Anyone else deciding what to do after XP?

My worry - what happens to all those British rail electronic notice boards or the tills at Aldi?

Stuff that isn't open to the internet is generally not a big worry as it is not easily hackable. But if they are networked at all there is a risk of a hacker getting into that network, and then you do need to worry.
Did you see the item a day or two ago about XP in use by Apple building equipment? :)

No additional costs, ...

That rather depends how much the gov is paying Microsoft to continue to support it. Presumably enough to keep support till beyond the next election.
 
I'm sure the extra support cost probably comes close to the cost of win 8 licenses. Stupid decision in my eyes, made by a non IT person because they probably have software in use that they have not tested in win8 because they didn't have time (ie forgot).

It probably works too as win8 has good backwards compatibility.

They are probably the type of person that thinks Microsoft just changed everything to be "awkward".

As mikesh says above, the risk is with machines connected to the internet. As new bugs get discovered (which won't be long with XP), then hackers/viruses will target those weaknesses.


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Bear in mind, Classic shell or any other start menu replacement should not be needed after update 2 is released.. unless you really want to keep it..

That looks suspiciously like the tiled metro start menu in that picture. I definitely won't want that!
 
Reports I've heard are that it will be possible to boot straight to the classic look (and presumably exiting a "classic" application won't dump you back to the Metro shell).
 
Reports I've heard are that it will be possible to boot straight to the classic look (and presumably exiting a "classic" application won't dump you back to the Metro shell).

Already included for free in Classic Shell.
 
You can already boot straight to desktop today without any extras.. its now just a duplication in the replacement start menu apps.. and all metro apps now have the classic min, max and close buttons in the top right should you find yourself in that situation.
 
I am very much against customising as a matter of policy. It's OK if one only ever uses ones own PCs (which of course one has complete control to configure however one likes), but if one has to use a variety of PCs which one has little or no control over, in order to maintain a consistent working environment it is best that the PCs are "vanilla". Although this only appears to apply to an office environment, if one shares ones PC or if one has to support other users, having as plain an environment as possible makes it more likley one can offer appropriate knowledge and experience. Some people might be able to jump through the mental hoops required to recall different operating environments, and I might have at one time, but not now!

Consequently, although I will avoid Win8 if I can (and would have installed Classic Shell if all else failed), the idea that 8.1 (or 8.2 or whatever) restores the classic functionality out-of-the-box without installing customisations is appealing.
 
Sadly, the restoration of a start button in 8.1, and starting up in desktop mode, were, I believe, options, so customization. (I may have mis-remembered that.) The start button was just a shortcut to Metro tiles.

If you share a PC, you can customize it as much as you like. That is what user accounts are all about.

IMHO, the best piece of knowledge and experience you could possibly pass on to a user of Windows 8 is to install Classic Shell. It solves most, if not all, of its problems.
 
Or tell them to learn it maybe? and set it up to how they want it before throwing on additional programs which will make any future guides or instructions useless..

Hell, they might even prefer it.. weirder things have happened..
 
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