1 (edited by nathanm 2014-01-29 16:18:54)

Topic: For you Windows XP luddites...

As we all know, support for Windows XP will be ceasing later this year. However, what if I told you that there's a slightly different version of XP, meant for Point of Sale units, that will continue to be supported until 2019? It's true! This version, called Windows Embedded POSReady 2009, is pretty much a slimmed down XP SP3 release. Also, because there is no activation you don't have to go through a bunch of crap like I did with my install of Windows 7. However, you do need a valid key. You can find a link to an evaluation ISO for this software here.Here's an evaluation key that lasts about a year: KFF8R-TMHF4-GKT2P-KGDHH-FXPMB. If you want a retail key, you're going to have to go through other sources *cough*google.com*cough*. However, the ISO does completely wipe the hard drive, so I'd back up all important files on your computer.  This is just a useful tip I picked up for people who are stuck to their old crappy computers.

Re: For you Windows XP luddites...

every time I see ....POS... I can't help thinking "Piece Of S*!@"... of course, it's often in conjunciton with people bitching about their particular POS system wherever they work.

Cleaning up any loose bits and bytes.

Re: For you Windows XP luddites...

nathanm wrote:

Of course, if this thread is too warezy, I'll remove all offending links.

From my standpoint, the ISO download is microsoft.com... not warez if it's straight from the source.  Now maybe the key stuff that's a couple links away is just one more connection away.

Linux Guy - Occasional Chumby Hacker

Re: For you Windows XP luddites...

Materdaddy wrote:
nathanm wrote:

Of course, if this thread is too warezy, I'll remove all offending links.

From my standpoint, the ISO download is microsoft.com... not warez if it's straight from the source.  Now maybe the key stuff that's a couple links away is just one more connection away.

Fixed.

Re: For you Windows XP luddites...

Pretty cool find, Nathanm. I can't see installing it for regular use, but it could be great to recover something that will only work with a program up to XP. Too bad it wipes the drive, but it would be fun to use on a 90% dead old computer. I wish a couple of years ago when everyone was throwing away their desktops, I'd saved a couple of extras. I never believed VW would stop making bugs, but I still can't believe MS can stop XP support in April. Recently saw this trivia in Wikipedia:

"In January 2014, it was estimated that more than 95% of the 3 million automated teller machines in the world were still running Windows XP. Plans were being made by several ATM vendors and their customers to migrate to Windows 7-based systems over the course of 2014"

Re: For you Windows XP luddites...

Agreed. I installed it on my crappy old Toshiba laptop, and it runs better than XP. The only trouble I ran into is that you need to get the .msi version of Flash, not the .exe version.

Re: For you Windows XP luddites...

I love that on that page other "popular downloads" is Zune software.

Tar, feathers, congress. Some assembly required.

Re: For you Windows XP luddites...

bobsz wrote:

"In January 2014, it was estimated that more than 95% of the 3 million automated teller machines in the world were still running Windows XP. Plans were being made by several ATM vendors and their customers to migrate to Windows 7-based systems over the course of 2014"

It's Y2K all over again!!!

Linux Guy - Occasional Chumby Hacker

Re: For you Windows XP luddites...

I heard on Leo Laporte there are between 500,000,000 and 600,000,000 (yeah, Six Hundred Million) XP machines still running as of today. 

I don't see any possible way they are gonna get rid of them.

I for one contacted Dell, asked about an OS update and I got just dumb looks.  They acted like I was crazy, wanting an upgrade to windows 7 for my eight (8) core machine.  But heck, it's an 8 core machine, fully respectable if you ask me.

10 (edited by bobsz 2014-02-15 23:52:40)

Re: For you Windows XP luddites...

@ Steevo-- Well, that six hundred mln figure sounds hard to believe, but anything's possible. I've heard that most computers in China run on pirated versions of XP. Seems crazy for MS to stop supporting it, but XP is really the last MS OS you can run without being connected to the cloud. Similar to Office 2003, you could use it without even going online to register it, as long as you had the key from the cd box. Google has changed computers to something you don't really have to buy software for, but you have to keep "putting quarters in the slot" forever. I'm VERY happy I got Win7 on this HP, but even this is a little disappointing after XP. No decent CD/DVD burning built in. Windows viewer can't open GIFs- how 20th century is that? The main cruelty from MS is that they won't allow any modern versions of IE on XP, definitely open season for malware. Of course, those XP folks should just change to Firefox which runs fine in XP, but all the millions of still-AOLers won't have any idea what that means.

On the other hand, MS may be cracking a little. They're going to allow signature updates for MS "Security Essentials" for XP.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/mmpc/archive … ws-xp.aspx

The MS Security for Win 7 is actually pretty good, but as I remember on XP it was very limited. I still use free security programs on my XP computers, just hope they keep supporting XP.

Let's hope this is a sign MS is cracking, realizing that they could be pushing million of users to cheap chromebooks, not to Win 8. Another cool (if fleeting) thing is that HP has re-introduced a few Win 7 machines-

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2429736,00.asp

I'm not surprised from the reaction you got from Dell. XP is probably older than the person you were talking to in Bangalore. Hey, maybe just for fun I'll call HP Support and ask them how I get to the c prompt in Windows 7.

Re: For you Windows XP luddites...

bobsz wrote:

Pretty cool find, Nathanm. I can't see installing it for regular use, but it could be great to recover something that will only work with a program up to XP. Too bad it wipes the drive, but it would be fun to use on a 90% dead old computer.

Two words: Oracle VirtualBox. big_smile