# Support for Windows XP SP2 ends...



## ToeClaws (May 14, 2010)

Just a heads-up to anyone still using Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and who's been holding out on going to Service Pack 3: As of today, your OS is now obsolete.

http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/end-support-xp-sp2-end-era-051310

You must upgrade to SP3, or switch to another OS otherwise any newly discovered exploits will be unpatched.


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## Duality Jack (May 14, 2010)

ah so the "Fuck up and lock down" Update is manditory? Shyyyyyyyyyyt. May as well get windows 7


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## net-cat (May 14, 2010)

The Drunken Ace said:


> ah so the "Fuck up and lock down" Update is manditory?


People have said this exact thing about just about every single Windows service pack ever.

Suck it up and update your programs.


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## Duality Jack (May 14, 2010)

net-cat said:


> People have said this exact thing about just about every single Windows service pack ever.
> 
> Suck it up and update your programs.


Usually they say that because it actually does hinder performance in some undesirable way.


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## net-cat (May 14, 2010)

And it usually does that because the user has fucked up their computer in some way. 

SP3 has been out for two years. You had two years to prepare for this.


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## Duality Jack (May 14, 2010)

Call me crazy but when I get things working "Just so" I don't like mucking with it and feel the need to bitch about it before I go along and fix the fuck up the change makes.


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## ToeClaws (May 14, 2010)

The Drunken Ace said:


> Call me crazy but when I get things working "Just so" I don't like mucking with it and feel the need to bitch about it before I go along and fix the fuck up the change makes.



You might want to get used to it... a hear the IT world has the odd technology update from time to time.


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## Duality Jack (May 14, 2010)

hahaha no kidding eh? 

Well I just like getting something reliable that does the job well and consistently, with or without th "high power performance" 

Heh why I love toughbooks really. Nearly impossible to break, and reliable hardware. Slow compared to other shit but fuck it.


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## Oasus (May 14, 2010)

Just whatever you do, don't get lolVista.


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## net-cat (May 14, 2010)

ToeClaws said:


> You might want to get used to it... a hear the IT world has the odd technology update from time to time.


You're not still running CP/M on an IBM PC? Shocking!


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## Bianca (May 14, 2010)

jb_oasus said:


> Just whatever you do, don't get lolVista.


Vista _is_ Seven. If you get 7, you're getting "lolVista". Just sayin'.


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## Duality Jack (May 14, 2010)

net-cat said:


> You're not still running CP/M on an IBM PC? Shocking!


 I am contently slightly behind the curve, get reliable equipment cheap instead of new (and often twitchy) Equipment.


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## net-cat (May 14, 2010)

I do the same thing. My four year upgrade cycle is approaching at the end of this year, actually.


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## ToeClaws (May 14, 2010)

net-cat said:


> You're not still running CP/M on an IBM PC? Shocking!



No, I prefer to do it on a NABU.


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## Irreverent (May 14, 2010)

net-cat said:


> You're not still running CP/M on an IBM PC? Shocking!



Does 1.1 on an Osborne "luggable" count?  Yiffstar Wordstar FTW!


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## AshleyAshes (May 14, 2010)

This post was typed on a Dell Insperion 600m that became five years old this Feb and it's still ticking just fine other than the batteries down to about 50% of total capacity.

...Just saying.


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## Darkhavenz0r (May 14, 2010)

Been contemplating upgrading to 7 from XP SP3 for some time now, I suppose now is a pretty good time to do so, heh. I'd rather not be caught when SP3 goes out of style.


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## ToeClaws (May 14, 2010)

AshleyAshes said:


> This post was typed on a Dell Insperion 600m that became five years old this Feb and it's still ticking just fine other than the batteries down to about 50% of total capacity.
> 
> ...Just saying.



Still very usable.  My home laptop is a 6 year old Compaq R3000... though it's now on hard drive #4, Power supply #2, battery #2, keyboard #2 and has had a little soldering-iron love on the inside.  Getting close to retirement time for it.



Darkhavenz0r said:


> Been contemplating upgrading to 7 from XP SP3 for some time now, I suppose now is a pretty good time to do so, heh. I'd rather not be caught when SP3 goes out of style.



SP3 will be support until April of 2014, so you have PLENTY of time to figure it out, don't worry.


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## Runefox (May 14, 2010)

... I can't really think of any major performance difference with SP3 versus SP2. Every service pack has teething problems, and SP2 interacted with malware in a bad way (hence the perception that it was horrifyingly bad when in fact it was actually pretty much the best of the XP service packs). In fact, virtually every bad experience people tend to have with Windows usually happens to be caused by malware or third party software.

Also, Vista isn't bad. Most of the bad experiences with *that* were due to the initial issues with "Vista Capable" machines that were really barely powerful enough to run XP comfortably.


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## ArielMT (May 14, 2010)

ToeClaws said:


> Just a heads-up to anyone still using Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and who's been holding out on going to Service Pack 3: As of today, your OS is now obsolete.



According to Microsoft, the final day for XP SP2 is July 13, a Patch Tuesday most of two cycles away.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/...-windows-vista-without-service-packs?os=other



AshleyAshes said:


> This post was typed on a Dell Insperion 600m that became five years old this Feb and it's still ticking just fine other than the batteries down to about 50% of total capacity.
> 
> ...Just saying.



My 600m is down to just a few minutes of battery life.  The on-board ethernet adapter died two years ago, but the wireless mini-PCI card inside it is still ticking.



Irreverent said:


> Does 1.1 on an Osborne "luggable" count?  Yiffstar Wordstar FTW!



Which version?  Wordstar 3.3 for CP/M-80 is the 8" floppy I have on display here.



Bianca said:


> Vista _is_ Seven. If you get 7, you're getting "lolVista". Just sayin'.



Not quite.  Seven is what Vista should've been, pretty much.  Subtle but important difference.



net-cat said:


> SP3 has been out for two years. You had two years to prepare for this.



More importantly, programmers have had two years to make their programs fully compatible with SP3.


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## AshleyAshes (May 14, 2010)

ToeClaws said:


> Still very usable. My home laptop is a 6 year old Compaq R3000... though it's now on hard drive #4, Power supply #2, battery #2, keyboard #2 and has had a little soldering-iron love on the inside. Getting close to retirement time for it.


 


ArielMT said:


> My 600m is down to just a few minutes of battery life. The on-board ethernet adapter died two years ago, but the wireless mini-PCI card inside it is still ticking.


 
I have two batteries for it, main and a d-bay battery but still, I tested it, it used to do 3hrs on both with the CPU maxed and screen at full brightness but now it's down to 1.5hrs.  Which, hey, 5+ years discharges and recharges, that's pretty good.  I'm stuck debating new batteries or just a new laptop for school in the fall.  The issue being, batteries is EXPENSIVE. D:


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## ToeClaws (May 14, 2010)

AshleyAshes said:


> I have two batteries for it, main and a d-bay battery but still, I tested it, it used to do 3hrs on both with the CPU maxed and screen at full brightness but now it's down to 1.5hrs.  Which, hey, 5+ years discharges and recharges, that's pretty good.  I'm stuck debating new batteries or just a new laptop for school in the fall.  The issue being, batteries is EXPENSIVE. D:



The original 4400Mah battery the R3000 I have came with was terrible.  new, it was good for about 2 hours, 15 minutes if I didn't push it.  After just one year, it was struggling to last 2 hours.  By the second year, it could only manage an hour (granted, the R3000 is a major power-sucking beast, but still).  I bought a 6600Mah replacement in 2006, and that battery's been fantastic.  Got it for about $60 off E-bay.  Was able to go about 3 hours new, can do about 2 now.


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## Bianca (May 14, 2010)

ArielMT said:


> Not quite.  Seven is what Vista should've been, pretty much.  Subtle but important difference..


Every time I read this, I laugh quite literally out loud at how successful Microsoft were in rebranding two hated products (Vista and Live Search) into two 'hip new products' (7 and Bing) and people _actually_ believe there's a difference. You know they did a research study at one point that proved that if people didn't know the OS was "the dreaded Vista", they used it with an unprejudiced and clear head and actually really liked it? What's this tell them? "Quick, rename Vista, we can sell it _again_!"

The differences are in line with Win95 â†’ OSR2 or Win98 â†’ Win98SE.


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## WarMocK (May 15, 2010)

Can't say that SP3 kills that much performance (iirc the early version just killed the boot sequence ). There really is no need NOT to upgrade to SP3 since the bugs have been fixed a long time ago.
Oh, and typing this on a Toshiba Tecra M1 running Windows XP SP3 right now btw (gonna install another HDD however, which will probably wipe Windows from this machine. I mean HEY, I made my own little Linux distro, and everything I need to do with my laptop works like a charm with it as well - except that it's several times faster ;-)).


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## ArielMT (May 16, 2010)

I just noticed this:  There's no SP3 for XP 64-bit editions, not that many people actually use 64-bit XP.


			
				Microsoft said:
			
		

> * Note: There's no SP3 for the 64-bit version of Windows XP. If youâ€™re running the 64-bit version of Windows XP with SP2, you have the latest service pack and will continue to be eligible for support and receive updates until April 8, 2014.


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## <CaliforniaStripes> (May 16, 2010)

so its microsofts way of telling us our systems are inadequate and that to save our miserable lives and computers we need to buy bigger better operating systems?


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## ArielMT (May 16, 2010)

<CaliforniaStripes> said:


> so its microsofts way of telling us our systems are inadequate and that to save our miserable lives and computers we need to buy bigger better operating systems?



When have Microsoft *not* told us that?


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## Jaxinc (May 17, 2010)

net-cat said:


> And it usually does that because the user has fucked up their computer in some way.
> 
> SP3 has been out for two years. You had two years to prepare for this.


Tyaaaaaaa? 

Been using SP3 since it came out, had zero problems with OS instability and even bought a copy of SP3 for personal use. I have zero want or need to upgrade to W7 when XP SP3 still does what I need.
Besides the fact I've already heard and seen problems running programs with W7 that I must have, so not happening.


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## net-cat (May 17, 2010)

ArielMT said:


> When have Microsoft *not* told us that?


s/Microsoft/Just about every hardware and software manufacturer ever/



Bianca said:


> Every time I read this, I laugh quite literally out loud at how successful Microsoft were in rebranding two hated products (Vista and Live Search) into two 'hip new products' (7 and Bing) and people _actually_ believe there's a difference. You know they did a research study at one point that proved that if people didn't know the OS was "the dreaded Vista", they used it with an unprejudiced and clear head and actually really liked it? What's this tell them? "Quick, rename Vista, we can sell it _again_!"
> 
> The differences are in line with Win95 â†’ OSR2 or Win98 â†’ Win98SE.


I've actually taken to calling it Windows Vista Second Edition for that exact reason. Of course, Microsoft didn't offer free upgrade paths from Win95 â†’ Win95B or Win98 â†’ Win98SE, either. And both upgrade were fairly substantial improvements. (Win95B saw the addition of FAT32 support, Win98SE greatly improved networking and stability over Win98.)



Runefox said:


> ... I can't really think of any major performance difference with SP3 versus SP2.


There are quite a few. Most of them were additive in nature and didn't change the existing system significantly. (A lot of backports of Vista features, actually.)



Runefox said:


> Also, Vista isn't bad. Most of the bad experiences with *that* were due to the initial issues with "Vista Capable" machines that were really barely powerful enough to run XP comfortably.


Yeah. There were a good number of 1GB, single core Pentium 4, Intel 915-based machines being sold as "Vista Premium Capable" if memory serves.



Jaxinc said:


> Tyaaaaaaa?


I'm not entirely sure which thought this is directed at. Probably the first, because the second can be easily verified with Google.

I used to work at a computer repair shop. Probably four out of five service pack issues we had were due to viruses and other assorted malware. Most of the rest were with either massively outdated and/or "industry standard" software that didn't quite work that the user just couldn't live without.

(It's actually a testament to Microsoft's "click until it goes away" approach to security. They click the update window until it goes away, and get a service pack that breaks things for their troubles.)


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## Nanakisan (May 17, 2010)

If i had my way i'd still be using windows 3.1 instead of this xp. call me nuts but i love old DOS ( Warning old retired white hat speaking please pay no heed and throw boots at him he is deranged and out of his mind. This warning has been brought to you by Braincast. Yes braincast for without the news the world would be dull! )


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## Runefox (May 17, 2010)

> call me nuts but i love old DOS


I, too, miss having to balance the tradeoff between having CD-ROM and sound support for having enough memory to run a certain application. I remember one game in particular that, back in the day, would *only* run in MS-DOS (would crash under Windows), *required* the CD-ROM drive, but also required a massive amount of free conventional memory (I think something stupid like 590KiB). I was elated when I finally managed to find a combination of high-loaded drivers that worked and gave me CD-ROM access, sound and mouse support. Previously, it was all I could do just to get the CD-ROM driver to load and still have enough free conventional memory to run it.

While those days are nostalgic, I'm pretty glad I no longer have to worry about that stuff, nor about conflicting IRQ's (they do still happen sometimes however) or TSR's that I can't get rid of without a reboot (well, technically this still happens to an extent too, but we're no longer bound to 640KiB of conventional memory to run executables with).


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## Slyck (May 19, 2010)

Nanakisan said:


> Call me nuts but i love old DOS.



Remind me to remind you to put an @ in front of ever post you make


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## ArielMT (May 19, 2010)

Slyck said:


> Remind me to remind you to put an @ in front of ever post you make



That only works in MS-DOS 3.3 and newer.  I learned old DOS on MS-DOS 2.11.22.


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## ToeClaws (May 19, 2010)

ArielMT said:


> That only works in MS-DOS 3.3 and newer.  I learned old DOS on MS-DOS 2.11.22.



Good gods... you must still be in therapy to this day for that kinda of trauma. >_<


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## yiffytimesnews (May 19, 2010)

When I installed XP in this laptop I am using, I had to upgrade to SP 3 just to use some features.


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