MS ending XP support in April

[SandisDad]

With end of support and updates for XP, what can us end users do?My old Compaq tower w/XP is used to do everything on my Office Jet 6200 (print,scan copy). I also have an HP p1102w Laser jet used for my B&W text. But after support ends I'll be afraid to get online with the Compaq. My HP laptop has Win 7 with a driver for the OJ "included" but all you can do is BASIC printing and non of the other features of this AiO, no one else has drivers (MS nor HP) for 7. Only current option is put out another $400 for ANOTHER  AiO printer-stupid since this one is fine.
Anybody got an idea?? I'd like to find a resolution before MS pulls the plug-which is hard to imagine since MANY corporations and Government departments still use XP from my understanding.
Thanks responders.

[Geek-9pm]

You can buy extended support. If not from Microsoft, there are others that will help you for a price. But be prepared to pay more that the $400  for a new printer.

[DaveLembke]

Well first of all April 2014 is not a day when Windows XP will stop operating, its just the last date that MS will support patching security issues with it.

I am a gov employee and there are lots of XP systems still in use and they are well protected behind very good modern firewalls. 99.9% of them are user only privilege accts in which to install anything it has to be approved by the higher ups in IT, and they have so much protection software running on them locally that they are slower than they would be without this protection. But there are other systems that are older than Windows XP that still serve a purpose and get everything done on a daily basis. I cant speak of specifics since its all confidential, but we have systems still running on Windows 2000 Pro and Server as well as NT 4 and OpenVMS, also many flavors of Linux distros in low risk uses or isolated networks which can not be hacked into.

In my home I have 3 computers that are running Windows XP SP3. I am not worried about these systems since I dont use them for banking, taxes, or ecommerce.

One of the 3 systems though I may be upgrading to Windows 7 in the near future when I can find some cheap RAM to bring my daughters computer above 1GB. I have tested Windows 7 on 1GB RAM and while it will run, it runs better on 2GB, and she is happy currently with Windows XP running on 1GB RAM. The only issue she hit with this system was that IE was not cutting it so I upgraded her to Firefox browser. She was having issues trying to play Flash Games on Windows XP SP3 with latest IE for that OS and Firefox was the fix. Also her hard drive is just a 40GB IDE HDD and Windows 7 would be tight on that drive after updates etc, so I picked up a 120GB IDE HDD on clearance as a refurb for $10.

As far as not buying a new computer and moving forward with a system that I would consider secure for banking etc beyond April 2014, if you can get use to Linux this is an option. However if you want to play games meant for Windows, because Microsoft Owns DirectX, all games for Linux have to operate without it and the gaming performance is not as good without DirectX on games that I have tried using OpenGL with.

My Linux Distro of choice is Linux Mint KDE which I am running 2 systems on, one with version 13 and the other with version 15. These run flawless on older computers such as the Pentium 4 2.0Ghz with 1GB RAM and 60GB HDD which is my main Linux box, however 1GB RAM is pretty much the bare minimum for this distro to operate ok. They also have distros that are available for older hardware that require less RAM such as Linux Mint 15 XFCE which will run on a system with say 512MB RAM well, but lacks features of the full blown KDE version.

Driver support for older hardware is also very good today vs in yesteryears. Setting up your printer would probably work without any issues however you might need to use a generic driver to get it to work than the one that was designed for the printer etc. I actually dont print anymore like I use to so I print to a PDF creator and save everything that needs to be saved as a file instead. If it needs to be printed, i can thumb drive it and plug it into my windows machine and print.

So I am not worried about 4/2014 and I will continue to use Windows XP on older systems that otherwise cant or wont run very well on a newer OS. But if it were the only computer in my home and I needed a secure computer and didnt game much and didnt want to spend any money, I'd download Linux Mint or another version of your choice and install it to the computer and use that going forward to have secure computing without the fear that a new flaw is exploited and there is no patch for it. Linux Mint and Ubuntu are the most commonly used distros. I went from Fedora to Ubuntu and then to Mint, and I like Mint the best of them all. Coming from Windows , Mint seems the easiest to get use to from people that I have sared my CD's and DVDs of these distros with to try out.

[Geek-9pm]

Here is another idea.
Use a partition manager to open up some space on your big hard drive and in stall a virgin  XP sp3 on it. Get all the updates and then make an image of it and  keep it where you can find it later. That way you have a fresh copy with the updates ready if y you ever have a system crash.

[BC_Programmer]

With end of support and updates for XP, what can us end users do?

Either continue to use XP, or don't continue to use XP.

But after support ends I'll be afraid to get online with the Compaq.

I suppose that is reasonable. Though even with support and security updates, it's important to remember that those security problems exist regardless of whether they were patched or not. For example, take- say, the last set of security updates patched on XP with Windows Update. Every single one of those patches fixes a security issue that has existed since at least the release of SP3. Most of the exploits and hacks for an OS are well known long before they get patched- in fact they usually only get patched after a well-meaning researcher or other individual discovers the exploit (or it starts to spread like wildfire). This is not Windows or Microsoft-Specific, either. It's just the way security patches/updates go, really.

My HP laptop has Win 7 with a driver for the OJ "included" but all you can do is BASIC printing and non of the other features of this AiO, no one else has drivers (MS nor HP) for 7. Only current option is put out another $400 for ANOTHER  AiO printer-stupid since this one is fine.

Are you certain? IT sounds more like you are looking for "value-added" software to perform those extra functions. For example, I have windows 7 and borrowed my brothers Lexmark X5650 AIO; I hadn't installed it before. It installed as a printer. However, I was able to scan using the built-in Scanner/fax Tool in Windows 7, as well as with Photoshop. The packaged software for XP included a bunch of software for the different printer tasks, but they aren't necessary to actually use the various features, since other software is usually available to use them.

Note the "support" dropping just means there won't be new security updates released. Existing hotfixes and security patches since SP3 will still be available through windows Update. (If memory serves even windows 98 still has some Windows Update capability).

[Geek-9pm]

BC, two questions.
What about updates to older DOT NET stuff?
And also the older C++ run-time stuff?
Many XP PCs out there use old software written awhile back that depends on the older run time t hings. Would the updates get to XP owners?
Just asking.

[BC_Programmer]

BC, two questions.
What about updates to older DOT NET stuff?
And also the older C++ run-time stuff?
Many XP PCs out there use old software written awhile back that depends on the older run time t hings. Would the updates get to XP owners?
Just asking.

support for all versions of the .NET Framework prior to 3.5 SP1 Ended July 12th, 2011. Starting with that version their product lifecycle changed to match the OS version they were distributed with. 3.5 SP1 was included with Windows 7, and so will continue to be supported until Windows 7 is End-Of-Lifed. .NET 4 is distributed with Windows 8 and thus will continue to be supported until that is EOL'd, etc.

These products are separate from Windows XP. XP being EOL'd means there aren't updates for Windows XP, it won't completely cut off Windows Update.