Goodbye Windows XP – Quiz Of The Week

Microsoft is finally pulling the plug on Windows XP, after months of wrangling, pleas and protests on behalf of the millions of people still using the venerable operating system.

For a product on Death Row, it’s still remarkably spry. Some estimates say around a quarter of machines browsing the Internet use Windows XP, while a version of it is still there in the majority of banks’ cash-dispensing ATM machines. And yet, after April 8, anyone using Windows XP is at risk of viruses and malware, because Microsoft will no longer keep the system patched and up-to-date. Is the world coming to an end?

Not an XP apocalypse

There is no need to panic, it seems. Microsoft will extend some basic security protection for people who haven’t yet moved on. It’s also offering migration tools. And what about those bank machines? Again, don’t worry. Such systems use an embedded version of Windows XP, and this will be distributed till the end of 2016, and supported for some time after that.

For IT managers, the end of XP may be a headache, as you will have users that do not want to move, and possibly hardware that can’t run newer versions which are much-loved, or essential in some other way. But you will gradually and safely remove all traces of the operating system.

In our view the best way t0 approach this milestone in the progress of IT is to savour it. Windows XP was one of Microsoft’s finest hours, creating excitement similar to the launch of Windows 95. It won wider approval and praise than any version since for a very simple reason – It’s a fine product.  But despite that, all things come to an end, and it is time to move on, to operating systems from Microsoft or others that make better use of today’s hardware.

But let’s remember Windows XP.

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