I have a bunch of "legacy" systems here -- desktop and laptop. My intention is to continue using them. That said, some of them likely don't even support the required specs for Win-7 and later, or would have problematic performance if they could run them. With this Shuttle SN27P2 I'm typing on right now (circa 2004 hardware, XP, Athlon x2 dual-core, and the main subject of my posts in the recent VM thread), my likely choices are to take it offline or turn it into an HTPC -- home theater PC. Its small form factor lends itself to that, although in the years since Shuttle has actually come out with some that are even much smaller. I actually have three of these, two of them still in working condition, the third a source for spare parts like the power supply. The Shuttle motherboards and
power supplies are proprietary, and after a few years you can't get new replacement parts, so cannibalizing may become necessary. I've already rebuilt a couple of their models, making use of replacement parts.
Why not move on to more modern hardware, you might ask ? I really like the design of the "P2" series Shuttles, circa 2004 to about 2009. The way the hard drives are mounted makes it very easy to clone them for backup or swap them out. e-SATA (external SATA) is another feature I standardized upon here, and it's mostly gone now from systems now, replaced by USB-3. All of these systems predate today's i3/i5/i7 CPUs, but some top out at reasonably fast 4-core ones, and that's powerful enough for anything that I do. No compelling reasons to change. But it seems that MS just wants everyone who runs Windows to take their older hardware to a landfill.
Other examples would be a Thinkpad T-40 or
T-42. Those could become eCS (OS/2) or Linux laptops, since the hardware requirements are fairly negligible, compared to post-W2K Windows.
The well and uniquely stocked XP that is on the older Shuttle might also get a second life as a VM -- perhaps in a different box -- thanks to the leads furnished here by Kari and others.
Jordan
From: Bill Troop
To: xywrite@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2014 5:22 PM
Subject: When will XP support _really_ end?
I just happened to see this in the Wikipedia entry on Win XP:
>"Extended" support for XP will end on April 8, 2014, after which
>Microsoft will no longer provide any more security patches or
>support information for XP,
unless customers have a paid, "Custom"
>support plan.
So: XP support will indeed continue, but only for certain customers.
Given how huge XP usage still is, and how sensibly reluctant XP
customers are to upgrade to Win 8.1, I wouldn't be surprised to see
some kind of U-turn in the following weeks. XP customers can't
officially upgrade to Win 7, which would make sense, since it is not
sold anymore, and 8.1 would be intolerable for most (though it is
fine for me personally), so my guess is that until Win 9 at the very
least, XP support may have to continue.
That said, I do not see the need to be panicky about 'updates' on a
VM that is not connected to the Internet or that is and has high
quality AV and firewall protection.