Government inaction on Windows XP costs €3.3 million

Capt'n Midnight · 20-02-2014 02:03AM

Triangla wrote: »

“You’d have to ask whether Microsoft really will turn off their support,” said Mr McCluggage. “There are organisations larger than us [in government] that won’t be fully switched over by then. So the question is whether they mean what they say.”

oh dear , tiny bit of research would have revealed that Microsoft intend on turning on the screws

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/12/nhs_microsoft_win_xp_extended_support/

Under extended support Microsoft will deploy dedicated engineers to paying customers, who keep releasing fresh security patches after the April cut off.

Fees for this special protection start at $200 per desktop for the first year, going up to $400 in the second and $800 in the third year.
...
A high price has been fixed deliberately by the software giant as an incentive for customers not to dawdle in finally getting off of Windows XP.

Capt'n Midnight · 20-02-2014 02:11AM

adocholiday wrote: »

In 2010 they were still using Office 2000!

most people who use office could get by with Word 4.3 with long filename support

how many people need more than 65536 rows in excel ?

and I know people who have steered clear of updating of old access databses to newer versions because that's a thankless task with lots of potential gotcha's

And I hate the whole concept of "let's hide stuff you don't use that often, so you won't know where it is when one day you need it"

KyussBishop · 20-02-2014 02:24AM

Pretty monumentally stupid, to use an operating system that will become obsolete, long before the hardware running it has outlived its use.

That's an enormous waste of money, upgrading that, when everything works perfectly well; should switch to a variant of Linux instead, so this is never a problem for future equipment.

Free operating system forever, vs unnecessarily subsidising Microsoft with an extra - totally unnecessary - round of software upgrades.

MadsL · 20-02-2014 02:47AM

Bambi wrote: »

A few years back I had people call me a conspiracy theorist when I was pointing out that they were suggesting hosting sensitive databases in a location where it was entirely legal to compromise their security

Move on a few years...

Let me guess, they probably were ignoring any Data Protection issues too in moving personal data out of the EU.

shruikan2553 · 20-02-2014 03:12AM

KyussBishop wrote: »

Pretty monumentally stupid, to use an operating system that will become obsolete, long before the hardware running it has outlived its use.

That's an enormous waste of money, upgrading that, when everything works perfectly well; should switch to a variant of Linux instead, so this is never a problem for future equipment.

Free operating system forever, vs unnecessarily subsidising Microsoft with an extra - totally unnecessary - round of software upgrades.

Oh dear god I can see it now. "Mary, what do I put into the command line to open microsoft word?" Then I can see the weeks of training required and the bonus they'll require to go through with all of this.

Imagine a government made OS. The IT department probably still has people poking holes in paper.

Sir Arthur Daley · 20-02-2014 03:15AM

The Government will have to install triple glazing windows to future proof themselves.

adocholiday · 20-02-2014 12:01PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

most people who use office could get by with Word 4.3 with long filename support

how many people need more than 65536 rows in excel ?

and I know people who have steered clear of updating of old access databses to newer versions because that's a thankless task with lots of potential gotcha's

And I hate the whole concept of "let's hide stuff you don't use that often, so you won't know where it is when one day you need it"

The biggest issue for being on the old versions of Office, especially Word, was when people would send in documents etc. from the newer versions we weren't able to look at them. In the department I worked in we had online forms that people would download, open and complete in Word and then send them in via email. We had no admin rights to install the compatibility packs etc. so I would make a point of replying to a person saying "apologies but due to our having Microsoft Office 2000 only, I would appreciate it if you could either convert your file to PDF or else save in in .rtf format in Word and resend it". The amount of replies I used to get asking why we were using Office 2000 was hilarious.

Sleepy · 20-02-2014 12:05PM

blastman wrote: »

Mainly because the security holes are still not all patched, and are unlikely ever to be.

I'm no sysadmin but I'm not convinced by this argument on a practical sense.

Most PS machines I've encountered are locked down pretty tight - users don't have the requisite permissions to install the usual downloads that lead to malware etc. and the XP clients would all be within LANS that have firewalls etc.

Even at that: what support does one get from Microsoft for this level? Is it continued windows updates to patch the problems? Or is it just support when those problems are exploited?

I'd have thought they'd be better off to simply go without support on any clients they haven't yet upgraded for the few months it'd take to spend that money on Windows 7 licenses?

sneakyST · 20-02-2014 01:22PM

Irish Steve wrote: »

The issue is that it's not just the cost of the hardware, it's also the (considerable) cost of the new software, both operating system AND application, and the significant training that's needed for ALL of the users of the machines and the underlying system that's being supported.

No offence Steve but its outdated views like this which probably has them in this position in the first place.

Lets take the cost issue, I'm assuming the Govt' have an Enterprise Agreement in place which automatically comes with Software Assurance. This means they have already purchased the new licenses. What are these people in the IT department doing if not testing their software and databases on the new releases. I find it shocking that they have not done this over the many years if that is the case.

In relation to the software upgrades - if they cant get their suppliers to provide support and release updates as part of their agreements then they have failed on a commercial level to get the right deals for Government IT.

From reading your post and others I think people are failing to grasp what the "cloud" actually is. It is many different things to different organisations. If you think that connections are unreliable and data will vanish into thin air then you have taken a very narrow view of what is available on the market and the solutions available to mitigate against these risks.

For instance, take Office 365/Azure - offers companies first class IT for the fraction of the cost of managing in house IT. Our companies have logged one support ticket in the last year for O365.

It seems to be assumed that cloud means moving your data out of the EU, well there are plenty of companies who provide hosted IT in a particular geographic area. I've worked with legal companies who needed their data in the UK and nowhere else. Due diligence is involved as with anything to ensure correct agreements are in place and the hosting company is financially sound.

Cloud can mean a private infrastructure, pure outsourced or hybrid, but what it makes it "cloud" is how its delivered, quick and easy to switch on or off that gives business flexibility as opposed to rigid IT practices that can hamper business growth.

But back to the Government, they had ample opportunity to address the desktop issues over the years as previously mentioned, virtualisation, Citrix thin clients etc. Its just poor strategic planning

There are many larger companies than the Irish government that have already moved to the cloud. I'm working with a company that operates in over 140 countries who have just done that.

abbir · 20-02-2014 01:53PM

adocholiday wrote: »

The biggest issue for being on the old versions of Office, especially Word, was when people would send in documents etc. from the newer versions we weren't able to look at them. In the department I worked in we had online forms that people would download, open and complete in Word and then send them in via email. We had no admin rights to install the compatibility packs etc. so I would make a point of replying to a person saying "apologies but due to our having Microsoft Office 2000 only, I would appreciate it if you could either convert your file to PDF or else save in in .rtf format in Word and resend it". The amount of replies I used to get asking why we were using Office 2000 was hilarious.

I hate when people email me word documents. Always prefer PDF. My work machine has the latest version of Office and I hate it. I use Libreoffice on my personal machine.

Dravokivich · 20-02-2014 02:20PM

You know, just because those have XP on'em, doesn't mean XP is a problem to be upgraded. I'd be curious of what's on'em that needs XP and how much would various projects cost to update something that's functioning fine? Before I give out about the government being behind the times...

XP in itself isn't all that obsolete. It's just being dumped by Microsoft to force people off it.

smileyj1987 · 20-02-2014 03:15PM

I think the govt should trial a Linux distro and open office and see what they think . I have an old laptop in the house and use it as a netflix box with my tv . I use Linux on it because it makes said laptop run fairly solid and it does a job for me .

Ray Palmer · 20-02-2014 04:21PM

suicide_circus wrote: »

Public Sector in inefficiency Shocker!

Dont worry lads, it's only the tapayer paying

Private companies are also doing the same. It isn't just updating the operating system. You have to check all your systems afterwards. Even an update can cause major problems let alone replacing the OS.

Capt'n Midnight · 21-02-2014 12:00AM

adocholiday wrote: »

The biggest issue for being on the old versions of Office, especially Word, was when people would send in documents etc. from the newer versions we weren't able to look at them. In the department I worked in we had online forms that people would download, open and complete in Word and then send them in via email. We had no admin rights to install the compatibility packs etc. so I would make a point of replying to a person saying "apologies but due to our having Microsoft Office 2000 only, I would appreciate it if you could either convert your file to PDF or else save in in .rtf format in Word and resend it". The amount of replies I used to get asking why we were using Office 2000 was hilarious.

RANT about vendor lock in and idiots

Anyone with half a clue had no problem sending in .doc, because they knew the pain of changing versions

the only people who queried it where the ones who send in .docx documents with a single font, single size, no bold ,no highlighting , barely even had paragraphs

/RANT

Government inaction on Windows XP costs €3.3 million

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