Windows XP - a case for extending its deadline
From security wonk Gregg Keizer writing at
Computerworld:
Perspective: Throw Windows XP a lifeline, Microsoft
The forecast for Microsoft: There's a Windows XP storm coming.
According to statistics from analytics company Net Applications, Windows XP's user share declined by just two-tenths of a percentage point over the last two months, the smallest decrease since Computerworld began recording data for the aged OS in early 2007.
Normally, a Lilliputian decline when user share has been leaking like a rusted bucket of a boat would be time for celebration, but Windows XP's resistance to erosion is different. Support for the 12-year-old operating system is slated to end in less than four months, and Microsoft has been loudly telling customers that they need to move on before it stops providing public security updates.
They aren't. Or better put, they were, but then they quit.
And the cause for concern:
While overly-optimistic projections made at the end of September showed that Windows XP would have contracted to a significant-but-perhaps-manageable 21% in April 2014, the same forecast two months later pegged the remaining user share at more than 27%. So unless Windows XP restarts a descent, it's inevitable that a quarter of all personal computers will be running Windows XP come April.
The number has real-world ramifications, as Microsoft has repeatedly underscored this year. Absent security updates, Windows XP will be substantially more vulnerable to malware attacks, perhaps -- if Microsoft's own estimate is on target -- as much as 66% more likely to be infected after April 2014.
So Windows XP is still run on more than a fifth of all of the online computers. Those computers are business machines and any glitch in operation would hurt these businesses. Not to mention that Windows is Windows and most people don't see any difference between XP and 7 except for the user interface.
I installed a copy of XP at the store for an older machine I am running -- the drivers aren't available for anything more recent. Needless to say, it will not be attached to the internet...
Posted by DaveH at December 22, 2013 10:13 AM