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El Reg reports UK.gov confirms it's binned extended Windows XP support
The [UK government] signed up for Microsoft's OS [...] support service--aka a Custom Support Agreement--last year, but a recent meeting of government Technology Leaders decided enough is enough. A post on the Government Technology Blog says the Leaders "took a collective decision to not extend the support arrangement for 2015".
A support agreement that ended in April was therefore not renewed.
[...] An [undisclosed] number of agencies are still running XP, at least on some machines, leading the government digital service to suggest "We expect most remaining government devices using Windows XP will be able to mitigate any risks, using the CESG guidance."
[...] As we've reported, agencies including the Metropolitan Police, the [National Health Service], and [Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs] are still to finish XP migration projects.
Related: Microsoft Ends Support for Windows XP
[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]
(Score: 2) by mendax on Wednesday May 27 2015, @08:41PM
... the UK government is now asking the hackers, the script kiddies, the Russian mafia, the North Koreans, the Chinese, and the NSA to ask themselves, "Where do you want to go today?"
I'm loving it! You'd think they'd at least have the sense to move away from XP to something like Linux which will run just fine on older machines. So what if a little bit of training has to be done?
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2015, @08:44PM
No, they're much cleverer than that, they're telling everyone that they're staying with XP but they are really migrating to OS/2 Warp.
(Score: 2) by present_arms on Wednesday May 27 2015, @08:51PM
Even warp would be an upgrade
http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/
(Score: 2) by mendax on Wednesday May 27 2015, @09:29PM
Nah... let them migrate to DOS. At least it's secure! And Windows 3.1 wasn't all *that* bad... except when it was.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2, Funny) by srobert on Wednesday May 27 2015, @10:58PM
We're going to move all of our mission critical systems to MicroSoft Bob.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:32AM
Who knows? It might result in an improvement!
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Thursday May 28 2015, @04:53PM
I work in the NHS and we only got rid of XP fairly recently (last year or the year before, can't remember). We got Windows 7 instead, which doesn't run too badly apart from the security settings on the machine (restricting my ability to change ClearType settings without calling the IT department to ask their permission, for example). We also use a bunch of very costly semi-bespoke applications (i.e. base code is off-the-shelf, bells and whistles are expensive extras), all of which use their own custom-written controls (all the dialogue boxes look different in each application, standard shortcut keys don't work, etc) which was only minimally tested before the mass OS upgrades and has since been changed again. We pay Oracle millions per year for shitty, barely functional database setup that a chimp could better with a 20-year old copy of Access. We still use actual fax machines, FFS! They think a digital signature is a scanned copy of your *actual* signature!
I could go on, but it's depressing enough working there as it is.