http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57619697-75/windows-8.1-update-said-to-arri...http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57614101-92/intel-hp-prepare-for-the-end-of-... Well, they said they'd extended XP ..... but my memory says it was for a lot longer period. Now they claim they were just talking about XP embedded with that longer extension period. But that doesn't matter, Win XP support officially ends now
on April the 8th now (unless they change their silly minds again).
Anyway,
on April the 8th Microsoft will patch Win 8.1 with "the fix it patch" on Patch Tuesday and kill XP support on the same day.
You are supposed to run out and buy a new box immediately of course, and
MS trusts you to be very loyal long term blood bowl donors and stick with the MS brand OS.
XP end of support is a rather big thing for folks our age as we have been using it for lo, over 13 years now and some of us have been on XP continuously since it came out.
To say we are not ready to jump over to touchy feel-ly land is an understatement.
======================
When the XP-like Linux Mint Mate LTS comes out that same month I will post a detailed how to install it (or provide a link to the same since lots of people put them up and there is always an official how to posted by the Mint folks).
You can dual boot your old machine for free and when XP bites the trojan or root kit or worm or virus that finally does it to it you will have somewhere to go to keep on going.
You are caught in the classical "rock and a hard spot" situation right now -- but with Mint Mate the hard spot is actually a pretty soft landing as there are enough of us on here to give you tips and how to's on Linux Mint.
This is the current graph that came out with the announcement ....
Look at that "Other" go !! And here is the same graph I posted two weeks ago ....
Also please note that in two weeks time since I first posted this pie chart that "Other" has more than doubled in size again to right at 5% and Windows 7 went up nearly 2% just about matching the reported decline in the XP slice.
Only 1% went to Win 8.
"Other" is now bigger than Windows Vista or any of the Apple desktop OSs.
I wonder how big "other" will get before they have to give it a real name?