Items tagged with Windows Vista
For those of you who have been clinging to Windows Vista all this time, you have our respect. The same is true of vegetarians. With meatier alternatives out there, we cannot fathom why anyone would want to stick with Vista (or just veggies), but more power to you. However, it might be time to think about a change. As of today, Microsoft has ended any and all support for Vista. This day was a long time coming. Microsoft had already ended mainstream support for Vista several years—April 10, 2012, to be exact. Now five years later, the extended support period expires as well. What that means is no more security patches or hotfixes for the legacy operating system, which is now three generations behind...
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Hardware enthusiasts that read HotHardware surely aren’t running a tired and busted operating system like Windows Vista, right? Besides the fact that the OS was widely panned following its release on January 30th 2007, Windows Vista is a decade-old operating system that is antiquated in today’s modern computing age. However, for those of you that are somehow still clinging to Windows Vista, Microsoft is making it clear that time is nearly up for the operating system. On April 11th, Microsoft is pulling the plug on support for Windows Vista, which means that that the company will end the practices of providing security updates and hotfixes. In addition, Microsoft will no longer provide...
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Blizzard will soon be turning a cold shoulder to users who are still running Windows Vista or Windows XP. Starting sometime later this year, Blizzard said it begin the process of ending support for both legacy operating systems in several of its popular games, including World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Diablo II, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm. They're just too old for Blizzard to continue supporting."Microsoft ceased mainstream support for these versions of Windows in 2009 and 2012, respective, but since a decent portion of our audience was still using them at the time, we continued supporting them. However, there have been three major Windows releases since Vista, and at this point, the...
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Gmail is ending support for Chrome browser versions 53 and earlier by the end of the year, Google announced in a blog post. Normally Google would not bother announcing such a thing, but in this case it made an exception because of the impact this could have users who are still clinging to Windows XP and Windows Vista. The last supported version of Chrome on either OS was Chrome 49. "As previously announced in April 2015 and November 2015, these systems are no longer maintained by Microsoft, and we strongly encourage you to migrate to more secure and supported systems," Google said. This announcement does not necessarily mean that Gmail will stop working altogether for staunch holdouts of Windows...
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Firefox users who are still clinging to Windows XP or Windows Vista will soon have reason to consider upgrading to Windows 7 or Windows 10. Mozilla announced in a blog post that it is phasing out support for Microsoft's legacy operating systems in 2017. The phase out period will begin in March of next year when Mozilla moves users on XP and Vista to the Extended Support Release (ESR), a version of Firefox that is not updated as frequently. After that Mozilla will continue providing security updates until September before pulling the plug completely. Users do not need to take any additional action to receive the security updates. In the middle of next year, Mozilla said it will reassess how many...
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Sound the alarm, Google's ending support for its Chrome browser in Windows XP and Windows Vista! You there, on your outdated Mac, quit snickering -- Google's also cutting off support for Mac OS X versions 10.6 (Snow Leopard), 10.7 (Lion), and 10.8 (Mountain Lion). If you're rocking one of these older OSes, continue using Chrome at your own risk.Chrome will still work and dutifully load up webpages as it shuttles you around the web. However, starting in April of next year, Google will stop issuing security updates and fixes. That in essence puts a big target on your back with a flashing neon sign that reads, "Hey bad guys, look at me, I'm over here!"This is a double whammy for anyone running one...
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It appears that there is still some life left in Window’s 8. Microsoft’s current operating system has been a disappointment for the company since its release. While the OS has seen its percentage of user shares increase it has been unable to outpace Windows Vista during the same time period six years ago. According to web analytics firm Net Applications, the combined user share for Windows 8 and 8.1 is at 13.4 percent of the worlds combined number of desktops and notebooks for the month of August. That is up nine-tenths of a percentage point from July and is the first time since May for it to increase. The increase is also the largest since April which was followed by two months of...
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Microsoft is staying the course with Windows 8, the most drastic change to the Windows ecosystem since the introduction of XP, and though Windows Blue will introduce a few changes (and maybe even bring back the Start button), the touch-friendly design doesn't look like it's going anywhere. That's led to some negative reactions and press -- some of it justified and some of it way overblown -- but for now, Windows 8 is slowly and steadily increasing its share of the desktop OS market. The key word there is "slowly." According to NetMarketShare, Windows 8 increased its share to 3.82 percent in April, up from 3.17 percent a month prior and up from 1.09 percent in November 2012, a month after it launched....
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Windows XP has secured its spot in history as perhaps the most beloved version of Windows ever, and it's certainly a fan favorite to this day. That might be understating things. More than just a fan favorite, Windows XP, for better or worse, is the most used operating on the planet, according to data by Net Applications. The decade old OS can be found on almost half of all PCs with a 48.03 percent share of the OS market. That's down from 69.99 percent in November 2009 -- as far back as Net Applications allows us to look -- and down 50.5 percent in the month of September, but still well ahead of Windows 7, which is now on 34.62 percent of all PCs. Windows XP might be a dead OS walking, but it...
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The NPD Group released a statement today that points toward surprising growth in desktop sales this past February. Historically, desktop sales have trended steadily downwards for the past ten years; notebook shipments first surpassed desktop shipments in 2008. New data suggests the pendulum has oddly swung the other way—desktop unit sales were up 30 percent in February, while desktop-derived revenue grew by 33 percent.Part of what makes the jump odd is that there doesn't seem to be a reason for it. Our first thought was that OEMs like Dell and HP could have slashed prices on their Core 2 Duo desktops to make way for the Core i3/i5 products Intel launched in January, but desktop ASPs were actually...
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A tweak for Windows 7 has been making the rounds of the Internet. It's been labeled the Windows 7 "God Mode," but unlike "God Mode" in a game, it's not so godly after all.The tweak is enabled by creating a new folder and naming it with a certain text string at the end. The string is {ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}. The reason it's been named GodMode is because it first started circulating with the name GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}. In reality, the part before .{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} can be replace by any string. The folder icon that you see after renaming the folder will then appear to be a Control Panel.How does this work? Well, those who delve in the...
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Windows 7 is picking up market share quickly (in IT terms). However, much of that is at the expense of Windows Vista, as XP users are seemingly staying put, according to a (very) recent InfoWorld survey. As tracked by InfoWorld's Windows Pulse service, Windows 7 already has more than 4 percent of the market, and that's after less than a month of general availability after its Oct. 22nd release. However, according to the survey, Windows XP's share hasn't changed during this period. It's still holding at 64 percent. Meanwhile, Vista, after three years, has only 30% of the market, while among new users registering for the InfoWorld Windows Pulse service, 7 is already up to 10 percent. While obviously...
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This week may be as big a week in the company's history as Microsoft has ever had. We know, that's a pretty bold statement, but there is a lot of evidence to back that up. Microsoft has been drowning in negative press and negative vibes for most of Vista's life; it has tried for years to spit-shine the image of its "Wow!-inducing" operating system, and by and large, it has failed. Join us to see the ten greatest features of Windows 7 that should've been in Vista, and learn how those ten features will make your life that much better if you're currently pondering the upgrade. The Top Windows 7 Features That Vista Should Have Had ...
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This week may be as big a week in the company's history as Microsoft has ever had. We know, that's a pretty bold statement, but there's a lot of evidence to back that up. Microsoft has been drowning in negative press and negative vibes for most of Vista's life; it has tried for years to spit-shine the image of its "Wow!-inducing" operating system, and by and large, it has failed. In order to really understand the importance of Windows 7, we've got to go back in time a bit and take the whole of Microsoft's work into account. For those of you old enough to remember Y2K and that underground bunker you built in order to stay safe, you're probably old enough to remember Windows ME. It's almost impossible...
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