Windows 98 & ME - Micro$oft: Upgrade from Windows XP or risk infinite "zero-days"

Translation:

Keep playing our silly "you must continuously upgrade your OS" games.

"Users should upgrade to Windows 7 or 8."

And how exactly does a civillian get their hands on Windoze 7 at this
point - WITHOUT BUYING A NEW PC?

"When Microsoft ends support for XP, it will be likely that such
as vulnerability would affect even outdated Windows versions."

That sentence makes no sense.

"The challenge here is that you'll never know, with any confidence,
if the trusted computing base of the system can actually be trusted
because attackers will be armed with public knowledge of zero-day
exploits in Windows XP that could enable them to compromise the
system and possibly run the code of their choice,"

What a load of horse-****.

That's been the story of XP since it was forced (rushed) into home and
soho computers starting in the fall of 2001. History shows that
Milkro$oft could never garantee that XP was a safe and secure operating
system. What makes it any different once it hits EOL?

The truth is that XP will be orders of magnitude less vulnerable to
remote intrusion and control on April 15/2014 than it was in January
2002.

And another truth: Just like certain IE hot-fix files and patches from
Win-2k/XP were usable on Win-98 well after 98 went EOL in July 2006,
it's a given that users and enthusiasts of XP will be able to do the
same by extracting files from security patches released for other
versions of Windows (2003, Vista, etc).

But the real kicker is this:

After XP goes EOL, will Macro$haft release security bullentins from time
to time giving the world details and information as to newly-discovered
exploits and vulnerabilities for XP? Meekro$oft didn't do that when
win-98 went EOL - because 9x/me had a ridiculously low level of known
vulnerabilities to begin with and no new ones were ever discovered /
reported after it went EOL.

What has Milkro$oft done along these lines with Windows 2000?

Does anyone maintain a list or has anyone reported on any unpatched
vulnerabilities and exploits for Windows 2000 that were discovered after
it went EOL on July 13, 2010?

===========
Microsoft: Upgrade from Windows XP or risk infinite "zero-days"

http://www.scmagazine.com//microsoft...7/?utm_source=

August 19, 2013

Microsoft is asking users who haven't already migrated to a newer
operating system to do it now.

Microsoft is intensifying its efforts asking users to scrap Windows XP,
the 12-year-old operating system for which the software giant is ending
support next April.

Tim Rains, director of Microsoft Trustworthy Computing, authored a blog
post last week reminding customers of the perils that could await them
should they continue running XP, which debuted in 2001, once Redmond
stops patching the platform. Users should upgrade to Windows 7 or 8.

"There is a sense of urgency because after April 8/2014, Windows XP
Service Pack 3 (SP3) customers will no longer receive new security
updates, non-security hotfixes, free or paid assisted support options or
online technical content updates," Rains wrote. "This means that any new
vulnerabilities discovered in Windows XP after its 'end of life' will
not be addressed by new security updates from Microsoft."

Rains said that when a vulnerability is patched in one of Microsoft's
supported operating system versions, attackers typically reverse
engineer the fix in hopes of creating an exploit that could target users
who failed to apply the update.

When Microsoft ends support for XP, it will be likely that such as
vulnerability would affect even outdated Windows versions. And without
any possibility for a patch, attackers will essentially have free reign
on XP endpoints.

"Since a security update will never become available for Windows XP to
address these vulnerabilities, Windows XP will essentially have a 'zero
day' vulnerability forever," Rains wrote.

In addition, customers shouldn't rely on the hope that anti-exploit
functionality will prevent a successful attack, he said.

"The challenge here is that you'll never know, with any confidence, if
the trusted computing base of the system can actually be trusted because
attackers will be armed with public knowledge of zero-day exploits in
Windows XP that could enable them to compromise the system and possibly
run the code of their choice," Rains wrote.

So what's holding up the migrations?

According to a study conducted in April by VMware, 64 percent of
enterprise-size companies still haven't migrated off XP. The same goes
for 52 percent of midsize firms and 61 percent of SMBs.

"Common challenges such as end-user downtime, data loss, migration
failures and effort to upgrade remote employees can all be avoided if
you plan ahead," wrote Sarah Semple, VMware's director of product
marketing, in a blog post.

In addition, cost is an impediment. Gartner has estimated that, based on
a 10,000-PC environment, the expense of migration is between $1,205 and
$1,999 per machine.