The 11-year-old operating system remains surprisingly popular

Dec 29, 2012 09:09 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft encourages users to dump Windows XP and move to a newer Windows version with every single occasion, but the 11-year-old operating system remains surprisingly popular.

With less than 500 days left until Microsoft stops providing support for this Windows version, XP is still the second most popular OS on the market.

Data provided by Net Applications for the week of December 16 indicates that Windows XP currently holds a market share of 39.01 percent, while Windows 7, the number one OS out there has 45.57 percent.

Support for Windows XP will officially end in April 2014, so upgrading to Windows 7 or Windows 8 is extremely important, Microsoft said, especially because an 11-year-old operating system isn’t a secure working environment anymore.

Windows XP’s market share, however, has recorded only a slight decline in the last couple of months, from 40.66 percent in October to 39.82 percent in November.