In 1,000 days Microsoft will pull the plug on the operating system which it released back in 2001 and that still dominates the OS market.
The aging platform is already a decade old, almost, and will still pile up another three years, but come 2014, the Redmond company will discontinue all support for Windows XP.
XP is even now running on what some might interpret as borrowed time, since the software giant already retired Mainstream Support for the operating system.
On April 8, 2014, Microsoft will also no longer provide Extended Support for XP, which gives users little chance but to make the jump to another OS.
“On April 8, 2014, security patches and hotfixes for all versions of Windows XP will no longer be available. So bottom line, PC’s running Windows XP will be vulnerable to security threats,” revealed Microsoft’s
Stephen L Rose.
“Furthermore, many third party software providers are not planning to extend support for their applications running on Windows XP, which translates to even more complexity, security risks, and ultimately, added management costs for your IT department if you’re still managing Windows XP environments.”
End of support is nothing short of a death sentence for XP. Make no mistake about it, XP can be considered obsolete even today, despite the fact that it’s still undisputed king of the OS market.
My personal prediction is that XP will lose its crown soon enough, even ahead of Windows 8’s launch, to Windows 7.
For those users that want to stick to Windows, the only viable alternative to XP for the time being is Windows 7. Even by the most optimistic estimates, Windows 8, the next major iteration of Windows, is approximately a year away.
Service Pack 3 (SP3) was the last upgrade provided to 32-bit (x86) XP, and similarly, SP2 was the last for 64-bit (x64) flavor of the platform. Microsoft will no longer release any additional service packs for Windows XP.
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