14 DAY TRIAL // The Abilene Police Department has decided to finally make the move to Windows 10 as part of an upgrade plan that involves buying technology worth no less than $1.3 million.
According to reports, the local City Council approved the investment plan back in January 2016, but the police department is only now performing the transition, after purchasing new equipment and mobile software for vehicles and records management system.
The transition to the new devices is going smoothly, local officials said, and with Windows 10, all systems are fully up to date.
“The largest selling point to this entire system was the fact that we were operating on antiquated hardware,” Assistant Police Chief Doug Wrenn said. “That is no longer the case today, and I sleep a lot better at night knowing that.”
What’s interesting is that the police department was using Windows XP, which was launched in 2001 and which no longer receives support since April 2014. Because the configuration powering these systems was very old, every time something broke down, the IT team purchased replacements parts from eBay, mostly because old hardware can no longer be found in stores.
Windows XP still insanely popular
Windows XP remains the third most popular desktop operating system in the world after Windows 7 and Windows 10, and by the looks of things, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to disappear anytime soon.
Instead, Windows XP appears to be here to stay, with its market share shrinking at an insanely slow pace, despite the fact that it hasn’t received a single security update in the last 3 years.
This means that systems still running it can become vulnerable to attacks should hackers develop exploits aimed at unpatched vulnerabilities, and with the recent leaks, finding such security flaws isn’t rocket science.
Everyone on Windows XP is obviously recommended to upgrade as soon as possible, though in some cases the transition is a lot more expensive given that hardware upgrades are also necessary.