Does anyone one else feel XP is starting to get rigormortis?

[markjs]

I repair PCs and the past few months the infections that are available for XP seem to be 3 times as bad as even six months ago. All of a sudden I am having NIGHTMARES finding XP Drivers that work for wireless adapters they are supposed to work for. I have a Linksys WUSB54GSC v2, and it used to work fine on XP on a similar machine to what I am working with now, but now I am lucky to be able to get half an hour out of it before the fresh install of XP on the customer's machine is unable to do ANYTHING online or off. This is almost immediately remedied when I unplug it.

I don't think I can in good conscience not try to sell people 7. This XP instability has been mounting slowly over time, but I can't even seem to get clean installs to work anymore for more than a month if the customer isn't near an expert level user. I hate being put in this position, and I know it is not my competence at issue here, but it makes me feel like a chiseler even though that is far from the case. I don't like to hard sell anything, but I'd like to know if any of you feel the same way. I don't care if you are stuck in 2003 and your PC is still flawless with XP, and you stubbornly refuse to embrace Vista or 7, so more power too ya ya cheap bast.... I am only interested in anecdotal evidence concerning novice users and XP and if this is becoming epidemic in your experience or if perhaps their is something I can do to extend XP's usefulness?

Economic times are tough and novices hate change, but I really feel that it is for their own good with 7. With Vista I'd have to be upgrading machines hardware wise, but with 7 it seems to run great on anything that would run XP so long as it has at least 1GB or RAM.

Thanks in advance!

 

[RebateMonger]

ALL of the offices I support are still on XP. The careful ones aren't having any more problems now than they did a couple of years ago. The malware infections the careless folks are getting are now near-impossible to fix.

 

[markjs]

Sorry I forgot to exclude business users, who are usually responsible competent users and sometimes restricted in what they can do by the boss.

It's just the home user dummies I am seeing this with. I got one guy who claims almost once a month that spybot s&d and superantispyware get uninstalled or crippled all without his help. I have another friend who I am pretty sure doesn't browse malicious sites, but he has had horrible driver issues and is reinstalling on a monthly basis (I just gave him my copy of Vista and he loves it). Every other novice lever user I see having constant trouble and I can't bear to use their machines they are so painfully slow and I just re-installed some of them not more than within the last 6 months!

I know 7 is more secure and more trouble free on the infection front, I just hope they stay ahead of it a while. I do not believe Micro$oft is sabotaging XP, but I am sure they are not spending much on new fixes for security holes, and I do believe their are back room deals concerning drivers, and driver writers just plain losing interest.

 

[nerp]

He probably uninstalls the spybot and antispyware stuff to access virus-infected porn and warez sites but he's too timid to admit it.

 

[Modelworks]

There is no solution for stupid users other than not to let them use the pc. 7 is not immune. I found a virus last month that bypasses all the anti virus software and the UAC and was able to run undetected. That is the exception not the rule right now, but it is only going to get worse.

I was emailing kaspersky back and forth about the one I found and he said they are seeing more virus like it over the past month. There is also a HUGE increase in fake anti virus software. He was telling me they are so quick now that kaspersky can release a virus update today changing the look of their program and by tomorrow the malware creators have release an updated version that looks exactly like the anti virus program but is malware.