support for windows XP stopping in 2014 -aarrgghhh what will we do

Q & A - Windows XP support stopping in 2014

In the infamous words of Corporal Jones "Don't Panic"

Q: Our MD has arrived this morning quite worried about the prospect of MS ceasing support for Windows XP next year, so I was surprised to find no previous threads on the subject on UKBL.
Forgive my ignorance, but is it something we should be worried about if we're still on XP, or is it just a ploy to get users buying new kit?


 A: Windows XP support is destined to run out in 2014 (April 14th), but it has lasted a while as it got released back in 2001. That's 12 years ago. (Windows XP - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
By the time they stop supporting it it will be 13 years old!

While its expensive for businesses and can be a pain for the users of those machines it is important for businesses to keep up with technology.
Developers of applications and web applications are getting more aggressive with their hunt to not support older browsers and architecture.

Putting the whole support side of things to one side, I would be more concerned about is the hardware you are running XP on, if (like a number of my customers) you buy your PC and OS together then its possible that the XP computers you are running are sitting on hardware that could be more than 10 years old.
Now I am not saying that you need to replace everything, but do bear in mind that the older a hard drive gets (because really this is the only bit of your PC that you cant replace without grief) the more chance it will one day start making that lovely click-click-clicketty-click noise and fail to boot.
If these PCs die you can't just transfer the XP licence (as its sold with the PC) onto a new box, so a new PC and OS will need to be purchased.

My advice to my customers is to not freak out and replace everything, but do budget for PC death at 1 a month, have a PC in the office that has windows 8 (or whatever you are going to use) on it and install all of your Business critical software, printer drivers etc on it so you know everything works (if you are running an old MS access XP application for example you may find that it access dlls that simply dont exist anymore).
This spare PC can be used for testing and training, so before John in accounts gets his new PC he can have a whizz around and get a feel for where things are.
Do bear in mind that a lot of consumers will be getting forced upgrades on Dec 25th that will probably already have an idea of how windows 8 works.
If you dont want windows 8 there are still copies of Windows 7 available (and windows 8 that will auto downgrade on install).

The bigger problem for SMEs who have server infrastructure, not just from a hardware point of view either, especially if they are running "Small Business Server 2003" as this does not play nice with every aspect of windows 8 (depending on how you use it).

In short
Please if you are running a small business;

• Don't go and buy a ton of new kit in panic mode
• Do speak to people/businesses about what they are doing?
• Do investigate cloud storage/server infrastructure (it may be cheaper than you think)
• Don't discount Windows 8 because it looks different, it will save you money in the long run
• Do look into what sorts of devices your staff could use as an alternative to a desktop (table PC, iPad, android tablet, mobile phone, tough book, laptop), giving them the right tools will save you money and make them more efficient
• Do remember XP is solid and it will keep working for a long time
• Do run a test PC with your new OS on it with all of your business applications, accounting software etc, get heads of the business to use it as their base PC for a couple of weeks, you need to know it does everything you need it to before you buy new kit
• Don't expect your 10 year old hard drive to last 10 years more
• Do research sold sate drives as an option to replace not so old equipment as part of your tech upgrade/refresh

Feel free to contact me via via twitter @chillfire or email ask@chillfire.com etc if you need a hand with any of this, it's better to get fail a load of times (during testing) before you do it right once

Going to the cloud for storage

 Q & A - cloud storage

Q: We are looking very hard at the cloud as it would be very useful to our business particularly with free lance journalists and having more than the one office, but the MD does have reserves about the security aspect.

Many thanks
T.

A: Make sure you look into the data protection requirements for the data you are storing and where it has to be stored.
Sometimes depending on the legal requirements of what you do means you have to store you data within the geographic area it is from (or the people it talks about are from).
I only mention this because if you go 'cloud' with some providers you can specifiy where the data is stored (EU, US, UK, London, etc), but you also have to understand that your data MIGHT be backed in other places as well.

Most decent cloud storage services will have at least 3 copies of your data on hand at any one time, one that you are using which is your closest and fastest datastore, the others will be on different servers probably in different server farms across the globe so if one dies they simply redirect you to the next nearest one until the broken one is replaced.
So if you have regulatory requirements for data storage make sure you check where you data is going to 'be'.
Also make sure that your cloud storage does keep active mirrored copies of your data and has an undo/previous versions option....

Just because it is in the cloud does not mean someone wont delete it

On the security front there are different kinds of security to investigate;

• Access, who can view/edit/change/delete your data (you should have 100% control over this)
• Hardware Encryption, how the physical data is stored on the 'disk' (you wont control this but make sure it is in place), this means people cant open the raw data blobs direct from the server even if they have 100% access to the disks
• Software encryption/locking, users can add passwords to files for an added level of security, but remember that these passwords have to be managed (and not via post-it notes or in a group email for example)