14 DAY TRIAL // As weird as it might sound, Windows XP, the operating system launched 16 years ago, managed to increase its market share in October 2017 at a time when everyone expects to see it declining to the point where no one would still run it on their systems.
Support for Windows XP came to an end in April 2014, and this means that no new security updates, patches, bug fixes, new features, and pretty much anything else are being released to systems running it.
In other words, a Windows XP system is left in the same state it was more than 3 years ago, with a single exception – an emergency patch that Microsoft rolled out earlier this year to block WannaCry ransomware.
But other than that, it’s pretty clear that staying with Windows XP is a risky choice, and users are missing on lots of features and apps just because they’re not upgrading.
For some reason, however, this doesn’t matter, and NetMarketShare data for the last month indicates that Windows XP is… recovering. Instead of going down, it’s going up, growing from 5.69 percent in September to 6.47 percent in October. This means it increased its share by 0.78 percent in just 30 days, and that’s worrying to say the least.
Expensive upgrade
For many users, and we include here both consumers and enterprises, upgrading from Windows XP to whatever newer version of Windows you choose is more difficult than it seems because of the costs that are involved. In most cases, hardware upgrades are also necessary, as a configuration that was capable of running Windows XP 17 years ago is no longer able to cope with today’s software requirements.
As far as enterprises go, even more effort is involved, as app compatibility is also a major issue, with additional work required to get all the internal software run on newer Windows. Work means time, time means money, and there you go, one of the main reasons so many people are still on Windows XP.
Sooner or later, however, the transition will still happen though. The only problem for Microsoft is that Windows 7 seems to have the same fate, so even though Windows XP could be killed off at some point, there’s another Windows version to take its place and refuse to die.
