Depending on when you read this post will ultimately determine how long you have before the end of your beloved Windows XP operating system. That’s right! With the Windows 7 entering puberty, according to Microsoft, its time to put that old work horse XP out to pasture.
At the time of writing this post there are about 22,200 hours or 925 days or 2 years, 6 months, and 13 days left before XP security and hotfix updates are retired by the Microsoft Corporation. Furthermore, many 3rd party application provides are also planning to stop providing updates for their software that runs on the XP operating system. According to the Windows blog the date has been set for April 8th 2014.
Windows XP was phased out of production back in july 2010 in lieu of Windows Vista. We all know how well Vista went for Microsoft competing with Apples’ OSX quickly gain ground on the personal computing juggernaut. Soon after the unanimous failure of the Vista operating system, Window’s quickly rebounded with Windows 7 which is much stabler and packed with more features to rival Apple’s intuitive user design experience.
This is big news for businesses who might have not started acceptance testing of Windows 7 yet. The days are clearly numbered for IT departments to accept the migration of business applications from XP to Windows 7. A recent Garter report found that “more than 50% of organizations that do not start deploying Windows 7 by early 2012 will not complete their deployments before Windows XP support ends, and will incur increased support costs.” (see Creating a Timeline for Deploying Windows 7 and Eliminating Windows XP)
The good news, Microsoft insists, is that “moving on is easier than ever with powerful tools and guidance to help you every step of the way. In fact, some of the world’s most prominent companies have already moved to Windows 7. Organizations like Boeing, InfoSys, Dell, Purdue University, Samsung, Royal Mail Group, and BMW are now benefiting from the cost-savings, security, and productivity gains Windows 7 delivers.”
