Windows XP ? Ahahahhhah !!!

Hello everyone.

Excuse me, don't worry. I have only chosen an effective title!

I am very honored to have found this forum of die-hard Windows XP users (like me).

I think it's the best existing operating system for laptop and desktop PCs, especially for ease of use, lightness, beautiful graphics, intuitive and colorful compared to other OS. I have been using Windows XP happily on my HP550 laptops for at least a decade and so far I can use it without problems, but I'm worried.

Many of my computer friends, knowing that I still use XP connected to the internet, make fun of me and tell me that it's a sieve and I'm really continuous exposed at any type of attack and so far i was be lucky.. What are all the precautions to use to make Windows XP as safe as possible? As an antivirus I have Nod32 and I am fine, but it only warns me if I try to go to malicious sites or download a dangerous file. But what should I do to protect myself from attacks and the like? Both as software and hardware? Do I also need to install a hardware firewall? What can I do to protect myself as much as possible?

Thanks in advance.

 

I only browse known safe sites from XP (using Firefox 52.9.0esr). Known safe means you must have a Linux box with Firefox (or other browser) to see if there are any third party ads on the website. If there are, with most sites you can only safely browse from Linux. Most file sharing or video sites (besides Youtube) are guaranteed to get you a nasty virus on XP. Even big retailers can have unsafe third party ads (Newegg and Staples are two I have gotten a virus from). Amazon is safe as they create all ads themselves.

No browser on any Windows OS is safe from zero day threats. Even Window 10 running Google Chrome can be compromised (all your files on all your PCs can get encrypted). Repeat- all your files on all your PCs can get encrypted with a ransomware virus. Doesn't matter what Windows OS any box is running. If you are lucky, a good antivirus program will catch it before it runs and spreads to other computers. Having offline backups of your OSes (Acronis True Image) and data are critical.

The solution requires some research and geek skills- build a Linux box to browse with. I like Linux Mint. I read v19 has performance issues. Use 17.3 or 18.3. Mate or Cinnamon flavor. I use Mate with Firefox 56 (for legacy plugins) on VMWare Player running on a Windows 7 box. I also have the latest Chrome and Firefox on that Windows 7 box (some banking sites require it). Some folks use Virtual Box, VMWare Workstation, or dedicated hardware to run Linux.

Run VNC on Windows 7 (or 10) to bring the box to your XP box. I use UltraVNC as it's lightweight and fast (note their website was compromised with a virus last time I visited a few years ago, so again browse via Linux). I did experiment with various VNC versions and MPEG type remote apps running on Linux itself and found none gave decent performance on a virtual machine (good on dedicated hardware though).

If you plan to open lots of websites at once, a dedicated hardware box will give better performance. Use Samba to share your Linux file system to your Windows network (config of Samba is non-trivial but necessary).

All rendered html email must go through a Linux box on a Linux email program. Currently I'm using Thunderbird on Linux, though I'm looking for a better program. Online email (like gmail) is usually safe on XP as long as you don't click any links not first tested on your Linux box. Outlook 2003 is guaranteed to get you a virus- it automatically renders html email. In other words, just opening Outlook loads and renders a new html email which might have a virus payload... I avoid all Windows email programs.

My main box runs XP 32bit with a 5GB pagefile.sys on a Superspeed RAMDisk (8GB Core2Quad). It has Microsoft Security Essentials, but last updated in 2017 (I run the latest on my Win 7 boxes). Windows Updates to April 2014. <Yawn>

My plan for the future is a Windows 7 box with 128GB-256GB RAM, M.2 SSDs, on which several virtual machines run, one being XP 32 bit (and it'll be the primary OS I use). Pagefile for the XP box will still be on a RAMDisk, but I haven't worked out the details yet. Probably half the RAM will be used for a RAMDisk (or several).

Any additional boxes will be linked with a 10 to 40Gbps fiber network. Bulk storage will be several synced file servers using 100TB HAMR drives- and only one will be turned on at any given moment. One will be in another building on my property. Not sure what OS the file servers will run or if the RAID will be hardware or software.

Lots of fun geeking out on PCs.

 

Quit worrying about it and ignore your computer friends. Many AV and or firewall programs are as bad or worse as a virus when it comes to slowing down an OS down.
Your running XP for a decade without problems is good evidence that the future will be without problems.

 

I heartily thank you,
Compaq_8200_Elite,. Sometimes I see in some people jealousy for a different person who, like me, does not adapt to the fashions launched by the commercial world. I see this for anything. Cars, houses, mobile phones, clothes. If one does not follow a fashion, he is classified as an idiot.

 

Your computer friends would be horrified to hear that not only do I use XP Pro SP3 on all the computers I build, I don't ever use any antivirus software (though I have my own security set up strategies, with the help of Sygate 5.5). And you know what, none of these computers has ever been infected. They also run super fast without the bloatware or malware.

I'm so glad I have found this forum, to know that I'm not alone ...

 

Welcome to the forum. I felt exactly the same way when I found this forum 2 years ago

 

Sometimes I can't help wondering whether one needs to be a programmer to understand the rationale behind all this. It would be interesting if someone starts a survey to see how many of us are programmers or ex-programmers.

 

I'd say yes! How about you?

 

Hey thanks for responding. Yes. It might be a good idea to start a separate survey too. Right now I just have others things on my mind. It helps to know people are very friendly on here. It put me at ease.

I rarely had any problems using XP (just mostly drivers search in the past) but recently have two problems (HTML5 and Serpent) I would like to post on here. This is how I found this forum. I've only just joined, so a little apprehensive to make sure I'm following the rules (as not easy to read everything before posting).

 

Don't worry about this. After you post, you get as much as 2 hours to edit your post in this forum. I think the same goes for deleting a post as well. Very useful feature indeed

 

Thanks for the useful tip Janice.

Time just seems to fly by, I probably need more than two hours ...

 

I'll put up a poll in the off-topic section.

Amen! Some forums let you come back years later to add an update to your post. 2 hours is not enough, in my opinion.

 

Its microsoft is classifying you/me/us as idiots