Microsoft To Retire Windows XP In 2014

Microsoft has announced a two-year countdown to the end of its support of the Windows XP operating system and Office 2003. On 8 April, 2014, Microsoft will no longer ship security updates or hot fixes for XP and Office 2003.

In blog post directed to businesses, Microsoft said: “If you still have some PCs running Windows XP and Office 2003 in your organisation, now would be a good time to start migrating them to Windows 7 and Office 2010.”

Windows XP first shipped to users in October 2001. But as recently as a year ago, the OS was still more popular than Windows Vista or Windows 7.

This news will likely impact companies more than individual consumers as it’s easier to upgrade one machine than to upgrade a whole fleet of them. But it’s a good idea to keep this date on your radar in the event that you’re still using a computer running XP. In today’s computing environment, rife with malware and cybertheft, it’s too dangerous to go without continually upgraded security fixes.

—Henry Ojelu