As we had reported earlier, Microsoft will be officially ending their support of the Windows XP operating system come 8th of April 2014. Given that Windows XP was released back in 2001 and served as a preferred alternative to Microsoft’s Windows Vista, support of over 13 years is pretty impressive. Well the good news is that while Microsoft will be ending their support eventually, they will be abandoning Windows XP users entirely. According to a blog post from Microsoft’s Threat Research & Response blog, the company revealed that they will continue to provide antimalware support for Windows XP users until the 14th of July 2015, after which we’re guessing Windows XP users will most likely be on their on from there out.
Naturally Microsoft would prefer if customers were to upgrade to at least Windows 7, if not Windows 8, but understands that there are still companies and individuals out there who might not see the need to upgrade as they use their computers for the most minimal of tasks, and might not see the newer features offered by Windows 7 or Windows 8 as a compelling reason. However Microsoft thinks that security alone should be reason enough to update by saying, “Our research shows that the effectiveness of antimalware solutions on out-of-support operating systems is limited. Running a well-protected solution starts with using modern software and hardware designed to help protect against today’s threat landscape.” So, any of our readers out there still running on Windows XP?
Filed in . Read more about Microsoft and Windows Xp.