Windows XP spotted on Royal Navy's spanking new aircraft carrier

[Denzil_DC]

Last edited Wed Dec 16, 2015, 08:19 PM - Edit history (1)

Ooh look. The Royal Navy’s new aircraft carrier The Queen Elizabeth is using Windows XP.

The ship is a year from completion, so there is plenty of time yet to bin it for a more up-to-date and secure version of the venerable operating system.

The Ministry of Defence is not returning our calls, but this could always be, as one reader says, “comedy wallpaper on a technician’s laptop...”

You can check out the BBC News report about The Queen Elizabeth here. The XP wallpaper makes its appearance at 1m.25s.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/15/windows_xp_royal_navy/?mt=1450287631060

Now, my eyes aren't sharp enough and I'm not familiar enough with newer Windows desktop appearances, to confirm that this is what that mix of laptops and desktops is running (not to mention how integrated they are into the rest of HMS Queen Elizabeth's systems), but even if I take them at their word, it's not that unusual for the military to use older, tried-and-tested OSes.

But still ...

[liberal N proud]

1. It is possible that some controls software they are using still requires XP

I know that we have some programs related to controls that has not been upgraded by one of the worlds largest industrial controls companies and will only run on XP. We have to maintain some XP machines just for that system.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. Many years ago I had a client...

who was going nuts because all his machine shop tools were controlled by machine code designed for IBM PCs. And only PCs-- no XT's, no clones, no 286's, no nothing but the original PC.

And the programmer disappeared.

The gummint agency I work for consistently uses Windows at least a generation old, largely due to security concerns. Just went from Vista to 8.1. No clue when we'll get 10, but it will be in the dim future when any significant bugs are out and security is as guaranteed as it can be.

[Mnpaul]

8. I agree

but they could run XP inside of 7 with Vitual PC. The factory service manual for my VW won't run on anything newer than Vista. Win 8 isn't very com port friendly. Some of our control panels just got upgraded to use 7 CE. None of the control panels run anything newer than that.

edit: after watching the video, it looks like he is running XP inside Win 7.
It looks just like my 7 machine with Virtual PC running XP. The XP screen doesn't cover the whole screen.

[drm604]

2. Some organizations can get special support contracts with Microsoft.

As I understand it, MS does still support and release updates for XP, but only for those companies or orgs that have special contracts.

[lpbk2713]

3. I used to have my office PC set to display the OS2 Screen on bootup.

It received its share of double takes. It upset a few manager types, so it was worth it.

[Denzil_DC]

4. Should have gone for DOS 3.1.

A command prompt would no doubt have turned a few heads.

[Historic NY]

5. US Navy paid millions to stay on Windows XP

The U.S. Navy is paying Microsoft millions of dollars to keep up to 100,000 computers afloat because it has yet to transition away from Windows XP.

The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, which runs the Navy's communications and information networks, signed a $9.1 million contract earlier this month for continued access to security patches for Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2003 and Windows Server 2003.

The entire contract could be worth up to $30.8 million and extend into 2017.



http://www.computerworld.com/article/2939435/government-it/us-navy-paid-millions-to-stay-on-windows-xp.html

[-none]

9. Which is probably far cheaper than rewriting the control software for everything they control,

because MS insists on making changes so the old drivers do not run properly, or even do not run at all, on the new software.
Everything from printers to video cards.
It has been my experience Linux doesn't have near that problem.

Can anyone imagine the information that MS could slurp up for these military systems, running Windows 10 because someone missed a check box or MS doing an update and turning some of the slurping back on?

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

7. IIRC the Air Force was still buying...

...card punch machines as of 1986.