For the life of me I can't understand why people continue to run Windows.

My wife's company still only supports Windows XP and will not under any circumstances update any of the corporate machines to anything newer. She's stuck with IE8 and can no longer use GMail or any Google apps like Calendar.

The reason they're stuck on XP is because they run the company's communications/planning through some Lotus crapware which is either not available for newer Windows versions or they're too cheap to pay for the updated license.

At the same time I'm pretty sure they've been paying for McAffee which is just about as bad as most viruses out there. It's amazing how much money is being poured down the drain supporting this old crap and simply trying to keep what are essentially email/word-processing/spreadsheet/power-point machines running.

She works for a conservation authority which is not-for-profit, but really, it's the same story from friends working at Pepsico, including the anti-virus issues.

I always recommend stubborn friends install Avast. Anything else is far more trouble than it's worth.