14 DAY TRIAL // Moving people from Windows XP to newer software is Microsoft’s biggest challenge these days, especially because the aging platform remains incredibly popular 12 years after launch.
To make sure that everybody knows that staying on XP beyond retirement date is very risky, Microsoft has now launched a dedicated website holding information about the migration process.
Even though Redmond hopes to see all users moving to Windows 8.1, the website also provides information to consumers planning to switch to Windows 7, which is right now the number one operating system in the entire world.
The new website is grouped in three different sections to explain why Microsoft is ending support for Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003, what end of support means for customers, and how to begin the migration to a newer operating system.
“In 2002 Microsoft introduced its Support Lifecycle policy based on customer feedback to have more transparency and predictability of support for Microsoft products. As per this policy, Microsoft Business and Developer products, including Windows and Office products, receive a minimum of 10 years of support (5 years Mainstream Support and 5 years Extended Support), at the supported service pack level,” Microsoft said as an answer to the first question.
“Based on historical customer deployment data, the average enterprise deployment can take 18 to 32 months from business case through full deployment. To ensure you remain on supported versions of Windows and Office, you should begin your planning and application testing immediately to ensure you deploy before end of support.”
Windows XP is currently powering around 30 percent of computers worldwide and Microsoft hopes to cut its market share to only 13 percent by the time the retirement day comes. Unfortunately, even though it’s pretty clear that staying on Windows XP is a very risky decision, many users have already said that they have no intention to migrate.