Running Windows XP? Microsoft says: DON'T

NikK

Microsoft is ending the support for XP which also includes automatic updates from Windows Update. This puts Windows XP in a highly vulnerable state after April 8, 2014 which is the date when the support ends.

Usually critical security issues within the Windows OS are found and fixed/updated every month, but with XP support ending this means that all security issues for XP that are found in the future will remain critical and unpatched!

 

Microsoft recommends getting a new PC or upgrading to Windows 8.1 (they don't mention Windows 7 but you could of course upgrade to Windows 7 as well). If you want to upgrade you should first verify that the hardware requirements for Windows 7/8 match your current PC as it may not work for older computers.

 

More information: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/end-support-help

 

NOTE: This post in only about Windows XP itself, NOT about F-Secure products running on XP.

To my knowledge F-Secure will still support its products including updates for XP. For Business products F-Secure has informed about this in the End-point Security board, but for Home products I haven't seen anything which would indicate that XP will remain supported.

NikK

Support including security updates for Office 2003 is also ending on April 8, 2014.

 

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/support-is-ending-for-office-2003-HA103306332.aspx

NikK

Some business and organizations examples of XP problems:

 

According to this article the UK's National Health Service needs to spend a colossal $1.4 billion to keep its medical computers running XP supported for the next three years. Since Microsoft soon is ending the XP support the only option is to buy a special extended support. I bet they regret not migrating earlier

 

XP is very common in ATMs. This is an example of what you might face when you're in need of some cash:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-1aJCeE6QQ

 

A more critical example from where a pregnant woman needs to do a procedure to flip the baby so its head will come out first. You don't want to see the XP's ChkDsk searching for bad sectors on the hard drive, hoping it's not a serious problem so it won't boot up.....

alconsvr

@Nikk. You may be interested in these links.

 

Open document format

 

UK move from Microsoft to Open Source