Microsoft recently announced that they will be extending End of Life support for Windows XP to 2015. Please note this extension is limited in nature and does not affect the end-of-support date of Windows XP. Microsoft will not be providing additional security updates and Service packs for Microsoft Windows XP after the April 18th, 2014 date.
Support is extended to the following aspects of Windows XP according to their website
We are urging our Clients to upgrade XP machines to Windows 7 prior to End of life date of April 18th, 2014.
What is our risk if we decide to stay with some computers that have Windows XP running after the April 18th, 2014 date?
No Security updates or patches will be available for the operating system
Since Microsoft will not be any security updates and or service packs networks running Windows XP computers are more likely to be compromised
PCs running Windows XP will be out of Compliance (HIPAA, PCI, among others)
We believe that the extension that Microsoft is giving is confusing and also may give a false snese of security to users who are still running Windows XP.
Reference: http://blogs.technet.com/b/mmpc/archive/2014/01/15/microsoft-antimalware-support-for-windows-xp.aspx
Microsoft has announced that they will officially end support for Windows XP and Office 2003. If you still have some PC’s running Windows XP and Office 2003 in your organization, now would be a good time to think about migrating them to Windows 7 or 8, and Office 2013.
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