News Windows XP lives again via registry hack

The OS that will never die it seems.

 

The only way to kill a zombie is with a head shot ya know

 

Kill the head vampire!

 

I had a little chuckle at this "Windows Embedded POSReady 2009"
Is POS not an american abbreviation for - Piece Of Sh*t ?

 

I know one person who refuses to upgrade because they are used to the software they'be been using for the last 10 years. They're still using Photoshop Elements 4 and Nero FFS! I keep trying to persuade them that there are newer versions of PSE and that modern versions of Windows don't need Nero, but they just won't listen - even when I tell them that their OS isn't supported any more.

Thankfully, I don't think they're tech-savvy enough to find this workaround.

I'm not surprised to see XP still being used in POS systems - it wasn't that long ago that I saw a crashed cashpoint machine showing the OS/2 logo

 

Well, of course. Everyone should immediately buy Windows 8, for all the features it has over XP - including the...

...um...

...the er...

...oh.

 

POS 2009 is pretty cutting edge in the POS world, there is a Win 7 version available but the license costs 4x the amount of POS 2009, and seeing as all POS/Gaming devices effectively put a full screen overlay over the desktop its a bit of a moot point..., especially as multi touch-touch screens is one of the win 7 version selling point, most (dis)service droids put in front of a modern till struggle to handle nested menu's i.e. like trying to find the correct fruit in a self service checkout, plus the till control software sucks and is stuck in the world of 800x600....

Its also worth noting that USB is hardly used in pos its still mainly 9pin serial, receipt printers serial, cash drawers serial, chip and pin devices serial. which is one of the reasons you still find COMM port headers on bottom of range small mother boards...

That said i think people will have a hard time with driver support and some of the more "consumer" sub systems are crippled in pos ready

 

I'm at the point where I almost think it'll actually be fun to see how long XP properly lives for before MS really take action on it.

 

- Actually sane security (i.e. no more ADMIN FOR EVERYONE)
- Less bloat (once you add all the extra crap XP needs installed to be functional in the modern day
- Modern hardware support (have fun buying a new GPU when WDDM is the only game in town)

 

Serial devices are much easier to integrate into a custom piece of code. All you need to do is set up the connection and read or write commands. No drivers required.

 

Add to that:
- remove USB devices on the fly without the OS having a nervous breakdown
- run .ISO's without an extra utility
- better memory management
- better support for multiple CPU cores
- GUI through DirectX = better performance
- when an application fails, it doesn't take the whole OS down with it
- you can actually use SSDs
- WAY faster boot times on old hardware: all the goodness of Win7 with the boot times of WinXP or better.

 

Microsoft have released a statement on the hack..
http://www.zdnet.com/registry-hack-enables-continued-updates-for-windows-xp-7000029851/

 

For ffs if you are judging windows 8 hands down atleast go with 7 than xp

 

You are correct. I laugh every time I see that abbreviation too. I can only think of it as the derogatory term that has been around for many years now anytime I see it. It's hard to take something seriously when it's referred to as a POS anything.

I can understand why many corporate users are on XP systems due to legacy software, but from a home user perspective it doesn't make sense. Not unless you have a really old computer for basic use and don't want to spend the cash to upgrade. I haven't upgraded to Windows 8 because I haven't needed to. I'm more or less on the same build I put together 4 years ago. A lot of the hardware has changed, but I'm still on the same physical OS drives and haven't had to re-image because Windows 7 is actually pretty darn stable in the long run so long as you don't install a bunch of crap on it. That being said, the next time I build or reimage I will almost certainly install Windows 8 (or some stable successor to it).

 

We use WindowsPOS at work, god it's horrible, the Hardware it runs on is even worse, Celeron Mobile and a GB of ram if i'm not mistaken, takes upwards of 5 mins from cold start/reboot to usable. How the Verifone Contactless/Chip & Pin readers work with the tills i will never know.

Sam

 

This is the stupidest thing I ever read.
Security updates don't appear from thin air. Microsoft has no longer anyone working on fixing security updates for XP.

The OS is also different. you may get some updates that apply at the core level, but anything else is different.

 

Well actually WindowsPOS 2009 is based on XP SP3, the only difference AFAIK is that it can't run office due to licensing reasons.

 

ORLY??

Better tell the UK government to get its £5.5m pounds back then

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/07/uk-government-microsoft-windows-xp-public-sector

 

Well thats wrong. You can pay for security updates, a large premium as far as im aware. And they will continue to support the OS until you are ready to migrate to 7 or 8.