Microsoft’s Windows XP Is Past Its Security Expiration Date – Google Engineer

It doesn't mean you have to migrate to another Microsoft environment, try and migrate to a free environment first. Ubuntu os, for instance, is free, remotely assisted by Canonical, if you need it. Through an app called Wine one can even install one's old MS Office, Autocad 2008 and others. Awesome. Bye Folks!

What BS... I know of several institutes that still run XP. I still liked 2000 Pro till I couldn't find software that supported it. Wireless is kind of funky and probably won't get any better because MS doesn't want to support it anymore. I wonder how much money ole Bill made off of it???

"Windows XP (...) it’s no longer a secure working environment."

Really?

For me, at least, it has proven very secure. And I do not even use an Antivirus!

Software is not like food. It NEVER expires.

The funny thing is that Google is talking about "security"; Google, a company which has not the best "security record" in the world.

The strange thing is that, despite the fact that most of Google's servers are running Linux, their "security engineer" invites the users to upgrade to a newer version of... Windows.

YOU, Justin Schuh, YOU and YOUR company upgrade to Windows 7, 8, or 9!
Keep them FOR YOU; for YOUR family; and for YOUR company! Yeah, be selfish!

Every Operating System has its own vulnerabilities - no matter how "fortified" is delivered at its launch.

Last year I encountered a very dangerous little program: immediately after I launched it [in a controlled environment], the installer VANISHED - including from the Recycle Bin!! I sent a copy of that program to Avira Labs. Their AV did not detected the installer as being "a security threat". Despite Windows 7 OS "better protection", I ended, on my test machine, with a "gastarbeiter" - a "working guest" (a Trojan, in fact), who immediately started to send tenths of data flows, to countless IP addresses. I was not able to remove, the "guest", even using specialized, powerful tools.

You are talking to us about "better security".
I am talking to you about "better threats". MUCH better. Improved!

In fact, the malware creators are waaay ahead of the Security industry. The big problem with identifying modern malware is that any given threat may come in thousands of slightly different forms. The malware creators produce a plethora of "polymorphic problems".

I have serious doubts that even Windows NT has been conceived with users' security in mind, from the beginning. OpenBSD, or UNIX, yes, is as secure as you want it to make. But Windows?!

And if Windows was not secure, from its inception, how can we talk, now, about "safer versions", if those versions are based on the primary, insecure, one?! If the basement is weak, the building will [finally] collapse.

The more complex an OS it is, the higher is the probability to be vulnerable.

It is already difficult to "scrutinize" an OS with almost 50 millions of Source Lines of Code (Win XP Pro), OS stored on a CD-ROM. Do you think that a much bigger OS - stored on a DVD-ROM -, which has almost a DOUBLE number of SLOC, is safer? Do you think it is easier to scrutinize? Such a monstrosity might end-up malfunctioning - event not triggered by any Malware.

I forebode that, in the near future, Windows 8, 9 will stop functioning. While Windows XP will continue to work. LOL...

Besides, a hacker does not need to take complete control over the [entire] OS. He can do what he wants using only Java and the browsers' security holes. There are free media players which contain very well hidden keyloggers. There are other means to steal informations from a user's machine. A "better protected" OS means almost nothing. It matters only for Microsoft: a damaged OS will no longer be able to spy the user...

I agree, Wolfram

Re the OS: MS has coded its way into a corner with its sustenance provided by a captive user-base. Apocryphal stories have it that no one at MS, or elsewhere, "understands" XP in total, and they some time ago resorted to patching only security leaks that raised user complaints to a certain level. That is, reactively, instead of proactively.

Both parties would like to bail, but they are caught in a mutually-dependent death spiral where, if either does bail, they both go down. If MS stops supporting XP, users will face increasing security risks and, probably, app vendors will stop supporting their offerings that run on XP. If a substantial portion of XP users (38% of MS OS users) bail, they likely won't want to stay with V, 7, 8 or anything else MS offers (if they have to loose a lot of their legacy apps and invest a lot of sweat and money in the change anyway , they'll likely change to a more trustworthy base), and MS goes down.

I, like you, have never had security problems with XP (with no anti-virus, firewalls etc - but do take other precautions, keep it "up to date", and am not a fan of W2.0, social networking etc). After years of fiddling around, MS patched it into a highly stable OS (of no small value) with lots of scope - backward to legacy apps and forward with current apps. They have nothing to offer that matches that and, from a market standpoint, most younger, nonprofessional users, don't even understand what we're talking about - or using computers for anything much more than communicating with one-another. They are MS's target market of the future, we aren't, and everyone will pay the price for that.