In 2025, it is not uncommon to cross a Windows XP screen in a hospital, an automatic distributor or even a metro train. In New York, an ultra-modern elevator displays an error message straight from the early 2000s. In Germany, Deutsche Bahn still recruited technicians capable of juggling with MS-Dos and Windows 3.11 to maintain the display of train cabins. And in San Francisco, some trains only start a disk inserted in their central controller.
Microsoft’s bulky heritage
It is no coincidence. “” Windows is a full -fledged infrastructure “Explains Lee Vinsel, professor at Virginia Tech, at the BBC. « It is found everywhere because it has been everywhere. Microsoft has managed to impose its system as a standard, so that many sectors, including industrial, banking or administrative, remain dependent on old versions of Windows. Leaving these software would be expensive, risky, or simply impossible without reconstructing the whole infrastructure around.
The example of automatic distributors is speaking. Many are still running under Windows XP or Windows NT, despite the end of the official support since 2014. The costs are too high to justify the update, you must rewrite owners, check hardware, to stand up…
In hospitals, the situation is sometimes absurd. It is sometimes necessary to wait for long minutes of waiting every morning in this service of American veterans, while the computer under CPRS wants to start. This medical management software is based on an even older base, Vista, launched in 1985 on MS-DOS. The system must be replaced … by 2031.
This “organized technological delay” is often the consequence of a lack of investment in maintenance. We often prefer to add new features rather than modernize the existing. Result: skills are rare, errors are multiplying, and an update becomes a headache.
If Apple requires regular renewal by quickly abandoning its old products, Microsoft has long cultivated the opposite. By focusing on retrocompatibility and generous support durations, the company has imposed itself in businesses, public services, transport. A success that has a setback: old systems continue to turn far beyond their expiration date. Whether it is an art printer, a health system or a metro, we are sometimes far from the brand new all-drug … but within reach of the blue screen of death!
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