It should be acceptable to use older versions of Windows | Hacker News Reader

It should be acceptable to use older versions of Windows

dendory.net

8 pointsdendory28 comments

Cars and operating systems cannot be adequately compared, however. A car, at its base level, is a method of transport. Although motor vehicles are heavily computerized nowadays, they still have that explicit and relatively simple purpose.

Cars have a relatively standardized method of operation, and they don't have the same problems of forwards obsolescence. You're not going to have some new binary format stop you from changing tires, extensions or breaking changes to the API meaning you can't install a new air filter, or any of that.

Cars don't have the same level of being an indeterminate and chaotic system that operating systems do, as computation is fundamentally far more abstract and prone to such radical change than automotive engineering is, which is grounded on higher plane physics, mostly.

Look, XP is fine to run as long as you keep it off the Internet. But running XP on a computer connected to the Internet now is analogous to refusing to vaccinate your kids. It makes life risky for both you and the people around you.

Not to mention the fact that you can't even begin to expect modern web sites to support your IE 5 or 6.

That's just not going to happen.

The author uses an example of old cars to support his thesis. But the comparison isn't valid unless old cars suddenly and without warning blew up as you drove them along the road.

A better comparison would have been raw oysters in a world without preservatives or refrigeration. How long can you keep raw oysters on a sunlit kitchen counter before they're no longer safe to eat?

> Software makers accomplished something car salesmen only dream of: make using an older product socially unacceptable.

This reveals the flawed premise of the article -- dumping old Windows versions isn't about social acceptability or fashion, it's about security.

"But the comparison isn't valid unless old cars suddenly and without warning blew up as you drove them along the road"

It happens.

Indeed it does -- about 1% of car wrecks involve a fire. But not a spontaneous explosion -- well, not usually.

At the accident scene, an obviously distraught survivor of the flaming wreck said, "I'll get you hackers! You can run, but you can't hide!" :)

The whole article is based around the argument that "old cars are acceptable why not old software?"

Am I the only one who thinks that whoever asks such a question shouldn't write about software and should (politely!) be given an introduction to software 101 ?

Nope, they should have the relative ages of the industries shown to them and the comparative maturities of the technologies.

Then tell them about how old boilers on trains used to blow up. We're just getting past the exploding stage in software now.

Old versions of Windows, such as XP, (mostly) no longer have security patches. That is a Big Problem™, not just for someone running it, but for anyone on the same network as anyone running it.

If you think there hasn't been an apocalypse, all that means is no-one's found a tasty-enough wormable exploit yet. But it's going to happen, and when it does, please forgive me if I point and laugh at you.

Please let it die, already.

I think it's only a problem if the system is plugged into a network. Granted there aren't many uses for a non-networked system these days.

I don't imagine there are too many people who worry about what others think of the OS they are running on an offline machine.

Because undiscovered security holes in operating systems are so common, using any outdated OS quickly becomes like driving a Ford Pinto. Maybe you think your Pinto is "good enough", but taking it out on the road is dangerous to you and others.

The stigma of using an unpatched operating system doesn't come from anywhere irrational as some stigmas do. It is like the stigma of having poor hygiene. Pooping out in the open in your back yard has serious negative health repercussions. That is a much better analogy than the "classic car" one.

This is dumb, car analogies are inherently dumb. Nobody wants their car to learn new tricks, they just want it to drive. Nobody is mad that their 10-year-old car can't post pictures to Instagram.

I think the analogy is a bad one, but I can't say your reasoning is 100% solid. Most of us certainly want our cars to have A/C, radios, and the like. A more modern comparison would be that more than a few folks enjoy their cars having entertainment for the kids, rear cameras (coming soon on all models in the U.S.), etc.

We’re seeing a conflict in software. It is still evolving in its structure and architecture. In fact, visible changes are necessary to drive new sales.

On the other hand, users of that software are happy with the mature functionality it provides. There’s nothing important the average office workers needs for their daily work in Windows 7 that’s not present in XP. Most companies would be perfectly happy to stay with XP if it were still maintained. You wouldn’t see so many holdouts otherwise.

Adobe has switched to a subscription model, Creative Cloud, for its Creative Suite. You can still buy the software, but the subscription costs less. The people in Redmond would be smart to consider that business model. It would maintain revenue, in fact make it more regular. By eliminating the feature treadmill, it will allow them to slow-feed gradual changes to the users.

It's only a matter time before someone creates the next Blaster [1]. An unpatched system connected to a public network is virtually guaranteed to become infected.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaster_(computer_worm)

Blaster happened in 2003, 11 years ago. There have been worms since then, but after 2004, no huge worms like Code Red or Witty or Blaster or Sasser show up. Conficker appears to be the last major widespread worm, but it's pretty mysterious.

Is there any reason to suspect that the epidemic of worms we saw in 2003-2004 will ever happen again?

Might not be an epidemic, but I have a feeling that there are groups sitting on o-days that if they were released simultaneously, would have a spread similar to conficker or blaster.

No one drives cars with leaded fuel for their daily commute. Some technologies fall by the way side as the better ones replace them. Security and compatibility reasons are incentive enough to keep your OS up to date. No one is complaining that they can't use DOS 5.0 anymore, it just seems to be Windows XP and will probably be Windows 7. Some of the fault lies with microsoft for selling old licenses so long and for bungling Vista's and Windows 8 releases. But for XP users there is absolutely no reason to not be running Windows 7. Its a proven operating system that's been out for 5 years. If you want to stick with XP, like the leaded-fuel driving car owner recognize that support will be vanishing because you are using something that is well behind the times and you are burden on developers.

I'm sorry but I'm missing something. Cars are not software. One is tangible and one is not. Cars will still work in 20 years, regardless if the roads disappear or not. Software will not, I could go on and on but I think you get the picture.

I don't get this comparison at all.

Old cars are regulated by federal, state, and local governments. Any car from the 1980s was manufactured to meet safety and environmental regulations of the time, and must pass regular inspections to maintain compliance. For example, old cars are not permitted to burn leaded gas anymore, even if they were designed to do so.

In addition, the private operators of cars are required to carry at least liability insurance, to cover the cost to others if their old equipment causes injuries.

Windows XP, obviously, was not and is not subject to any of these restrictions or regulations. Thus the only tool that we, the community, have at our disposal to protect ourselves is to shame people still running XP. So please, keep shaming them!

I use WindowsXP to run some software that I can not longer use on windows 8. I have chess software and some old games that no longer work on windows 8 and it would not run well on a virtual machine as it needs real access to a hardware video card. I don't use Windows XP for anything else and I am ok with it . I only use it for games not for doing my banking , sending email or browsing the web.

Car collectors actively work to keep their pride and joy in tip top condition.

People don't actively work at keeping their WinXP computer in good condition.

This is what the article misses.

I have a 1992 machine that's online via a SLIP connection. That's a good analogy to his collectible cars. It's not a risk to other network users - it's from the "not safe to share floppies" era.

If your precious '87 is dropping odd parts into the road, creating hazards to other drivers, no it's not acceptable either.

The difference between the two is that without vendor patches, it's exceptionally difficult to maintain XP-era software to a standard where it's not at risk of polluting the network.

Let's rephrase this:

Quality software should not rot.

I am afraid I don't understand your point.

If the timeline for the horrible cars analogy was compressed to the timeline for software, the cars he's talking about would from the Model T era, when top speeds were under 60km/hr, and starting required hand-cranking.

Well, if it's good enough for your local ATM...

God yes. (Anyone familiar with the work of Barnaby Jack would be chuckling about now.) Look out for printers, too.

They might be running XP Embedded, which is actually still in-support. But they also very well might not be.

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