Speaker 1: Kiota.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Microsoft is
Speaker 2: ending its support for the Windows ten operating system from today.
Speaker 2: It means computers still running the system might be at risk,
Speaker 2: given security updates will stop, and while the company is
Speaker 2: urging users to upgrade for free to Windows eleven, not
Speaker 2: all devices will be able to support it. At the
Speaker 2: same time, there are growing concerns about the surge in
Speaker 2: electronic waste. Today on the front Page, Consumer and z
Speaker 2: Products test writer Nick Gelling is with us to take
Speaker 2: us through what happens to your old devices. So Nick,
Speaker 2: first off, tell me what's actually happened with Windows ten.
Speaker 3: So starting from today, Microsoft is ending support for Win
Speaker 3: those ten computers. What that means is that they won't
Speaker 3: be receiving security updates anymore. So any computers that are
Speaker 3: still running Windows ten start to become a risk against
Speaker 3: online attacks and that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know about you, but I do
Speaker 4: actually have a Windows computer. I had no idea that
Speaker 4: this was happening, and I don't even know why. I
Speaker 4: need to go home and check what system is it's
Speaker 4: operating do you reckon. Microsoft's done a good enough job
Speaker 4: actually telling consumers about this change.
Speaker 3: It's a huge job. They've got so many customers. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's a really difficult thing for them to get the
Speaker 3: word out to everyone. They've tried, but yeah, there will
Speaker 3: absolutely be a lot of people that have slipped through
Speaker 3: the cracks, and I'm sure there's more that they could
Speaker 3: have done. And that's I think where the role of
Speaker 3: an organization like Consumer is to get the word out
Speaker 3: and tell people what their options are.
Speaker 1: What are their options?
Speaker 3: Our first and best option, we think for most people,
Speaker 3: is to enroll in Microsoft's Extended Security Updates Program, which
Speaker 3: is a free thing that you can access from your
Speaker 3: update settings on your Windows ten computer, and it basically
Speaker 3: opts you into an extra year of support, so that'll
Speaker 3: keep you getting updates until October next year. Microsoft hasn't
Speaker 3: done a very good job of telling us that that's
Speaker 3: there or promoting it, but yeah, that's probably the first
Speaker 3: and foremost thing. You could also switch to a different
Speaker 3: operating system if you're not tied to Windows, you could
Speaker 3: install a Linux distribution or something like that instead, but
Speaker 3: that takes a little bit of you know, technological knowledge
Speaker 3: and If you don't want to do either as either
Speaker 3: of those things, then probably you're looking at buying a
Speaker 3: new Windows eleven computer.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I had to look at our Windows ten
Speaker 4: was first released in twenty fifteen. Is ten years kind
Speaker 4: of like the standard for an operating system like.
Speaker 1: This, Yeah, i'd say it is.
Speaker 3: Microsoft has had a ten year life cycle for its
Speaker 3: operating systems for quite a long time, maybe forever, so
Speaker 3: that is normal and in of itself, you know, ten
Speaker 3: years is quite a long time, right. Windows ten was
Speaker 3: a hugely successful product, and heaps of people are using it.
Speaker 3: It's got a huge install base and people haven't migrated
Speaker 3: off of it yet, and there's a few reasons for that. Partially,
Speaker 3: it's because in order to install Windows eleven, you need
Speaker 3: to have particular hardware requirements on your computer, and some
Speaker 3: people just don't have those parts, so they can't grade,
Speaker 3: so they're stuck on Windows ten. And that hasn't happened
Speaker 3: in the past with previous versions of Windows. You've just
Speaker 3: been able to upgrade, not in one hundred percent of cases,
Speaker 3: but you know, ninety five percent of cases. So that's
Speaker 3: the big difference this time round. Windows eleven was only
Speaker 3: announced four years ago along with those requirements. So there
Speaker 3: are people that would have bought computers in you know,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty or even early twenty twenty one that are
Speaker 3: now not compatible with Windows eleven only four years later,
Speaker 3: you know, So what are they supposed to do? And
Speaker 3: is that fear that they've only got four years out
Speaker 3: of their computer.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Windows is apparently the most popular computing system in the world,
Speaker 4: with Microsoft saying it is used on over one point
Speaker 4: four billion devices globally. Around forty three percent of these
Speaker 4: we're using Windows ten as of July. So it's fair
Speaker 4: to say there should be quite a few New Zealanders impacted.
Speaker 4: Do you know how many thereabouts there might be in
Speaker 4: New Zealand?
Speaker 3: I mean, we have estimates, they're not very scientific estimates.
Speaker 3: I'm going on about thirty percent of New Zealand computers
Speaker 3: running Windows ten. That number has come down in the
Speaker 3: last few months because coming up to the switch off,
Speaker 3: people have been thinking about their other options. But even
Speaker 3: based on that thirty percent figure, we're talking hundreds of
Speaker 3: thousands of affected computers in New Zealand, which is you know,
Speaker 3: it's a pretty unbelievable scale.
Speaker 1: Really, Yeah, it's huge.
Speaker 4: I mean, given it means that these systems won't be
Speaker 4: receiving security updates, will it just be open market for hackers?
Speaker 4: Like if I were a hacker, I'd be rubbing my
Speaker 4: little hands together at the moment, just hoping that half
Speaker 4: of at least half of these or even one percent
Speaker 4: of these people don't know that this is happening, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And that's that's the risk.
Speaker 3: And I think it's a risk that Microsoft has created
Speaker 3: for them selves a little bit. If there is waves
Speaker 3: of cyber attacks and heaps of people are losing their
Speaker 3: private information or losing money, it's going to look really
Speaker 3: bad for Microsoft. It's just so hard to predict. I
Speaker 3: think it's the thing. You know, things might be fine
Speaker 3: for for months or even you know, a year in
Speaker 3: the future. It might still be safe to use Windows teen.
Speaker 3: Who knows, but we can't know that, and it could
Speaker 3: be super dangerous as of tomorrow. So it's an unpredictable environment.
Speaker 3: We don't know what's going to happen, but you don't
Speaker 3: want to be involved if it all can tends to custard.
Speaker 1: Is there a way that because there are.
Speaker 4: External companies that do those secure security upgrades. I'm thinking
Speaker 4: like was there Noughton or something I'm thinking of, like
Speaker 4: back in the back in the day, where you'd have
Speaker 4: a desktop and you'd put a CD in and it
Speaker 4: would do like security software, So Mum and Dad didn't
Speaker 4: get any bugs in the computer after I downloaded Jason
Speaker 4: Derulo or something. Are there those kind of things anymore?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, all that stuff still exists.
Speaker 3: It's a little bit less popular than it was, but yeah,
Speaker 3: there are plenty of security suite options.
Speaker 1: They will do a job.
Speaker 3: If you were to keep using a Windows teen computer
Speaker 3: after today, which I wouldn't recommend, but having one of
Speaker 3: those installed would help you, it would, you know, it
Speaker 3: certainly wouldn't do you any harm. While they can stop
Speaker 3: I guess the more surface level attacks, the really fundamental,
Speaker 3: deep level kind of the really scary cyber stuff is
Speaker 3: at the operating system level. And so yeah, an unsecure
Speaker 3: operating system is there's no way to really patch over
Speaker 3: that completely.
Speaker 4: Well, what happens when you like had the old Windows
Speaker 4: and then installed Windows ninety five.
Speaker 1: That's a good question, honey.
Speaker 5: When you upgrade from Windows three point one, old program
Speaker 5: manager groups transferred automatically to this menu.
Speaker 1: Oh, well, that's easier than changing dry cleaners. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know you always leave something behind.
Speaker 5: Now below that is your document's menu, which contains your
Speaker 5: recently used documents.
Speaker 1: So I mean if you can get back to work
Speaker 1: on a file faster.
Speaker 5: Precisely, Now Settings gets you to the new improved control
Speaker 5: panel your printer's folder and allows you to customize the taskbar.
Speaker 5: The fine feature is all new on Windows ninety five.
Speaker 5: It's a fast way to find files or folders.
Speaker 4: You mentioned Microsoft is giving uses those two options either
Speaker 4: update to Windows eleven or sign up to get that
Speaker 4: extended security updates for twelve months. Do you reckon that's
Speaker 4: good enough?
Speaker 3: I would say it's the bare minimum, So you know
Speaker 3: that's good that they're meeting the minimum. Now by making
Speaker 3: that extendency scurity updates free and available to everyone, there's
Speaker 3: a lot more that Microsoft could do, right. They're a
Speaker 3: huge company. They have all the resources in the world
Speaker 3: and close to a monopoly on the PC market, right,
Speaker 3: so they have so much control, and we think they've
Speaker 3: got a duty as well, like a responsibility to all
Speaker 3: of these customers that paid for their product in the
Speaker 3: past to kind of look after those people. And that
Speaker 3: includes the people that can't access Windows eleven for whatever reason.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because when I saw that twelve month timeline to
Speaker 4: get that security A mean, I mean, it kind of
Speaker 4: looked like to me that it was we're giving you
Speaker 4: twelve months to go buy another laptop or go buy
Speaker 4: another desktop or something.
Speaker 1: Hey.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly what the messaging has been. I've been
Speaker 3: pretty disappointed in the messaging from Microsoft, to be honest.
Speaker 3: They're using the extended support kind of just as another
Speaker 3: way to market Windows a live in more than anything else.
Speaker 3: You know, people do need a bit of time to
Speaker 3: you know, maybe you need to save up some money
Speaker 3: to buy a new computer or whatever. So that is,
Speaker 3: you know, it's a validle thing that you might need
Speaker 3: just a little bit more time extended security updates. We
Speaker 3: think it's more than that. It doesn't need to just
Speaker 3: be a way to buy you some time while you
Speaker 3: buy a new Microsoft branded laptop.
Speaker 4: You know, Apple's battery gate scandal was about deliberately throttling
Speaker 4: old phones to encourage upgrades. Is ending Windows ten support?
Speaker 4: Microsoft's version of that perhaps.
Speaker 1: Trying to get me to say something that I might regret.
Speaker 4: You don't say anything you won't regret. I mean, it
Speaker 4: just looks like that right from like your general consumer
Speaker 4: point of view. Because Apple got into a lot of
Speaker 4: trouble for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they have.
Speaker 3: They've had just been quite a lot of money on it.
Speaker 3: It's important to note that they've never Apple has never
Speaker 3: admitted that they did anything wrong. They settled the lawsuit,
Speaker 3: but I think that was really just to get it
Speaker 3: out of the news cycles.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I imagined Microsoft would take a similar kind of stance
Speaker 3: in that trying to move technology forward or whatever, and
Speaker 3: this is the way to do that. This was obviously
Speaker 3: planned well in advance in Microsoft's case, but there's not
Speaker 3: really evidence to suggest that it's an intentional you know,
Speaker 3: we're doing this just to sell more computers. That might
Speaker 3: be a happy accident that you know, they might be
Speaker 3: quite happy that that's happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: There's question marks for sure, but I don't know if
Speaker 3: we can say it's definitely a dodgy behavior.
Speaker 4: Very diplomatic, respectives, Well done well. I see that Auckland
Speaker 4: Council is anticipating a surge in electronic waste as a
Speaker 4: result of this. I see today is also coincidentally International
Speaker 4: e Waste Day, so batteries and electronics and rubbish or
Speaker 4: recycling can cause fires in the trucks. I say that
Speaker 4: in Auckland alone, waste trucks experienced nine fires in January alone.
Speaker 4: So what do you actually do with your old tech?
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a huge problem, and it's part of
Speaker 3: the reason that we're trying to encourage people to not
Speaker 3: just get a new laptop for a new computer and
Speaker 3: to try and eke out more use from your current
Speaker 3: one if you can. Waste is really quite damaging and harmful.
Speaker 3: If you buy a new computer, you've got to mind
Speaker 3: new minerals to build that, and you've got to have
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of emissions to put it all together
Speaker 3: and ship it to you from wherever it was built.
Speaker 3: So there's costs everywhere. Environmentally, there are ways to mitigate that.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can recycle technology and they can take
Speaker 3: some of the more valuable components out of it. And
Speaker 3: also that's some of the stuff that's also the most
Speaker 3: damaging environmentally. It will cost you money often to do that,
Speaker 3: which is you know, people aren't necessarily going to want
Speaker 3: to do that, but some recycling centers will take e
Speaker 3: waste for free, which would include laptops, really the key
Speaker 3: message is to try and keep using your laptop for
Speaker 3: a bit longer if you can, if it's still working perfectly,
Speaker 3: so that it just doesn't end up in that situation.
Speaker 4: I've seen all of this being called the twenty twenty
Speaker 4: five version of Why two K Do You Reckon?
Speaker 1: That'sach Currett. You know, I hadn't thought about it like that.
Speaker 1: It could be we'll see ask me again in a week.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: That's probably a little bit dramatic, right, but Y two
Speaker 4: K was dramatic. Basically, It's not like you're using Windows
Speaker 4: ten and then tomorrow your computer won't turn on.
Speaker 3: Right. It's not going to exactly now, You'll still be
Speaker 3: able to use the computer. It's just it'll be a
Speaker 3: risk to you, to your privacy and your safety, which
Speaker 3: is a you know, people aren't going to want to
Speaker 3: do that. Yeah, it's going to affect a lot of people,
Speaker 3: and it could be a pretty huge deal. It could
Speaker 3: be a really significant moment that will remember, you know,
Speaker 3: for years to come. Depends on how people act now
Speaker 3: if they try to mitigate those risks to themselves.
Speaker 4: Thanks for joining us, Nick, Thank you. That's it for
Speaker 4: this episode of the Front Page. You can read more
Speaker 4: about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzadherld dot
Speaker 4: co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Jane
Speaker 4: Ye and Richard Martin, who is also our editor. I'm
Speaker 4: Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or
Speaker 4: wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for
Speaker 4: another look behind the headlines.