Activate XP after support ends?

[RT-Cat]

As we all know the "End of Life" for XP happened some time ago. I think I remember that support from Microsoft will come to an end in the Spring of 2014. If this is correct, the question would be: If you had a DVD, full install, never used of XP and you did install it on a computer after support ends, does that mean you would not be able to activate the install? Making that DVD total junk.

RT

 

[navychop]

The PC would have to be a bit old also, as there might not be XP drivers for newer equipment.

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[kittyhas1000legs]

The only way to know for sure would be to contact Microsoft. Navychop's right, though. The main limitations (off the top of my head) are that you would need an older IDE hard drive instead of SATA, and you'd be stuck using up to 3.25GB of RAM.

 

[Teehar]

Make sure to get all the drivers and archive them for future use.I would think it would activate just fine,or no activation required.

 

[mike123abc]

April 8 is the end of support for XP. Essentially the last patch Tuesday for XP. I have a feeling a lot of exploits are being banked right now, to be released after that date to help fuel the XP apocalypse! If your XP machine is connected to the internet, I would upgrade before April 8th or isolate it from the internet.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/enterprise/endofsupport.aspx

I would expect that MS would simply turn off the need to activate after that date.

 

[RT-Cat]

Thanks to all. Kind of thought some of those answers would be what would/will happen.
.
RT

 

[Magic Static]

I just did an XP install on a laptop that was used for the frontend of a Subaru factory scan tool. I couldn't believe the newest Subaru scan tool requires Win XP to run. The laptop was an Asus Eee PC netbook. No optical drive and a SATA HDD. Fortunately I have a USB floppy drive and USB disc drive to load the drivers for the SATA controller and Windows from. I also have Win XP service packs 1~3 on disc. You can't do an upgrade to Win 7 from Win XP without having the service paks installed The OS still was activated by MS though.

 

[Foxbat]

I lunched the IDE hard drive on one of my XP boxes earlier this year and trying to get an XP box reinstalled from the XP SP2 disk is not for the feint of heart. Microsoft wants IE 8 at a minimum to run Automatic Updates. Download SP3 to a thumb drive on a separate machine before you start to speed up the process. Under no circumstances install XP on a box connected directly to your ISP, but hide it behind a NAT router.

I hear you about the Industrial Process Automation requirement for XP. I get into the same arguments at work when the people who need to get things done are sold a solution that is XP-based and we tell them, "No!" Vista burned a lot of PA vendors and they have trouble trusting Microsoft with Windows 7/8.

 

[Stargazer]

There are still computers running on Windows 98/2000 without updates that are running just fine aren't there? I'd say that a good firewall/anti-virus is even more important on those computers. There are still a lot of XP computers out there. If XP gets exploited a lot after the updates are over then I can see a larger adoption of Linux varients after that or a surge of new computer purchases.

 

[. Raine]

I would think that if you call them they will still activate it over the phone for you. For anything else to do with XP you'd be on your own though, as far as Microsoft is concerned. Even though XP is old now, it'd cause them way more problems than what it is worth to try and not let people use it by not activating it for them.

Of course, it's been so long since I've used XP that I don't even remember what happened if you didn't activate it, did it only give you 30 days and then lock you out? If that's the case then I'd bet they'll still activate it, really would have to. If it was only for windows updates and such, probably they won't. Maybe even call them and ask them about it.

 

[Claude Greiner]

I got XP running on a solid state SATA drive on several machines. Most of the Machines I have either have Duo or Quad core processors and are maxed out at 4 Gig of Ram.

I don't think XP is going away, I see a paid support option becoming available. Maybe Microsoft will end up selling off the support rights, but there are too many older machines out there that aint gonna run anything but XP, and people are not going to run out and go and buy a computer with windows 8.

If Microsoft would just make Windows 8 look and feel exactly like XP, then there wouldn't be such a fight with people wanting to hang on to it.

I know there are programs that will skin over Windows 8 to make it look like XP, but I have tried using them and it doesn't cut it.

Too many large corporations, including my company use XP and see no need to upgrade, especially if you have machines running duo core processors.

The only advantage I can see going to Windows 8 is being able to run more than 4 Gig of Memory, and IE 9 or 10. But thats another thing Microsoft is going to screw themselves on if they don't make an upgraded version of internet explorer work with XP, people are going to go to Chrome or Firefox.

Its going to get to the point where people will just say screw internet explorer and will switch due to the lack of support

 

[navychop]

Make sure to get all the drivers and archive them for future use.I would think it would activate just fine,or no activation required.

I would think that if you call them they will still activate it over the phone for you. For anything else to do with XP you'd be on your own though, as far as Microsoft is concerned. Even though XP is old now, it'd cause them way more problems than what it is worth to try and not let people use it by not activating it for them.

Of course, it's been so long since I've used XP that I don't even remember what happened if you didn't activate it, did it only give you 30 days and then lock you out? If that's the case then I'd bet they'll still activate it, really would have to. If it was only for windows updates and such, probably they won't. Maybe even call them and ask them about it.

I suspect that there will be no more activations, and new installs will simply not work, without some third party scheme.

 

[mike123abc]

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/microsoft-security-intelligence-report,news-17810.html

The Security Intelligence Report emphasized the risks of not upgrading to recent versions of Windows. It found that machines running Windows XP were six times more likely to be infected by malware than machines running Windows 8.

Because Windows XP machines encounter only a third more malware than Windows 8 PCs, it means Windows 8 machines were more likely to repel the malware threat, according to the report.

Microsoft's report found that 21 percent of Microsoft systems are still using Windows XP. Independent reports have put that percentage even higher, with estimates approaching 40 percent in China and many African countries.

The reports also show that the most popular malware attack points are Web-based, via HTML, JavaScript or Java plugin exploits. This is partly due to the success of the Blackhole browser exploit kit, a Web-based threat found in a reported 1.12 percent of computers worldwide in the first quarter of 2013, according to the report.

 

[jayn_j]

Corporations tend to be conservative when updating their OS. I am still running XP at work. Further, engineering projects absolutely need to stabilize their development tools, so tend to remain on operating systems, compilers, etc, long after MS declares them obsolete.

Finally, the cost to update production equipment is very high. I still interface with machines running Windows 95/98/NT4. Generally not connected to the open internet, but often connected to a local intranet.

 

[avg1joe]

Your xp install disk, what service pack is included in it? Does it say something like xp with sp2 for example? If you are even thinking about installing xp after it expires I would highly recommend that you learn how to slipstream a disk. Then, just before xp expires, you want to slipstream your disk to update it to service pack 3 AND any updates since sp3. The last time I installed xp with an xp sp3 disk there were about 100 updates from microsoft update, not included in sp3.

 

[Teehar]

As xp becomes used less and less,naturally it will be exploited less.Why would a hacker want to waste their time on a little fish.I dunno why MS wouldn't go to a paid type of xp support though.In its later years it became one of the most stable OS in MS history.

 

[Stargazer]

They could release un updated version of XP for a small fee and get some to buy it and offer updates to it for a certain period of time for that price.

Does the Blackhole browser exploit kit mainly effect Explorer 8 in XP or does it effect Chrome/Firefox in XP as well?

When I contacted Microsoft this past summer over an issue with Windows 8, I asked them when support ended on XP if they would give me a different key if my key got compromised by a hacker and they said they wouldn't that I would have to upgrade to a newer version of windows. The older computers won't work with a newer version of Windows because they require more memory than what some of the computers can handle.

 

[StevenD]

MS has already extended XP support a couple of times. It's time to bury it!

 

[Teehar]

MS has already extended XP support a couple of times. It's time to bury it!

Even though newer versions of their OS won't work with older equipment.Yep more $$$$

 

[. Raine]

Even though newer versions of their OS won't work with older equipment.Yep more $$$$

That's what their all about! $$$$$.