5 ms·

The NHS is a pretty low bar for apps, it’s still running on Windows XP.

mjevans 6y ago
For anything that has to reach the whole public, this is a valid use case. Like that article (or was a it comment?) a little bit back about the recently homeless by relationship issues person filling out social aid forms on an old gaming device with a very limited browser and low memory and a tiny screen. ++ found it ++ "The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML" from a thread near the end of Jan 2021. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25915313 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25915313 https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/01/the-unreasonable-effectiveness-of-simple-html/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/01/the-unreasonable-effectiven...
mhh__ 6y ago
XP is not an App.
hkt 6y ago
Trident works on a version of it too: https://www.theregister.com/2008/12/16/windows_for_submarines_rollout/ https://www.theregister.com/2008/12/16/windows_for_submarine... Yes, the always at sea nuclear deterrent. Really. Perhaps new software ain't all that. (Or, as a country, we are desperately incompetent and heading for disaster-by-BSOD)
frereubu 6y ago
The NHS isn't "running on Windows XP". There are still a few machines like that - https://www.publictechnology.net/articles/news/nhs-still-running-2300-pcs-windows-xp https://www.publictechnology.net/articles/news/nhs-still-run... (2,300 as of July 2019, which will have decreased since then) - but after the wannacry attack they took it much more seriously (and I think that was partly the government taking it more seriously so they actually got the budget to do it) and were steadily migrating things to Windows 10.
- c7DJTLrn 6y ago
  Moving to an OS with an even larger attack surface and larger nightmare for "DevOps" doesn't seem like the right move. The right move would be to stop using a desktop OS for basic kiosks, develop an application-specific OS which could be based on something like Ubuntu. The attack surface would be significantly lower and updates could be better controlled.
  - frereubu 6y ago
    I don't have an argument with any of that. Just the claim that the NHS is "running on Windows XP", which felt like a lazy accusation that's at least a couple of years out of date.
dbetteridge 6y ago
I mean XP was a solid workhorse of an OS. It didn't stop me and remind me to update it every-time I blinked and the file search actually found files, rather then trying to redirect me to bing for some reason. (Doesn't really excuse using it in 2021 though, except in offline specialty equipment)
- CodeGlitch 6y ago
  Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 10 These are half-decent OS's - and I'm a hardcore Linux user.
  - jeroenhd 6y ago
    Sadly, Windows 10 seems to get bugger by the month. The more I use it, the more weird behaviour I seem to trigger. The recent bugs causing file system corruption when running a disk check also didn't help its reputation in my mind. After some necessary patching, the original Windows 10 is quite good to work on. Sadly, Microsoft has seemingly changed Windows to an "OS as a service" model, which includes sending huge amounts of tracking data, instead of building just a good OS. For the average consumer, this Ubuntu-like model or continuously pushing out the latest and greatest works fine, but for professional use there is very little benefit. No desktop publisher or programmer ever asked for deeper integration of AR into their system but these features have become mandatory if you still want to receive maintenance updates for your OS. When OS updates force a subscription-based video calling system onto your device, things have just been taken too far. A real shame.
    - Jonnax 6y ago
      Seemingly? Windows 10 came out 5 years ago. They were upfront about it becoming Software as a Service. And with companies and people using XP and 7 many years after support had ended or forcing them to continue supporting their old platforms it wasn't surprising. Btw the bug occurs when accessing a special NTFS directory which marked the filesystem as dirty and chkdisk would fail to fix and breaks the system. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/windows-10-bug-corrupts-your-hard-drive-on-seeing-this-files-icon https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/windows-10-bu... But here's the thing. Microsoft sends all that tracking data because that's how they find their bugs. They downscaled their in house testing and have enthusiast beta testers running pre release builds. So without telemetry how do they discover these edge case bugs?

For anything that has to reach the whole public, this is a valid use case. Like that article (or was a it comment?) a little bit back about the recently homeless by relationship issues person filling out social aid forms on an old gaming device with a very limited browser and low memory and a tiny screen. ++ found it ++ "The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML" from a thread near the end of Jan 2021. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25915313 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25915313 https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/01/the-unreasonable-effectiveness-of-simple-html/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/01/the-unreasonable-effectiven...

mhh__ 6y ago

XP is not an App.

hkt 6y ago

Trident works on a version of it too: https://www.theregister.com/2008/12/16/windows_for_submarines_rollout/ https://www.theregister.com/2008/12/16/windows_for_submarine... Yes, the always at sea nuclear deterrent. Really. Perhaps new software ain't all that. (Or, as a country, we are desperately incompetent and heading for disaster-by-BSOD)

frereubu 6y ago

The NHS isn't "running on Windows XP". There are still a few machines like that - https://www.publictechnology.net/articles/news/nhs-still-running-2300-pcs-windows-xp https://www.publictechnology.net/articles/news/nhs-still-run... (2,300 as of July 2019, which will have decreased since then) - but after the wannacry attack they took it much more seriously (and I think that was partly the government taking it more seriously so they actually got the budget to do it) and were steadily migrating things to Windows 10.

c7DJTLrn 6y ago
Moving to an OS with an even larger attack surface and larger nightmare for "DevOps" doesn't seem like the right move. The right move would be to stop using a desktop OS for basic kiosks, develop an application-specific OS which could be based on something like Ubuntu. The attack surface would be significantly lower and updates could be better controlled.
- frereubu 6y ago
  I don't have an argument with any of that. Just the claim that the NHS is "running on Windows XP", which felt like a lazy accusation that's at least a couple of years out of date.

dbetteridge 6y ago

I mean XP was a solid workhorse of an OS. It didn't stop me and remind me to update it every-time I blinked and the file search actually found files, rather then trying to redirect me to bing for some reason. (Doesn't really excuse using it in 2021 though, except in offline specialty equipment)

CodeGlitch 6y ago
Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 10 These are half-decent OS's - and I'm a hardcore Linux user.
- jeroenhd 6y ago
  Sadly, Windows 10 seems to get bugger by the month. The more I use it, the more weird behaviour I seem to trigger. The recent bugs causing file system corruption when running a disk check also didn't help its reputation in my mind. After some necessary patching, the original Windows 10 is quite good to work on. Sadly, Microsoft has seemingly changed Windows to an "OS as a service" model, which includes sending huge amounts of tracking data, instead of building just a good OS. For the average consumer, this Ubuntu-like model or continuously pushing out the latest and greatest works fine, but for professional use there is very little benefit. No desktop publisher or programmer ever asked for deeper integration of AR into their system but these features have become mandatory if you still want to receive maintenance updates for your OS. When OS updates force a subscription-based video calling system onto your device, things have just been taken too far. A real shame.
  - Jonnax 6y ago
    Seemingly? Windows 10 came out 5 years ago. They were upfront about it becoming Software as a Service. And with companies and people using XP and 7 many years after support had ended or forcing them to continue supporting their old platforms it wasn't surprising. Btw the bug occurs when accessing a special NTFS directory which marked the filesystem as dirty and chkdisk would fail to fix and breaks the system. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/windows-10-bug-corrupts-your-hard-drive-on-seeing-this-files-icon https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/windows-10-bu... But here's the thing. Microsoft sends all that tracking data because that's how they find their bugs. They downscaled their in house testing and have enthusiast beta testers running pre release builds. So without telemetry how do they discover these edge case bugs?