Tag archive: Windows XP

If any of you tech savvy readers are looking for a gig, Stephen Hawking is apparently in the market for a right-hand man/woman. The Stephen Hawking website posted a job opening last Thursday for a Technical Assistant.  The famous British theoretical physicist and cosmologist is well-known to us lay folk through his series of popular science books like A Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell. The 69-year-old Hawking is also… Read More

Microsoft has announced that beginning early next year, it will begin silently upgrading Internet Explorer on systems running Windows Xp, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. The move mirrors an upgrade strategy that's been used by Google Chrome since 2009, which routinely upgrades users to the latest version without explicitly asking for permission. Currently, even if Windows users have automatic upgrades enabled, Microsoft asks for permission… Read More

Formatting your hard drive is very useful. It's good for clearing everything off a secondary drive or when installing a new copy of Windows. Formatting is also good for cleaning up storage issues, eliminating viruses and other hard-to-resolve problems.  Our How-To guide for formatting your hard drive will be broken down in three parts: Prep, Formatting and Installing XP, and Formatting a Secondary Hard Drive. Preparation 1. Formatting a… Read More

According to new data posted this week from a company called Net Applications, Microsoft's Internet Explorer appears to be continuing a downward spiral. Over the last ten months, Microsoft has lost five percent of the web browser market while Google's Chrome has gained about six percent. The amount of people using Internet Explorer is expected to fall below the 50 percent mark around late May of 2012. One bright point for Microsoft… Read More

It's time to pour something out and revel in some misty eyed nostalgia, because Windows XP is officially on the way out. According to Web statistics company Net Applications, XP finished July with less than half of the operating system market share for the first time since Net Applications began tracking OS usage.  Windows XP lost 1.3 percent of the market during July, ending with 49.8 percent in total. Which, when you think about it, is… Read More

In yet another valiant effort to get people off Windows XP and onto Windows 7, Microsoft is finally ending its “extended support” for the decade-old PC operating system. Unlike Apple, however, when Microsoft puts its foot down, it gives users 1,000 days to get out of the way. The company won't officially stop supporting XP until April 8, 2014–a year and a half after Windows 8 is expected to roll out. The company will not… Read More

We know, we know: for most people hard drives aren't very exciting, but until the world is completely converted over to SSDs and ubiquitous always-reliable cloud storage they're going go be part of our lives for a while. And storage developers Seagate and Hitachi have some new HDDs that can turn some heads: Seagate's new Barracuda Green drives sport low power consumption and smart material usage, while Hitachi's new 3 TB… Read More

It's the end of an era: as of October 22, Microsoft is no longer allowing PC makers to legally pre-install its venerable WIndows XP operating system on new computers. Although most major computer makers topped shipping PCs with Windows XP pre-installed some time ago—Dell was one of the last hold-outs, cutting off XP installations back in September—the change is a significant one for change-averse companies and organizations… Read More

Despite a larger than usual Patch Tuesday addressing 13 vulnerabilities yesterday, Microsoft appears to have left out a few vulnerabilities that the Stuxnet worm exploits. First publicized in July attacking vulnerable systems via a Windows shortcut bug, Stuxnet apparently uses four additional zero-day bugs and two stolen digital certificates to game the OS’s escalation of privileges system, according to security researchers at Kaspersky Labs.… Read More

With Windows 7 doing so well, it was only a matter of time before major OEMs stopped selling XP machines. Dell has officially announced its end-of-life plans on its Direct2Dell blog. Per Microsoft rules, OEMs can’t ship computers with XP Pro or Home after Oct. 22, only a few short six weeks away. In preparation of that deadline, Dell will stop offering XP as an option on its computers at the end of this month. Its Microsoft Windows 7 page claims… Read More

At the Taipei Computer Applications Show this week, computer maker Acer has taken the wraps off yet another Aspire One netbook—the Acer Aspire One AOD255. But this one has a new trick: it runs both Windows XP and Google Android as its operating system. Android serves as a fast-booting OS for basic tasks, while Windows XP can be used as a primary operating system that (of course) can run a wide range of Windows software. An Acer… Read More

Considering the profits flowing in from Windows 7 sales pretty much single-handedly vaulted Microsoft to record profits this year, you might think a graying Windows XP has finally taken a back seat to its younger, better-looking brother. And you might be wrong. According to Net Applications, Windows XP retains more operating system market share than both Windows 7 and Windows Vista combined. Its latest figures show July as the first month… Read More

If one were to look for the longest-standing personal computer operating systems on the planet, one might not have to look much farther than Microsoft's Windows XP. Although the OS has been officially supplanted by Windows Vista and WIndows 7, the OS continues to be used by an astonishing number of people, particularly folks running lower-end or older hardware…and occasionally brand-new netbooks. Although Microsoft has officially… Read More

Last month, a Google engineer disclosed a security flaw in Windows XP'S Help and Support Center software that can potentially enables attackers to download malicious software and effectively take over a computer, searching it for sensitive information, turning it into a spam zombie, or simply have it continually pull down more malware from the Internet. The bug was disclosed to the public on June 10, and Microsoft says at first the only… Read More

Seagate has announced that it has designed, and will soon begin to sell the largest single disk 3.5-inch hard drive ever made. The rumors have been circulating for a while now, but Thinq has confirmed the release, although no date or price have been issued. Oh, and there’s a catch: Most PCs won’t be able to use it. Back when Microsoft was creating its first Windows based OS in the 80s, the idea of a 3TB hard drive was incredible, even absurd.… Read More