There is a relatively old—though still fundamentally true—adage about Windows: Microsoft's biggest competition is Microsoft, as a specific subset of users (and businesses) only upgrade to the latest version of Windows kicking and screaming. According to SpiceWorks' Future of Network and Endpoint Security report, published Tuesday, 32% of organizations still have at least one Windows XP device connected to their network, despite extended support for XP ending in 2014. (Notably, the last variant of XP, Windows POSReady 2009, reached end of life in April 2019.)
With the looming end of free support for Windows 7, this reticence of users and enterprises to upgrade to newer versions of Windows is likely to create significant security issues. Presently, 79% of organizations still have at least one Windows 7 system on their network, according to SpiceWorks, which also found that two thirds of businesses plan to migrate all of their machines off Windows 7 prior to the end of support on January 14, 2020, while a quarter will only migrate after that deadline.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday July 31 2019, @12:12AM (2 children)
I have a Win 98 machine running some colour management software that won't run on anything newer (because of the HAL in newer Windows I expect) and it is not plugged into any network, so I am not going to worry about security.
The business is well aware that when the machine dies the data is gone too, and if they don't want to update the colour standards on the new machines I got them then it won't be my problem.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 31 2019, @02:48PM (1 child)
Mildly curious - have you ever attempted to run it on NT4, or Win2K? Not sure if they both have HAL or not. Hmmm - it appears that both have HAL - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_abstraction#Microsoft_Windows [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday July 31 2019, @08:07PM
Yeah, I think I remember HAL being introduced as some sort of security improvement in NT4, maybe.
I don't have time to be messing about with 20 year old, unsupported hardware and software. The company has plenty of money and can afford the $30k it will cost to replace the old kit. Everyone is comfortable with the fact it will die one day. Until it dies of course, you know how that goes I'm sure.