Is It Time To Say Goodbye To Windows XP?

“I am often asked by clients using XP if they should “upgrade” their machines to a newer OS.“

Microsoft’s Windows XP was their most successful operating system to date and more than half the computers in the world are still using Windows XP. There are several reasons for that. (One big one is software “pirates” and “warez”. Another is businesses, gov’ts, and org’s don’t have the cushion in their budgets to upgrade.)

XP was released in 2001. It was the first consumer-oriented operating system produced by Microsoft to be built on the “business grade” Windows NT kernel — which was far less prone to random Blue Screens Of Death (BSOD’s) than the Windows 9x architecture was.

Windows XP has many loyal fans. I used (and liked) Windows XP right up to 2007, when I was able to get advanced copies of a new operating system, “codename Longhorn” — which became “Vista”. I still have a couple XP machines I occasionally use for testing purposes, but the keyword there is “occasionally”.

Windows XP was, after Service Pack 2, stable, rather fast, and most of the software (aka “programs”) ever written would run on it. It had/has the “modern” abilities we needed to really allow the Internet to blossom and grow. The point of my article today is not to “dis”, “knock”, or “put down” Windows XP in any way. It is/was a “complete OS”; versatile; capable; and, the world of computing (and the Internet) would not be what it is today without it. It was an important part of our tech evolution.

But that is my key point – evolution. (In tech.)

2001 may not seem like all that long ago to you. But in the arena of technology and computers (as stated by Moore’s Law), 2001 is either 4 1/2 “generations” ago, or 6 generations.. depending how you count. Let’s be conservative, and call it 4. In terms of hardware/software, Windows XP is a Great-grandpa. (Or.. a Great, great, great grandpa. Depending how you count.) In terms of Microsoft OSes; it has been ‘succeeded’ by Vista, Vista + SP1, Vista + SP2, and now Windows 7 (with SP1 for Win7 not long off).

Fact: Microsoft is ending support for Windows XP.
Phasing it out.
“Retiring” it.
Their most successful product.
(“.. turn out the lights .. the party’s over ..)

Support for Windows XP Service Pack 2 will be retired on July 13, 2010. Microsoft stopped general licensing of Windows XP to manufacturers and terminated retail sales of the operating system on June 30, 2008.

On April 14, 2009, Windows XP and its family of operating systems were moved from Mainstream Support to the Extended Support phase. During the Extended Support Phase, Microsoft will continue to provide security updates every month for Windows XP.

On April 8, 2014, all Windows XP support, including security updates and security-related hotfixes, will be terminated.

Is it time to say goodbye To Windows XP?
I am often asked by clients using XP if they should “upgrade” their machines to a newer OS, or buy a new computer altogether. What answer I give depends on several factors, but basically my decision boils down to the “generation” of their hardware, and whether or not they have any ‘mission-critical’ programs that are XP-only (i.e., DOS-based).

* Is your Hard Drive an IDE? When you plug in a USB device, do you get a message saying “This device can perform faster” and something about USB 2.0? Is your CPU (aka “processor”) a “single-core” (Pentium 4/Athlon 64 or older)? Do you have 1 GB (or less) of PC400 – PC800 RAM?
(You can see most of these things by looking at your System Properties. Right-click on “My Computer”, and selecting “Properties”. Then look at your HD’s Properties in Device Manager.)

If you answered “yes” to the above, my answer is to forget about upgrading to Vista or Win 7, and instead save your money for a new machine. Keep your machine XP until you can retire it. But be aware, XP is aged and vulnerable to cybercriminals: make sure you have proper defenses in place. Please see, Top 10 things you should do to your computer for the tools and How To’s for that.

However, if you answered mostly “no” to that checklist (in other words, you have a dual-core, more than 1.5 GB’s of RAM [and it’s DDR2]. and your USB busses are 2.0, and your HD is a SATA, well, then, you might want to consider upgrading to Windows 7. (Or at least, creating a “dual boot” setup. See, Video Tutorial — How To Dual Boot Win7.)
But it is very important that you download and run Microsoft’s Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor first. It will scan your machine and tell you if you have any incompatibilities, and save you a ton of headaches.

The critical reviews of Windows 7 are in, and they are over-whelmingly positive. A long time ago, I wrote A Tech’s First Impression of Windows 7 RC; my enthusiasm for Win 7 has not faded in the time since. I will repeat my “general opinion” of Win 7 –> it is the Windows that Bill Gates has promised us since way back when Windows 95 was released.

But! Short version, seriously consider a new machine over an upgrade. A new machine will be 64-bit, and have the current generation of hardware, and it will come with Windows 7 already set up and configured. A new machine will last you more years to come; while XP’s days are running out.

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To enter the drawing, please see: Software License Giveaway: SYNCING.NET
Enter my current giveaway and (possibly) win a license!

Today’s recommended reading:
* Google Admits Tracking WiFi Payloads
* Canada’s Super Spies “Discover” Cybercrime is a Threat

Today’s free download: Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. Find out if your PC can run Windows 7.
To see if your PC is ready for Windows 7, download the free Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. It scans your PC for potential issues with your hardware, devices, and installed programs, and recommends what to do before you upgrade.

Copyright 2007-2010 © Tech Paul. All Rights Reserved. post to jaanix.

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Part 3 | The Best CPU?

This week I started an article series due to my most recent PC hardware upgrade, as I have a new recommendation for those who are interested in maximum computer performance — I rebuilt a machine into an i7, X58, DDR 3, SLI ‘rig’ and its performance is impressive. I am quite taken with the i7/X58 combo.
[note: each of those acronyms is “clickable” for those interested in learning more details. I will try to avoid Geek jargon here..]
Earlier, I wrote a 4-part series on the ‘How To’s’ of upgrading your CPU, and suggest it as a preface (please refer to part 1, Replacing or Upgrading Your CPU).

In the previous Part 2 | The Best CPU? I started discussing this hardware upgrade by focusing on i7-920 CPU. Hyper-threading, new chip architecture, and easy (stable) over-clocking give this CPU performance numbers that make it arguably the best CPU available to us “consumers” today. And it has been around long enough now that the price has dropped to “reasonable”.

• Turbo Boost technology – To maximize speed for heavy applications
• Hyper Threading – Intel has brought back its hyper threading technology first seen in its Pentium Processors to allow a new level of parallel performance with 8 threads available for multi-tasking.
• QuickPath Interconnect – is designed for increased bandwidth and low latency. It can achieve data transfer speeds as high as 25.6 GB/sec.
• Smart Cache – For better and more optimized handling of cache memory
• Integrated Memory Controllers – Supporting three channels of DDR3 Memory (1066 Mhz) to produce a whopping 25.6 Gb/Sec memory bandwidth.
• HD Boost – For improved performance in a wide spectrum of Multimedia and compute-intensive applications.

[a brief aside: to be fair, this thread on Tom’s Harware.com, (GAMERS ONLY) i7 vs 955/ is 300$ worth it?, posits that a particular (over-clocked) AMD CPU is the smarter way to go for gamers.. and I think the writer’s point may be correct.]

But going with an i7 as your upgrade path does mean that you will also need a new motherboard.

The i-Series CPU’s new design and on-chip features require a new socket, chipset, and also the newer DDR3 RAM memory –> the i7 needs to be matched to a “50-series” chipset.

I went with the newer X58 chipset because I was building a “performance gaming rig” with dual graphics cards, in what is known as an “SLI/Crossfire” configuration (the motherboard must have two or more PCIe graphics “slots”) and the X58 motherboards have the ICH10R chip which allows – for the first time really – both cards to transfer data at 16x. The 55’s don’t have the ICH10R.
(Prior to this, the 16x graphics datapath was ‘split’ between cards in an SLI config to 8x, 8x. With the X58/ICH10R it is 16x, 16x.)

“The Intel X58 Express Chipset supports the latest 45nm Intel Core i7 processor family at 6.4 GT/s and 4.8 GT/s speeds via the Intel® QuickPath Interconnect (Intel® QPI). Additionally, this chipset delivers dual x16 or quad x8 PCI Express* 2.0 graphics card support, and support for Intel® High Performance Solid State Drives.“

Now, I would like to tell you that this effectively doubled my graphics cards’ ability to pump out the frames-per-second.. but if you have been around computers for a while you will know that doubling some performance number or other does not make your computer appear to do things twice as fast. Machines simply don’t work that way.

What it does mean is, the machine is capable of handling a heavier ‘load’ before you notice slow downs. And in computer graphics, ‘load’ means things like driving a larger monitor at a higher resolution. And specific to computer gaming, ‘load’ means ‘features’ — like shading, anti-aliasing, and Vsync, etc. — often referred to as “the bells and whistles”.

I can tell you it is true, if you can run your game on a large screen, with the “bells and whistles” on (or “dialed up”) and you do not experience slow downs, such as lag or a slideshow style framerate, you will have a better gaming experience. Typically that means you become more “immersed” in the game’s environment… mostly because it is more “real looking”.

I will continue this .. hopefully Monday. I hope you all have a great weekend.

News Item: Microsoft uses the courts to shutdown cybercriminals. See, Cracking Down on Botnets.
“Botnets – networks of compromised computers controlled by hackers known as “bot-herders” – have become a serious problem in cyberspace.  Their proliferation has led some to worry that the botnet problem is unsolvable.¹ Under the control of a hacker or group of hackers, botnets are often used to conduct various attacks ranging from denial of service attacks on websites, to spamming, click fraud, and distribution of new forms of malicious software.”

¹ emphasis, mine.

Skip to Part 4 The Best CPU? Hardware Upgrade, cont.

Copyright 2007-2010 © Tech Paul. All Rights Reserved. post to jaanix.

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Gigabit Ethernet Didn’t Make Internet Faster

Reader asks why upgrading to Gigabit Ethernet didn’t improve their Web surfing speed.

Q: I recently purchased a Linksys WRT 310 wireless router that has four Gigabit ports. My Dell desktop is a XPS which I was told was “Top of the Line” has a built-in gigabit port. I even purchased new cables to make sure my network was going to be “gigabit”. I hooked it all up and I don’t see any improvement in my internet. The salesman told me that “gigabit” was the fastest.. so how come I’m not surfing faster? Did I do something wrong or do I need to buy a different brand? Thanx.

A: No, you (most likely) didn’t do anything “wrong”, and you don’t need to buy a different router.

Let me, first of all, cover a few “basics” (see also, Wired or Wireless?*)
Kilo = 1,000 = thousand
Mega = 1,000,000 = million
Giga = 1,000,000,000 = billion

And then let me ask you to look at a simple network diagram.

In this diagram, the Internet is represented by the “cloud” (thus.. “cloud computing”) and I made it appropriately dark and stormy. The Internet connection is represented as the yellow zigzag — this can be a phone line (dial-up, DSL, IDSN) or a coaxial cable.
The blue is your (now Gigabit) Ethernet cabling.

For sake of argument, I made the Internet connection a cable High-speed connection, and I made the download speed a Premium-grade 12 Mbps .. 12 “megabits” per second. (I’d like to have this in RL.. but I have 3 Mbps DSL).
Note that I said “download speed”. Unless you order a special line into your home/office, your “Internet speed” is always your download speed. And, your “upload” speeds are always significantly slower.. as represented by the 486 kilobits per second.

The lines you changed are the blue lines. And so, yes, you have billion-bit lines there (Gigabit). You have multiplied by a thousand the theoretical rate at which computers A, B, and C can “talk” to the router and to each other. You did not change how the modem and the cloud are talking. That is still 12 Megabits down/point 486 (.486) Megabytes up.

Your Internet speed is controlled by two things: one, your service “level” (3 Mbps is more expensive than 1.5, and 6 Mbps is even more expensive, etc.) and two, the technology that can come into your home — dial-up, DSL, ISDN, Satellite, cable, wireless, and fibre-optic.

Because your desktop can “talk” to the router at a higher rate of bits, you might notice a very slight improvement in surfing speed.. but, if you want faster Internet, you have to upgrade either your service level, or/and the method it comes in on (the yellow zigzag) .. say, upgrading from dial-up to cable.

The advantage to Gigabit Ethernet comes in when transferring data across the LAN.. say, from computer A to computer B. Such as if you are backing up the files on A over to B, or “streaming” videos from C to A and B.

The Linksys is a good router (though I read that it runs hot, so you want to keep it in an open, well-ventilated area) and all-Gigabit on your LAN is a “good thing”.
I just think you were expecting the wrong results.

Today’s free link: Curious as to what speed your ISP is really providing? Click here, and pick the “server” location nearest to you. You’ll see both your upload and download speeds. Flash required.

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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