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Should Microsoft still patch Windows XP?


peteyt

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While XP is no longer supported when emergencies happen such as the recent wannacry ransomware outbreak, Microsoft tends to release one off emergency patches. I can understand why Microsoft does this - there could be a backlash from the public with people complaining and it could damage their image. However I think end of support cycle should mean exactly that. XP is old and the code and everything it uses is old. Newer operating systems have been designed to be far better and most importantly far more secure. By releasing a patch for XP, I feel Microsoft is kind of sending a confusing mixed message. People will presume that anytime there is an incident it will simply be patched again. This will in turn fail to persuade people to upgrade which will actually lead to more incidents. As more and more software stops being updated for old operating systems, people at put at even greater risks. Take Eset for example. Smart security and so on works on XP but it's technically not supported as it's not on the list and having a security program installed is no good if your operating system is full of unpatched security holes. Luckily I'm not the only one thinking this https://arstechnica.co.uk/security/2017/06/microsoft-patching-windows-xp-mistake/ but what do you all think? Should Microsoft just stop updating it for good?

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Xp has a very small share of the o/s market for home users nowadays so they are at no loss financially to continue patching it. In the UK and probably other countries the healthcare system is still running XP and probably one of the major reasons that they have released a patch.


 

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17 hours ago, cyberhash said:

Xp has a very small share of the o/s market for home users nowadays so they are at no loss financially to continue patching it. In the UK and probably other countries the healthcare system is still running XP and probably one of the major reasons that they have released a patch.


 

I understand the fact the nhs uses it but they also updated it for home users. However the issue is that because of the update it departments might struggle to get the budget to upgrade because the managers will just presume another update will happen if something this bad occurs again. Hopefully people will learn from this

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1 hour ago, peteyt said:

I understand the fact the nhs uses it but they also updated it for home users. However the issue is that because of the update it departments might struggle to get the budget to upgrade because the managers will just presume another update will happen if something this bad occurs again. Hopefully people will learn from this

Maybe it's been done as a goodwill gesture in the hope that after the trouble it caused worldwide people do actually pay more attention to upgrading to a newer o/s. An "Advertisement" if you like ......... But as usual there will be people who "Never" learn :)

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