Windows XP support ending

One year from today, Windows XP will be officially unsupported by Microsoft.

As noted on their life-cycle support page, there will be no more updates coming out of Redmond for the unbelievable success that is Windows XP. This operating system has been going since 2001, which makes it 12 years at time of writing. For software to last that long in the industry where things are changing every minute, and people have a hard time keeping up with the trends this is a huge deal, and massive success.

However, as mentioned, this success is coming to an end. Microsoft will be officially discontinuing the product. What does this mean for you?

• Security vulnerabilities. If hackers find an exploit in Windows XP that is currently unpatched, they might choose to wait till after the product is discontinued before attempting their attacks on a system, or systems. This is a very real threat, that could cause loss of data, identity theft, etc. Having an up-to-date system is very important to receive regular updates on these vulnerabilities, and ensure your computer is patched and updated.
• Hardware support. With new hardware coming out and the discontinuation of XP, getting digitally signed drivers for your hardware will become a very difficult task. You may not get the best performance out of your hardware, or worse, it might not even work, as there may not be a driver for it available.
• Software support. Newer programs such as Microsoft Office, Internet browsers, etc may stop receiving support for XP, and as such, you'd experience a slower performance, web-pages may not display properly, or not at all, and some programs may cease to operate altogether.

So, with the above in mind, you'll probably need to get a new system. Unless your computer is as old as XP is, there is a good chance that it will work fine with some of the newer versions of Windows that are available.

Purchasing a copy of Windows 7 is impossible through Microsoft I've been informed both by trying myself online on the Microsoft store, and on the phone, but it is available if you go to computer shops and retailers that may still have copies left available for sale.

If you missed out on the Windows 8 upgrade offer from Microsoft when Windows 8 was first announced for $39, Windows 8 is available for sale on the Microsoft Store for AU $149.99, which will get you the Windows 8 operating system. However, some places are selling copies of Windows 8 for $59 on the store shelves, I have seen it available at JB-HiFi (if you live in Australia). Even if you don't need it now, you should probably get it before stocks run out at that price, and you'll have to pay nearly 3 times that later.

Alternatively, if you have XP on an old machine, and you don't think it will last more than a year, you may be better off just holding out, and buying a new computer next year which will come with Windows pre-loaded on it.

Any questions? Fire away in the comments section below!

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Setting up any printer to use over a network in Windows

If you've bought a printer that's promised network printing, and it's come with a bunch of CD's, but you're having trouble getting it working, fear not, for there is a simple way to get it going.

Before we start, note that this guide has been designed for windows XP, however, the similarities between windows 7 are quite close, so you should be able to adjust easily, and follow along.

1.  The first step in this guide is turn off all your devices, including your modem, computer, and anything that connects to the network, including Wifi devices, but leave on the printer attached to the modem/router.
2. Next, what we want to do is just power on your modem/router so that the only device it's connected to is the printer. The purpose of these first two steps is to get the router to assign the first available IP address to your printer, which we'll come to later in this guide.
3. Then you can start to turn back on the other computers and devices that connect to the network.
4. Once on, click start, then go to printers and faxes in the menu.
5. Click add printer in the column on the left hand side.
6. In the wizard that pops up, click next to start the process.
7. The next screen will ask you for a local or a network printer. This is a very confusing question as we are adding a network printer, but it's on a local network, which means that we will choose the first option, a local printer attached to this computer. Click Next.
8. On the next page, go to bottom option which is create a new port, and then in the drop-down list, choose "Standard TCP/IP port"
9. When you hit next a new wizard will popup showing add port wizard.
10. This screen will ask you for the IP address of the printer. This will probably be one of the harder steps to complete as it's not immediately obvious which TCP/IP address you need to use.
11. The best way to check this for your printer would be look on the actual printer through the screens on it's mini screen if it has one. Failing that, you can log on to the modem/router and check the DCHP table. If this sounds a bit too technical for you, don't fret, we can try and take a pretty calculated guess at what the port will be.
1. Click start, then click run, and type CMD, then hit enter
2. Type ipconfig on the black dialogue box that appears.
3. You should see a few sets of number depending on what set up you have, but we are interested in the IP address of your computer, and the IP address of the default gateway.
4. If you default gateway is 10.1.1.1, and your computers IP address is 10.1.1.3 for example, it's pretty safe to bet that your printer is 10.1.1.2 because remember at step 2 earlier in this guide we turned on the printer first?
5. Similarly, if the address for the default gateway is 192.168.1.1, and your computer is 192.168.1.3 (see the pattern here) then your printer could be 192.168.1.2
12. With these addresses in mind, type the missing address in the box on the wizard screen, and then hit next.
13. If you have problems a this stage it probably means that the printer wasn't able to be located, or the address we have is incorrect. You can click back to try a different one if you wish. If not you may need to get the help of a technical friend or call in a computer tech to help.
14. With not problems, it should find the printer and prompt for a driver you'd like to use. In this screen you can choose from the list if your printer is listed, if it isn't pick the closest model, and failing that, chuck the CD into the drive, and click have disk.
1. Clicking have disk will open a new window, asking for the location of the disk, and to search automatically which you can choose to do.
15. Once the driver has been found hit next and it will install the printer on your system.
16. If it asks to keep the same driver, I would also recommend this as it's known to work, and we want to keep using something that works :)
17. The next screen will offer to name the printer and ask if you'd like to print a test page.
18. Now the momemt of truth - print the test page and if it comes through you're good to go. If not you may have missed something along the way I'd recommend going back and checking you've done each step.
19. Now click finish
20. You're done!

I will also post a guide to adding a network printer on a Mac shortly.

What does limited or no connectivity mean? And how to fix?

Update: If you are a Windows 7 or a Windows 8 user, the message you get may show that your Internet connection says limited access.

If you're using Windows XP, and you can't connect to the internet or anything else on your network, there is a good chance you've got this error. You may have a box with words similar to the image below appear on your screen.

What's happened? Well, when your computer connects to your modem or wireless router, it is asking for an address that is can use to communicate with other computers. If for whatever reason your modem/router is unable to give this address you get this error.

There are a couple of ways this can happen. Usually you've plugged the cables in, or your computer's wifi connection is up, but it's not getting any data flow.

As a result, there are a few different ways to fix it.

• Start by turning everything off for at least 1 minute. This includes the modem, the router, the computer and anything else you use on your network. This is also known as a power cycle.
• When everything is back up and powered on, if you're still getting the same error, you can try repairing the connection by hitting the repair button (as shown above)
• If this doesn't fix it, there is a command you can run through the command line program in windows which should help resolve the issue.
• Open the command line by clicking Start, then choosing Run
• At the prompt, type "cmd" (without the quotes) and hit enter
• You should have a black screen up with a prompt waiting for you to enter some text
• At this point, type in "netsh winsock reset" (again without the quotes)
• You will get a message saying successfully reset the winsock catalog, and it will say you need to reboot the machine.
• Reboot your computer.

• Lastly, if you're still reading and it's still not working, you can try factory resetting your modem/router that your computer is connecting to, which usually involves pressing the reset button on the back of the modem where all the plugs go or you can try with another modem/router.

These steps also apply to Windows Vista, and Windows 7. The error message is slightly different, saying "Connected with limited access" however, the steps taken to fix the issue are the same.