XP's no longer supported

[motormount]

Hi all!

Not sure if it's on the right section -IT- but it's the heidelberg soft i'm worried about mostly.

We run prepress manager 2011-server,meta and shooter- on 2008 server and win7 dell pc's.

On the other hand the cockpit client,signa,acrobat pro and pitstop-where 95% of daily tasks is done- are installed on a xp system.

Internet use for this pc is surfing on press and photo sites-printplanet,b4print,dpreview,gwg prepressure and the like- and checking my mail.

No messengers,fb,twitter,torrents.

With this kind of usage,even before microsoft stopped supporting xp's we never made any security-or any other kind- of updates and never had any problems .

We never upgrade unless something is not working and can't be fixed.

Management is very strict on expenses ,even for regular maintenance stuff,so i should be very confident before i propose any upgrade (to win7 or a server system) unless it is an absolute need.

So what's your opinion on that?

Any suggestion would be much appreciated!

 

[Laurens]

The main thing is to make sure you use an up-to-date browser - not Internet Explorer 8 but the most recent FireFox or Chrome as well as updated versions of Java (if needed), Flash and Acrobat. I think that, combined with using a virus/mallware detector, goes a long way to making Windows XP as safe as possible.

 

[motormount]

I don't use ie,i have java disabled,but i don't understand why should i have acrobat updated -for security reasons that is-

Thank you anyway!

 

[Laurens]

PDF is a very versatile file format which supports embedded scripting. There are security flaws in PDF reading applications such as Acrobat that, if not patched, might allow a rogue PDF to execute some malicious code. I wouldn't expect regular PDF files that you get from customers to pose any threat. It is that interesting-looking PDF that you found on a web page somewhere and that automatically opens in a browser window that potentially poses a security risk. So if you use Adobe Reader in your browser, make sure to install its security related updates.

 

[motormount]

ok,thanks a lot!