Yes, that’s Windows XP running on the simulator

Feb 4, 2016 09:07 GMT  ·  By

Even though Windows XP no longer receives updates and security patches since April 2014, we’ve found the old operating system running in the most unexpected places, including in hospitals, on government computers, or more recently, on spacecraft simulators.

The latest such discovery comes from French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who noticed that the 15-year-old operating system was powering Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft simulator. But let’s take one thing at a time to see how he actually found that that Windows XP was powering those PCs.

A video posted on Twitter disclosed a problem experienced when using the simulator, and although we’re not rocket scientists, it’s pretty clear that if a spacecraft beeps like crazy, there’s something wrong with it. Even Pesquet admits that “when your spacecraft does this, you know it’s not a good day.”

It’s Windows XP, everybody!

Later on, when looking at the Soyuz simulator from the outside, he noticed something a little bit unexpected on the computer screen powering all the systems of the spacecraft. It was Windows XP’s wallpaper, which is the first indication that the simulator was running an operating system that was 15 years old.

“Now I understand! After a training session today, caught a glimpse of Microsoft Windows on the Soyuz display,” the astronaut tweeted.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that Windows is at fault for the experienced problems, but running unsupported software on such a device clearly raises the chances of coming across major issues.

Most likely, the Russians will tell you that these Windows XP systems are not connected to the Internet and cannot be accessed from the outside in any way, so that’s why they’re still running it. That and because replacing Windows XP with a new OS is quite an expensive process, and truth be told, the Russians have always been afraid that Microsoft might be using new Windows versions to spy on overseas nations.