Saturday, March 8, 2014

Microsoft ends support for XP

After 12 years Microsoft ends support for XP on April 8. What does this mean for the 20+ percent of windows users that still have XP on their machine? Well, when they wake up on the 9th Windows XP will operate exactly as before except for a monthly warning that the operating system is no longer supported. Most windows updates for XP are now security patches. If the bad guys find an exploit then Microsoft will not release a new patch to overcome the problem, allowing the computer to possibly get viruses. New software except for a few special instances should still support XP. Apps developed for the Windows 8.1 Metro interface certainly wont work but those programs will not work in Vista/Windows 7 either. Device makers (such as printers) may decide to stop producing drivers for XP. The fact is that if you have a computer with XP on it, the computer is most likely 7 years old or older. This is probably enough reason to update. Given that Microsoft is going to improve Windows 8.1 with a new release, this should make the changeover a lot easier.

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