with your friend Google first.

John

Johnmcl7

googler wrote: »

Maybe not, but again - who cares?

Again, I'm running two XP machines, and I haven't downloaded ANY updates from Microsoft, as far as I'm aware.

Conventional wisdom says I should have two buggy, virus-laden machines, but the last time I had a virus was when one of them was running Vista....

Automatic updates are likely on by default then, it's really not a good idea to be running a machine without security updates that is either connected to the internet or transfers any files to other machines. I am told by people they think they don't need anti-virus and/or security updates and I'm frequently not surprised to find a USB stick or drive from their machine is indeed infected. It's not just a case of being careful where you browse as even Google have accidentally served malware as have other legitimate sites and security updates will usually patch a vulnerability before it can be exploited whereas AV definitions can usually only exist when the malware using the exploit is out in the wild which may be too late.

Vista has a better security mechanism than XP so it's just chance I your case the Vista machine was infected, it's not indicative in any way that XP doesn't need protection while Vista does.

So in short you should care and even if you don't it's not something you should be advocating on a public forum.

John