14 DAY TRIAL // Another day, another expert sharing his thoughts on the approaching Windows XP end of support. This time, it’s Gerry Egan, senior director of product management for security company Symantec, the one who discusses Windows XP’s EOL, making a pretty interesting analogy supposed to help users understand the risks of staying with Windows XP after end of support.
Egan said in an interview with USA Today that keeping Windows XP running on your Internet-connected computer after April 8 would pretty much be like turning your house security system on but leaving the doors and windows open.
“Imagine you're living in a house. Every night before you go to bed you go around to make sure the doors are locked and the windows are closed. And maybe you've got an alarm system for extra piece of mind,” he was quoted as saying by the source.
“The security system will detect somebody coming through the windows and it will call in the alarm and stop the intruder. But you really want to fix the windows and the doors.”
While the security risks of staying with Windows XP are clearly very big, this also raises questions as to why users are actually refusing to move from such an old operating system to a newer one capable of protecting their computers and data.
Microsoft wants users to move to Windows 8.1, but that’s not possible without additional investments in hardware equipment, as a Windows XP machine doesn’t have what it takes to run the modern operating system.
Windows 8.1 needs a processor of at least 1 GHz with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2, 1 GB of RAM for the 32-bit version and 2 GB of RAM for the 64-bit, as well as 20 GB of storage space.
Additional features are only available on touch-capable devices, which remain fairly expensive these days, despite all discounts offered by Microsoft and its partners.
And speaking of discounts, Microsoft has recently launched a new price cut for XP users willing to migrate, offering a $100 (€73) discount with purchases of Surface 2 tablets or new computers running Windows 8.1.
With Windows XP end of support coming in approximately 15 days, it remains to be seen how many users actually want to take advantage of this offer and purchase a new PC that runs Windows 8.1 and thus make a gigantic switch from a 13-year-old platform to one launched only a few months ago.