14 DAY TRIAL // A decade after its launch, Windows XP continues to run on the PCs of more than half of Windows users worldwide.
In just two week, hit commercial availability on October 25, 2001, so come October 25, 2011, it will be 10 years old.
In a sense, XP already celebrated a 10-year anniversary, since the operating system was actually released to manufacturing on August 24, 2011, but I already marked that moment for Softpedia readers.
Microsoft’s message for this XP’s upcoming special occasion is quite void of love for the aging OS. The company makes no secret that it wants customers to upgrade to Windows 7 as soon as possible.
“Ten years ago, Windows XP was a big step forward – working on the PC got easier, faster and more fun. Windows XP offered a new user interface that helped people more easily find what they needed. One of the most notable advances was it democratized digital photography,” revealed Microsoft’s Rich Reynolds.
“Windows XP made it easy to get images from digital cameras, manage and print pictures from your PC, with broad support for a range of cameras and photo printers. Wireless also became the given with built-in support; plug and play became the standard. It was a great OS for its time.”
With 450 million copies sold worldwide already, Windows 7 is runner up on the platform market, threatening to dethrone XP, but not just yet.
Reynolds underlines that while XP might have been fine for users a decade ago, it has fallen behind in a variety of ways, including security, productivity, performance, power consumption, usability, etc.
The solution is simple, in Microsoft’s view, customers need to upgrade to Windows 7 as soon as possible. In fact, the software giant notes that some 90% of businesses are already committed to upgrading.
There’s no better time like now, Reynolds argues, and stresses that XP to Windows 7 upgrades should not be impacted in any way by the upcoming arrival of Windows 8.
Reynolds cites Gartner which stated, “With support for Windows XP ending in April 2014, we believe it would be dangerous for organizations now running XP to attempt to skip Windows 7 and move directly to Windows 8,” and advised that: “Organizations running Windows XP and working on Windows 7 migrations: Continue as planned; do not switch to Windows 8.”
Windows 8 Developer Preview Build 8102 Milestone 3 (M3) is available for download here.