This week I heard from a network group lead of a university hospital, that they have a similar issue. Some medical devices that come with control computers can't be upgraded, because they were only certified for medical use with the specific software they came with.

They just isolate those devices as much as possible on the network, not much else to do, when there is no official support and recertification for upgrading. And of course nobody wants to spend half a million on a new imaging device when the old one is still fine except for the OS of the control computer.

Sounds like a shitty place to be, I pity those guys.

That said, if you were talking about normal client computers then it's inexcusable.

[–] applebusch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 10 hours ago

It baffles me that medical device manufacturers use windows for fucking anything. You'd think just the licensing cost would push them away, but it being hot garbage for embedded software should have been enough. It's amazing any medical device certification process would allow them to use it at all, with the notorious unreliability and not giving a shit what you think about updates. People could die because of a fucking windows update at the wrong time.

[–] abbadon420@lemm.ee 3 points 23 hours ago

Yes, normal client computers. Just for simple document work. Inexcusable indeed