Readers here may be interested in knowing that my article on XP going generated a considerable amount of interest. What I found interesting was that several of our competitors have dropped XP as a supported operating system, we presently intend to support it if our clients want to keep using it.
Putting aside the legal problems that I spoke of here on Friday, that since Microsoft officially stopped supporting XP back in April, 2014 many suppliers see a huge juridical problem in running sensitive information over what is an unprotected operating system.
To see the other problem, please look at this graph.
What it shows is the usage of XP on the net since December 2008 to October 2016. The blue line is more important as almost all point of sale software runs on Windows. This information for this graph came out of the Wikipedia here.
The problem most software developers see like XChangeIT which I spoke today too on behalf of my clients have is that it takes a lot of work to get their software running on XP more than the newer Windows Operating system, and the XP market is just not there to support the costs of development on XP. There's no easy answer here.
At present, we are offering our clients three alternatives.
1) Drop services like XChangeIT. Probably by now if you are running XP, you have had to drop many other services so this one is the next one to fall. If you intend to do this, I strongly suggest that you switch your browser to Firefox and use Avast antivirus because at least these are supported still on XP.
2) On your XP network add another computer running Windows 7,8 or 10. You just run these services like XChangeIT as usual on these upgraded Windows computers. It may be a little more mucking around to work, but most people find this does work well. Surely your kid or grandchildren or friends have a spare computer you could grab for the shop. This by the way is how my Mum who is 92 gets her computers, her kids or her grandchildren upgrade their computers and so a spare one she can use becomes available.
3) Upgrade your system. If you are running a Windows XP computer, the system is certainly due for an upgrade. We do have a special running now for you to upgrade if you are running XP. We call it our Customer Appreciation sale where we thank our loyal customers for their continued business by offering big discounts on upgrades.
This way unlike others we do not leave anyone behind.
