Other than our own personal computers, will Microsoft's ending support have any affect on our individual sites or the ability of users to access the site if they continue to use Win XP or Office 2003?

(Information from Microsoft.com)

Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003
Support Ends April 8th, 2014

An unsupported version of Windows will no longer receive software updates from Windows Update. These include security updates that can help protect your PC from harmful viruses, spyware, and other malicious software, which can steal your personal information. Windows Update also installs the latest software updates to improve the reliability of Windows—new drivers for your hardware and more.

So long as other browsers (and antivirus) support XP, no problem. You might want to read this LINK about IE8. Skip to the bottom.

CC right now is not working for IE8 and IE9 profile image uploads. I suspect it's a CC browser detection problem, not IE8 or IE9 per se. It's not been recognized as a bug yet by CC.

Almost one-third of the world still uses XP Older classes tend to use IE8 so although worldwide IE is about 10%, for our site IE usage is 22%, Firefox 50%, Safari 12%, Chrome 11% (This is very different from worldwide stats.)

My former employer is STILL using XP - and world wide, they have more than 65,000 computers - I am sure some form of support will be there - - - -but maybe not.

Sure if they pay for it. It's about $200 per seat or $13 million for 65,000. LINK

It's sort of a bluffing game. MS made a pretty good system with XP so unlike earlier versions, there's no huge motive to upgrade. Some big issues came up for Enterprise users with Win8? I don't know the status right now. If I remember I can ask.

Upgrading from XP to Win7/8 also means reinstalling all the aps - unless one upgrades to Vista first, then Win7 and then Win8. For a regular user that might be a pain, not to mention that some hardware will not work.

Just FYI--In news reports, Microsoft employees are calling Windows 8 the new Vista....not a good sign.

Also, Microsoft is currently working on Win 9 which is on the fast track for deployment.

Time to wait and see.
Thanks guys for your comments.

Just read that 95% of the ATMs around the world run XP. LINK

Interesting, funny and scary ... all at the same time.

Except for the Win8 main interface - which they stubbornly refuse to "fix" - it's an excellent OS. For $5 one can fix that with Start8. Looks just like Win7 and more.

Maybe they learned enough for Win9 to be accepted LINK Don't underestimate the power of egos In a nutshell, you can't force the same UI for multiple devices and expect it to work. It's not bad for a phone

Vista was a very different problem - it was slow, froze, crashed, very difficult to do simple tasks and so forth. So the Vista reference has to do with wide acceptance not code.

Back to the start, XP will work fine so long as there are browsers and security programs available. The IE8/9 file open issue still has to be resolved by CC. ATM's run in their own secured connection. It's not like they are browsing. It's always been that way.

- Admin wrote:

Possibly some good (or some "not-as-bad") news HERE and HERE.

I really do not like Windows 8 and I do NOT want to lose all my programs. Is one version of the Vista Upgrade better to use than another (just as a passthrough to 7)? I see several different ones out there.

MS info for selecting the version of Vista to match your XP version and keep your programs.

XP-VISTALINK

MS info for selecting the version of Windows 7 to match Vista version

Vista-Win7

I suggest you run the upgrade adviser first to see which programs will not work and even if your hardware will work. Not all systems can be upgraded. I recommend to get the maximum memory your system can support. Sites such as Crucial can analyze your system and tell you automatically. They also sell very good memory at a good price. If you get more than 4GB, get the 64-bit version otherwise you can't use the memory.

MS memory info LINK

Windows 8/8.1 with the Start8 addition is better than Windows 7. The only real issue with Win8 is the UI. With Start8 you get exactly the same as Win7 (XP) and then some for $5.