14 DAY TRIAL // Despite the imminent end of support, Windows XP continues to be the second most popular operating system worldwide, but Microsoft is working really hard to change this.
The company has managed to convince Resona Holdings, a Japanese banking firm, to upgrade all its Windows XP PCs to the new Windows 8, with the migration completed two months ago, as the software giant revealed in a press statement today.
This is one of the largest deployments of Windows 8 and Office 2013 ever made, Microsoft proudly said, while also encouraging everyone to follow this example and move away from Windows XP as soon as possible.
Of course, the press release then goes on with some statements supposed to praised the power of Windows 8 and emphasize that switching to this OS version is the right decision, as it provides enhanced security and performance.
“We decided to migrate straight to Windows 8, and we had no opposition to taking advantage of the latest products to boost efficiency. In addition to the cost savings resulting from standard Windows 8 functions and the great usability, including boot speed, we also managed the whole migration operation with unprecedented speed through using System Center 2012 Configuration Manager,” said Tetsuya Shiratori, executive officer and general manager, Information Technology Planning Division of Resona Holdings.
Microsoft will stop releasing updates and security patches for Windows XP on April 8, so all computers still running this old operating system could become vulnerable overnight if hackers find an unpatched vulnerability. Redmond encourages everyone to upgrade to either Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, but few seem to get the message, most likely because of the high costs of the transition.
Switching to Windows 8.1 also involves hardware upgrades, as a Windows XP computer cannot cope with the requirements of Microsoft’s modern operating system. The process is thus very expensive, especially for large organizations with hundreds of computers that need to be upgraded as soon as possible.
At the same time, Microsoft will also remove Windows XP support for System Essentials, the company’s free anti-virus solution that’s offered free of charge to users. Security Essentials will continue to receive virus definition updates on existing installations, but the download links will be removed for Windows XP machines and the app won’t receive any other improvements.
Unsurprisingly, plenty of third-party security vendors out there will still support Windows XP, so finding an anti-virus for your computer won’t be that hard.