this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
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With support ending for Windows 10, the most popular desktop operating system in the world currently, possibly 240 million pcs may be sent to the landfill. This is mostly due to Windows 11’s exorbitant requirements. This will most likely result in many pcs being immediately outdated, and prone to viruses. GNU/Linux may be these computers’ only secure hope, what do you think?

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[–] [email protected] 153 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

...What does the writer think support end means? Microsoft bricks the PC as soon as the support period ends?

They're going to just keep using Windows 10, security be damned. Probably a good number of users who weren't keeping their PC up to date even when Microsoft was forcing updates on them.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 11 months ago (5 children)

I still see XP pcs in the wild sometimes

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Lots of hospitals seem to be running XP

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I work in the behavioral health field as an IT security admin and network with hospitals/health clinics all all the time. The amount of them using XP and 7 in some capacity should scare everyone. The other security admins know it's an issue, but they just laugh it off.

I tell them if I were an immoral man, their company would be compromised just based off of that information.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I work for an emergency management SaaS company and we block outdated OSs and browsers and it’s wild how we will occasionally get pushback from potential new customers who are surprised we don’t support their outdated IT infrastructure due to the security risk

[–] ElBarto 4 points 11 months ago

"what do you mean you don't service tin cans on a string?!"

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Windows XP is basically firmware at this point, and has been for over a decade.

Lots of proprietary hardware that works perfectly, will not work on newer versions of Windows due to lack of drivers.

I see it constantly in factory situations with scales, scanners and robot controllers, it would only be worse for million dollar x-ray machines.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

This. A lot of our lab's instruments are proprietary garbage. I wish the people buy these extremely expensive instruments would actually research if there's open source alternatives or help pressure the government's into forcing the code to be open. A lot of (public) spending for research is due to this sort of bs "instruments which only works with its own proprietary software" btw. The other good portion is eaten up by scumbags like Elsevier and other publishers.

As long as that machine is disconnected from the internet it's OK but as soon as you connect it you are cooked.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

It’s been getting absolutely worse and worse with hardware as they shovel crap at you and then also expect you to buy subscriptions to make it usable. Keysight/agilent/ whoever they are had been really annoying about this.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Hell I've spotted some old systems still running a Telex exchange and Windows 3.1

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Yep. Came across a computer recently still running Windows 2000 on it. Fan sounded like a truck with a bad lifter tick 😂

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

We have a piece of test equipment that runs windows 2000. It has to be quarantined on its own subnet isolated from the rest of the network.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Looking forward to more, bigger ddos attacks with so many unsecured computers sitting around... :(