Goodbye Win XP (Like a Candle in the Wind)

Goodbye Win XP

(Like a Candle in the Wind)

Goodbye Win XP / Though I always knew you more than all / You had the interface to run so well / While those before you crawled / They just tried and didn’t work / You required a 233MHz brain / ME just had to get killed / So you could save the day

Chorus: And it seems to me you lived your life / Like a tower in the wind / Always knowing where to Bing to / When the search came in / I was there when you were beta / But I was just a kid / Your OS lasted so long but now / Your support has hit the skids.

Verse 2: ME was so tough / But your rolling hills saved the day / Microsoft created a superstar / You were such a great upgrade / Even when you died / So many still kept you / All the tech papers had to say / Was just wait for Service Pack 2

Chorus: And it seems to me you lived your life / Like a tower in the wind / Always knowing where to Bing to / When the search came in / I was there when you were beta / But I was just a kid / Your OS lasted so long but now / Your support has hit the skids.

I hope you enjoyed my rendition of “Like a Candle in the Wind”, the only thing that would have made it more fun is if you would have heard me sing it. Who knows? I may open up SongSmith and post a recording soon. I’ll make a deal with you, let your views, shares and tweets do the talking and if we break any records for this site then I promise to sing it for everyone. No fancy sunglasses though.

As I write this, support for Windows XP ends in 29 days, 7 hours, 9 minutes and 18 seconds. If you want a countdown clock you can track it here. Counting down might be a bit ominous for those of you out there still using XP so I wanted to provide a few details about how this might impact your school or district. In doing so, we will also see how it might already be having some unwanted effects on productivity.

What is end of support?

Essentially, this means that no more security updates or technical support will be provided. Many of you may be saying, “OK, so what does that mean to my school/district?” If you are thinking of this in terms of security (you should be), it means that attackers could identify vulnerabilities that may currently exist in XP and then be able to exploit these issues knowing they will not be patched. We have to consider the importance of the integrity of student data, teacher records, and district level information (payroll, accounting, etc). If you do not upgrade to Windows 8.1 or at the least to Windows 7, hackers do not have to start on day one of the end of support, they could already be planning to attack systems that they know are going to be vulnerable. This reason alone should want to make you want to upgrade but there are several other reasons.

Compliance: More than likely, your district has to deal with HIPPA Compliance when it comes to student and teacher health records and information. By leaving this door open, you may find that it violates compliance rules.

Lack of Support from other vendors: Once the EOL for XP occurs, more than likely so will support end for vendor’s products that are running on XP. This includes hardware as well as software.

Windows 8.1 is awesome! Ok, that might not be a tangible reason but if you are still thinking about security (you should be), it has been said that Windows XP is 21 times more likely to be infected by malware than the modern Windows 8.1.

Microsoft Office 2013 and IE 11 won’t run in XP: If you are wanting your students and teachers to learn and use the most current productivity software along with a modern browser, you can’t do it with XP. In this case you are breaching the area of handcuffing your students when it comes to college and career readiness.

Windows XP was released in October 2001. It was a more stable version of Windows with a redesigned graphic user interface and an overall experience that was both user-friendly and efficient. It was so good and so widely accepted that it took 6 years for another version of Windows to be released. However, that was 2001 and back then world-wide internet usage was estimated at around 470 million people, today we are tipping the scales at over 2.7 billion people! If you would like some additional information there are many Windows 8 resources on the PIL Network and Microsoft Technet even provides a series of resources called the Springboard Series to help understand what’s new, application compatibility, XP to 8 migration guides, and much more.

So remember to comment, like, share, tweet, pin, email, and carrier pigeon this post and I promise to sing my version of the song and post it here. More importantly though, don’t wait for the clock to run out and make the switch to Windows 8.1.