Windows XP SP1 and earlier

Having upgraded two PCs yesterday from Windows XP Service Pack 1, I wonder how many old, unprotected systems are there out there? Users, in this case a teenager and a senior citizen, are oblivious to any notion that you have to protect and maintain these computers and if you don't, eventually they stop working.

Now that Windows XP SP1 has been added to the unsupported list of Microsoft products, there should be someway of telling these people that a free upgrade is available and reasonably simple to apply. Then when it is installed the usual warnings that 'No antivirus' or 'Out of date antivirus' should at least warn them that something is wrong.

With all the publicity that is about Internet security, fraud and ID theft that appears, you would think some bells would start ringing somewhere. Indeed this week as been all about the Internet Explorer vulnerability and few of my customers contacted me about this. Yet for many people there is obviously no concern at all and they continue to think that they are invulnerable to any of these issues They are protected by the trial version of the antivirus software that came with their PC purchased six years ago and never bothered to pay from any further subscriptions or look for free alternatives such as AVG.

I try to tell them about the risks, even overplaying them to scare them into action, but I think that my words are falling on deaf ears as they claim not to be 'computer literate'! Anyway all the more work for me I suppose.