We're migrating, the government says in a statement

May 26, 2015 06:58 GMT  ·  By

Windows XP support came to an end in April 2014, but despite the security risks of staying with an unsupported version of Windows, plenty of computers out there are still running it. Including those belonging to the UK government.

To make sure that no cyberattacks are aimed at its own PCs, the UK govt signed a custom support deal with Microsoft, so for another year, updates and security patches were still shipped to these computers.

But the deal came to an end in April 2015, and the UK government hasn't renewed it, which means that, since then, all computers that are still running XP are pretty much vulnerable to attacks.

In a blog post released recently, the UK government explains that most departments are now moving away from Windows XP, and the transition should be completed in the near future, but admits that there are cases when such a thing isn't possible.

New custom support deal possible

A new custom support deal with Microsoft would help, British officials say, but it's not yet clear which are the departments that might need such extended support.

“There has been good progress in moving away from Windows XP across departments and government organisations and with many public bodies this transition is complete. We expect most remaining government devices using Windows XP will be able to mitigate any risks, using the CESG guidance. Where this is not possible, they may need to review their own short term transition support,” the government adds.

Windows XP is still powering some 13 percent of the PCs worldwide, according to third-party market share data, and these figures are expected to go down even more in the coming months, as we get closer to the launch of Windows 10.

The big question, however, is how strong the impact of Windows 10 will be on Windows XP's market share, as the upcoming operating system will only be offered free of charge to those on Windows 7 and 8, so XP users will still have to pay for an upgrade.

Windows 10 will go live in the summer of 2015, so time will tell if Windows XP is set to go dark once and for all thanks to this new OS version.