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9-11GaveMe5G t1_iubrqsd wrote

I would be shocked if there weren't one (if not more) government agencies that have long term support contracts. Remember governments all around the world use these products

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Gurgiwurgi t1_iubt8ov wrote

I doubt they have any support contracts for IE 11... they're still paying for IE 6 support.

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diiejso t1_iubxktu wrote

I had to support IE6 for way too long bc a government site we worked with would only function on it. We had a special VM just for using that website.

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Alternative_Dish740 t1_iuccqhe wrote

My father had to resort to deliberately wearing out a machine's hard drive and corrupting the backup image to get his job to finally stop using Winblows 95 for some obscure business software that a handful of suits refused to upgrade from.

Of course blame shit hit the blades hard but at that point he was actually sick enough of the nightmare of supporting those machines in an XP environment that he was willing to risk getting fired or worse to get rid of them.

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OliverIsMyCat t1_iud5zbg wrote

Well if he had to go out of his way to break it, sounds like it was holding up just fine.

Remember, the probable function for your dad's job was to SUPPORT the computing needs of those suits. Of course he got shit for doing the literal opposite to make his own job easier.

Also, we're allowed to shit on IE. But Win95 was bomb.

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Alternative_Dish740 t1_iud7vgq wrote

It was only holding up fine because it was given top priority the minute anything looked like it wasn't, at the expense of multiple other systems.

And every time something actually DID break it took exponentially more time to fix because of the antiquated, shaky software and slow-ass hardware..

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Keudn883 t1_iudqwze wrote

Just because the older software is working doesn't mean risks don't exist. If the software isn't supported by the vendor anymore you are just one problem away from a massive amount unrecoverable data loss. If the software is no longer updated against modern security standards then it's just a door waiting to be breached.

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missed_sla t1_iubwnr1 wrote

I know for a fact that some federal agencies and their contractors still require IE compatibility. Now, we're able to use IE mode in Edge, but it still uses activex and requires punching some ransomware-sized holes in security.

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Bleusilences t1_iuc5scc wrote

Activex what a fucking joke and waste of time that was.

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LeoRidesHisBike t1_iucczrh wrote

Some amazing 20/20 hindsight there. When ActiveX was a thing the web was much less hostile. The concept of ActiveX (let devs use existing COM controls and native code to do "real software" vs the limited things JavaScript could do) was pretty cool, just didn't anticipate how many security risks were hidden.

We didn't get that same level of efficiency in browsers again until Web Assembly... 20 years later.

Native software is so flexible/powerful that's the only safe thing to do is completely isolate it from browser execution. But that wasn't well known at the time.

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dkran t1_iudoout wrote

Macromedia flash suffered from this a lot too. Who knew how badly browsers needed to be 100% sandboxed back then? Java Applets, OCX, Flash. I think I still to this day have a severe reservation about installing anything that can interact with the web browser. I don’t even like links opening apps

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Fancy-You3022 t1_iucdm8u wrote

QuickBooks Pro Desktop 222 is still dependent on IE Active X. Tried disabling IE on a computer as a part of the Hardening process and QuickBooks refused to run until I enabled it.

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dkran t1_iudoxtn wrote

Yeah I got a letter or email from intuit explaining this a few months ago. I really don’t like the fact that one of the most major accounting software programs in existence is reliant on such legacy technology, but then again airplanes are still programmed with floppy disks

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thecstep t1_iuf5imh wrote

Yep. And IE mode requires IE to be installed.

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a_Tin_of_Spam t1_iubxkt2 wrote

the amount of businesses, hospitals, shops and even governments who still use windows 7 if not an older windows OS is horrifying.

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MrZorg58 t1_iuby0n9 wrote

The US military still uses windows XP, and pays Microsoft for updates, ONLY they get.

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drekmonger t1_iuc61bp wrote

Up until 2019 US military still had 8 inch floppy disks as an integral part of running nuclear silos. The software and hardware is still mostly stuff from out of the 70s.

>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/us/nuclear-weapons-floppy-disks.html

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Iceykitsune2 t1_iueoa3x wrote

And the only reason they changed was inability to find a supplier.

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LookingForEnergy t1_iubz7ea wrote

As time goes on and less people use XP, would that make it more secure?

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googonite t1_iuc1kui wrote

security through obscurity antiquity

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BubblyKombucha t1_iuc3rhn wrote

Eventually compilers for popular programming languages drop any support for Windows XP so new malware can't even be built that would run on it, unless the malware developers themselves ran 10-year-old obsolete versions of compilers... but then the program libraries they might depend on have also moved on and don't work w/ such an old compiler. On a long enough time scale, Windows XP could be safe from new threats arising. ;)

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prophetofthepimps t1_iuc4kf2 wrote

Not safe from State Actors though. Only non-state actors won't bother.

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141_1337 t1_iuc5znq wrote

I'm guessing because state actors would have the resources to find such antique software?

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Guac_in_my_rarri t1_iuc5s48 wrote

Wait till you hear about the tax software the IRS uses....

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SkyNetIsNow t1_iudgpf0 wrote

They literally have employees typing data from paper forms into the computer for the paper tax documents they receive. Which is why they want people to file electronically. They are just exploring OCR options with no clean plans about if or when to use it in the future.

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Alternative_Dish740 t1_iuccw7j wrote

Literally how my old Win 3.11 machine is safe when I dial up one of the few remaining BBS's for nostalgia. 32/64 bit programs cant run on it and so neither can any viruses.

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dkran t1_iudq5ae wrote

Hmm… I wonder how many windows 3.11 computers are still out there; maybe it’s worth writing one! I miss that clunky ms-dos overlay.

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Bleusilences t1_iuc5uxg wrote

Yeah, but for once, I kind of understand if the computer is running special software. It's ok as long as it doesn't connect to a network.

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Helpful_Put_5274 t1_iuc1u3d wrote

I was working for a company that was still using Windows 3.11 for testing, when I retired 3 year's ago.

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Guac_in_my_rarri t1_iuc5p7t wrote

I work for an auto parts supplier who used IE until it died. Our outsourced/employed IT folk are losing their collective marbels because they're trying to find a browser of choice. IE was the gold standard to them, meanwhile the rest of us use chrome or Firefox.

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Razzamanazz t1_iuc0si9 wrote

I have to support a few. I have an old but locked down server farm that has IE published as a remote app for people to use. It's not even close to the most screwed up ancient thing I have manage.

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Angelworks42 t1_iue6vkg wrote

I do endpoint engineering (for a state entity no less) - it's actually end of life in February 2023 and will be patched until then - plus everyone has been told it's been deprecated for over a year now.

So what about sites that actually still need it? I only have one customer in our enterprise who absolutely requires it and it's not a government app - it's Oracle's Micros Opera Property Management System.

Even our on prem ERP (enterprise resource planner) we were able to upgrade nearly 10 years ago to support modern browsers - and this is an app that has been around since the 60s.

It's going to be fine because Microsoft Edge Enterprise Site List. The way it works is we have a policy where the clients know about certain urls to automatically enable IE mode. The end user is really not even aware it kicks off. You can read more about it here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-explorer/ie11-deploy-guide/what-is-enterprise-mode

You see while iexplore.exe is going away - all the api's will live in forever because there's tons of apps that use them - and you might not even know it.

Yes there are better ways of doing web content in an app in Windows like Web Edgeview, but IE compatibility will likely be with us well beyond Windows 12 and 13 - just like hta's and mfc.

So no there's zero issues for any sys admin who knows anything about Windows.

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allegate t1_iudsno3 wrote

We have to use ie11 for a govIT-run webpage to request computer access. If you use edge or chrome it auto-opens ie11 for you.

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hobbykitjr t1_iudc4qa wrote

My son's xray this week was viewed on a really old IE

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