I have a computer that runs Windows XP.
For the past two years or so people having being saying XP users should upgrade, because there would be no security patches after April 2014.
For the most part I dismissed that as aggressive consumerist advertisement, until today I read on 4chan's technology board that if I do not upgrade I should "expect a massive flood of zero day attacks that people have already been hoarding, starting April 9".
Now, my university provides me with MSDN access to install disks and serial keys for XP/Vista/7/8/8.1.
I was thinking of doing an in-place upgrade of my XP system to Vista.
Hearing this, they told me "Get a fresh windows 7 install if you have to. A good opportunity to back up all your important files, which I'm sure you haven't done in 10 years", to which I replied that I had good backups and my first computer files dating from 2001 are still readable, and that in fact I had even made myself an emulator/image package for some old Macintosh systems.
4chan then also told me to install Linux instead (it's free, it's designed for computer scientists by computer scientists, etc.), I already do that, the computer is used by my brother/father for video gaming / email.
The problem is that that computer has lots of programs for which I don't have installers, and I don't want to spend hours reinstalling stuff.
I really think the most painless thing to do would be an in-place upgrade to Vista from XP. Microsoft says it's possible on their site.
It would avoid me the whole "2014, no more security patches" thing.
Does this kind of in-place upgrade generally go well ?
Thank you ahead of time for any responses. It seems hard to come across competent Windows technical support stuff (I've already tried IRC and 4chan).
For the past two years or so people having being saying XP users should upgrade, because there would be no security patches after April 2014.
For the most part I dismissed that as aggressive consumerist advertisement, until today I read on 4chan's technology board that if I do not upgrade I should "expect a massive flood of zero day attacks that people have already been hoarding, starting April 9".
Now, my university provides me with MSDN access to install disks and serial keys for XP/Vista/7/8/8.1.
I was thinking of doing an in-place upgrade of my XP system to Vista.
Hearing this, they told me "Get a fresh windows 7 install if you have to. A good opportunity to back up all your important files, which I'm sure you haven't done in 10 years", to which I replied that I had good backups and my first computer files dating from 2001 are still readable, and that in fact I had even made myself an emulator/image package for some old Macintosh systems.
4chan then also told me to install Linux instead (it's free, it's designed for computer scientists by computer scientists, etc.), I already do that, the computer is used by my brother/father for video gaming / email.
The problem is that that computer has lots of programs for which I don't have installers, and I don't want to spend hours reinstalling stuff.
I really think the most painless thing to do would be an in-place upgrade to Vista from XP. Microsoft says it's possible on their site.
It would avoid me the whole "2014, no more security patches" thing.
Does this kind of in-place upgrade generally go well ?
Thank you ahead of time for any responses. It seems hard to come across competent Windows technical support stuff (I've already tried IRC and 4chan).