21 things you really need to know as XP goes “End of life” in 4 days
DON’T PANIC!
The facts
Your XP machine will still work.
77% of UK business still have at least one XP machine
It will take a while to find any new vulnerabilities. The last update will be sent next week, but it doesn’t mean that the next day you will receive any attacks
Its also end of life for Server 2003, Exchange and Office 2003, This should be more worrying as your emails with all the interesting stuff use these.
The advice from Microsoft is “Don’t click on bad stuff and backup a lot” Good advice anyway but not that helpful.
XP is twelve years old and the last package was sold six years ago.
If you are staying with XP
Get up to date in April 2014, and check you have every patch that Microsoft has ever offered you. 8th April 2014 will be your last Microsoft patch, so you probably won’t be revisiting Windows Update.
Install a free spyware package, Malwarebytes is good and use it daily.
If you sit behind a router then that will give you some basic firewall protection.
Use an online Virus sweeper like Trend HouseCall or ESET
If you use one of the free or cheap AV packages then think about spending a little more money getting better protection. Sophos, ESET and Trend are recommended by cmx business computing.
Keep updating other software that you may be using, such as Flash, Java, your anti-virus, and more.
Consider tightening up the restrictions imposed by your anti-virus and your endpoint firewall (if you use one). If you must keep XP computers going, try to shrink their operational universe, so that they get used only when necessary, rather than whenever it’s convenient.
Remove all software and drivers you are not using. In fact, make an active effort to minimise the set of applications you permit on your XP computers. Even software that is still being patched depends on operating system components that aren’t, and it simply may not be possible for your vendor to work round lower-level holes in Microsoft’s code.
If your anti-virus has an Application Control feature, use it to enforce any software restrictions you decide upon.
Put your XP computers on their own network, and limit access into and out of that network as strictly as you can. If you can set extra, stricter network filtering for your XP computers, such as blocking email and instant messaging traffic, and preventing the use of social networks.
Urgently get rid of administrator-level user accounts if you have any left. You should have done this years ago, throwing out any desktop software which required administrator privilege to work. It’s now more important than ever to do this, in order to reduce the scope of an attack if hackers do manage to get in.
Get on with your personal or organisational efforts to get rid of XP. Tips don’t really buy you more time – they just reduce the risk while you catch up. Don’t be in this position again when 01 April 2015 comes around.
Thinking of Windows 7 or 8?
Before you leap to Windows 7 have a good look at Windows 8, Its stable and can be just as easy to use as XP – if you buy from the right supplier. You wont have a Start button that you are used to.
You cant just move your stuff to Windows 7 or 8 that easily but there is an easy way by buying a piece of software which moves everything including all the programs too. You will need your product keys and passwords