Vista SP1 and Office XP End of Support as of July 12, 2011

Microsoft is retiring support for the first upgrade to Windows Vista as well as for Office XP as of today, July 12, 2011.

Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) customers need to make the jump to Vista SP2 if they plan to continue running the operating system.

Vista SP1 will also keep functioning, but customers are not advised to rely on this release of the operating system going forward.

No support means that Vista SP1 users will no longer receive any sort of security patches, updates or hotfixes from Microsoft.

With the security vulnerabilities in the platform left unpatched it will only be a matter of time before their copies of the operating system are infected with malware and under the control of cybercriminals.

Upgrading to Windows 7 is also a valid option, although, simply deploying SP2 is bound to be more cost effective, at least on the short term. The software giant just announced that it sold over 400 million Windows 7 licenses since the launch of the OS.

Today Microsoft is also discontinuing support for all versions of Office XP. Those customers still leveraging Office XP are advised to upgrade to a more recent release of the productivity suite as soon as possible.

“After the end of support, Microsoft will no longer provide public fixes for the Office XP release. Automatic Updates that ship on “Patch Tuesday” will be discontinued for Office XP. There will be no effect on installed software; products will still continue to function. Activation will continue to work as expected,” Microsoft said.

“Microsoft recommends that customers keep their systems secure by upgrading to the latest, supported product and/or service pack, such as Microsoft Office 2010. Office 2007 Service Pack 2 and Office 2003 Service Pack 3 are also supported for the duration outlined in the Support Lifecycle Product Database.”

The Redmond company sold over 100 million copies of Office 2010 in the first year after GA.