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September 20th, 2012, 11:30 GMT · By

Microsoft Plans to Move All Windows XP Users to Windows 8

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The Windows XP desktop can still be seen on millions of computers in the US
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Microsoft will debut the new Windows 8 operating system next month in New York and the company has already confirmed that it expects the new OS to sell in huge numbers.

But what Microsoft is actually trying to do is to move all Windows XP users to the new Windows iteration, even if XP remains the second most popular OS on the market.

Peter Han, vice president, Microsoft U.S. OEM Division, said at the Tech Data Channel Link in Orlando, Fla., that the Redmond-based firm is willing to convince XP users that Windows 8 is at least as good as their favorite operating system. There are more than 100 million XP computers in the United States, he says, so this is going to be a very difficult mission.

“There are 100 million-plus Windows XP installations in the U.S. Time to refresh them to Windows 8,” he said during his speech according to thevarguy.com.

Home users aren’t the only ones still using Windows XP. Nearly 50 percent of the US commercial business market still rely on Windows XP, so providing them with an easy way to make the move to Windows 8 is a priority.

Windows XP is currently the second most popular operating system in the world, according to statistics provided by Net Applications earlier this month. Windows 7 now holds the leading position with a market share of 38.54 percent, while XP recorded 38.46 points in August.

As compared to these two highly-popular Windows contraptions, Vista remains one of the most disappointing operating systems ever released by Microsoft, as it registered a market share of only 5.47 percent last month. Vista is thus placed on the third position, ahead of Mac OS X and several Linux distributions.


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READER COMMENTS:


Comment #1 by: Stuckwithxp on 20 Sep 2012, 11:46 UTC reply to this comment

They won't be moving me. I have a almost 4 yr old netbook (HP Mini 1116nr) with a 16GB SSD ,1 GB RAM,Atom N270 and Intel 945GMA Graphics.


Comment #2 by: Mojo on 22 Sep 2012, 18:19 UTC reply to this comment

If it isn't broke.........dont mess with it! 10 years ago, when I was younger and had time to play on the computer and learn the "Latest and Greatest" I would have already been all over win 8. I LOVE my rock solid XP, and will stick with it! Gates constantly puts new OS's out on the market to line his pocket. He has gotten enough of my money.


Comment #3 by: Jake on 28 Sep 2012, 07:31 UTC reply to this comment

I'd rather repay for my XP license. I put a lot of work into it. I've got literally over 10 years of perfectly working apps and games that I always backup. I've managed to keep it clean and running very well. I also customized my XP with Icon packager, and reedited every single icon which takes time! If I got a jpg or bmp on my desktop I can see what format any file is thanks to all my customized icons. Saves time from right clicking and checking the properties everytime like you would have to do in a default XP/7 setup I'm not going through all that again especially when my XP works just fine and is capable of great gaming graphics. I've noticed a lot of DX9 games look better than DX11. I noticed I hit a lot of walls trying to accomplish things in Windows 7 opposed to XP which makes it fast and simple and non frustrating. So yeah I would rather repay for my XP license to continue support, other wise I'll just keep using an unsupported XP and run my 100% clean backup everytime get infected.


Comment #4 by: mojammel on 08 Oct 2012, 18:10 UTC reply to this comment

win 7 an vista is not that fast because it takes lots of space on the hard disk to install .and xp takes only about 1.5 to 2 gb space but 7 or vista takes 10 to 16 gb space to install . xp need 3gb hdd 128 mb ram only but vista and 7 need 1gb ram (1gb= 1024mb) 16 to 20 gb hdd space . i think xp is the best of all time. but if Microsoft think that they should make windows like xp that takes less ram and hdd space and lightweight os that runs like xp and easy like xp, thats people want to use. me like xp forever . and i think Microsoft think about business not about the xp os that people like.

Comment #4.1 by: aero on 12 Oct 2012, 06:05 GMT

Maybe windows 7 lite? you know... windows 7 core but without the unneeded dlls?


Comment #5 by: jrg on 03 Dec 2012, 19:28 UTC reply to this comment

Will Windows 8 make the upgrade any easier, or even possible? e.g. XP 32 -> Windows7 64 is not supported, will it be in Windows8? If not, I don't see how they will get folks to upgrade from XP.

It would be very interesting to know what percentage of that 100M XP users have hw that will run Windows7 or Windows8 in 64 bit mode.

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