Now that it has been officially announced that there will be no more updates from Microsoft for the workhorse of the industry – Windows XP. The popular and widely used operating system started its life in October 2001. Within the first five years of its availability, officially sold copies outnumbered 400 million. By the time Microsoft withdrew support, in April 2014, the sales figure stood at 1 billion. Add to that the use of another few billion pirated copies all over the world, and you start to get a fairly good estimate of the software’s popularity.
Apart from the popularity, Windows XP figured in several industrially used computers as well, for example, Automatic Teller Machines or ATMs, Point of Sales or POS machines and several types of machine and laboratory instrument controllers. With the withdrawal of active support from Microsoft, the software will not be updated or upgraded, leaving it exposed to exploitation by unscrupulous attackers.
For example, the recent vulnerability exposed in the Internet Explorer, the browser used in almost all Windows OSs, left many wondering about the fate of XP. Fortunately, Microsoft stepped in with the assurance that it will provide a patch for the IE vulnerability for XP. However, Microsoft is unlikely to tackle any further vulnerability discovered subsequently in Windows XP.
However, the situation may not be as hopeless as it sounds. Switching over to Windows 7 or 8 may not be within everyone’s reach, especially when there are several underlying programs working within that depend on Windows XP for their proper operation. Shifting to Windows 7 or 8 might break the functionality of the instrument.
Linux can come to the rescue of such equipment left in the lurch by Microsoft. We are already using Android and Apple phones and computers, both of which are derivatives of the UNIX operating system. Linux is another popular operating system based on UNIX. The best part is you can run any Windows programs in Linux under a virtual mode. The advantage is you do not need to bother about the vulnerabilities of XP, as Linux extends all its inherent security to the operating system used under its virtual mode.
For this, John Martinson has configured a special version of Linux, called the Robolinux. It has a specially formulated virtual mode called the Stealth VM. When you run Windows within this virtual mode, no virus or malware can affect Windows or its data, since the Windows operating system is actually a protected clone and Linux mirrors your data within a secure partition. Additionally, with anything going wrong, you can simply restore the contents of the partition within a few minutes, instead of having to spend hours resurrecting Windows from its CD/DVD.
It is not strictly necessary to run Robolinux for using Stealth VM, as you can run this within any of the existing 500 Linux Operating Systems. If you want to run Windows XP or 7 within your Stealth VM, you simply download the Robolinux Virtual Machine installers. You get the rock-like solidity of UNIX and Linux, including complete protection from viruses and malware when running your coveted Windows XP.
