Microsoft has been hard at work convincing the Windows XP user base to move away from the old operating system ahead of its scheduled retirement date of April 8, 2014.
The business and enterprise sector in particular is what Redmond seems to be focusing on.
While a lot of businesses have seemingly outlined their plans to migrate from the vintage OS to a newer platform like Windows 7 or Windows 8, a lot of end users still seem to be stuck on Windows XP. The statistics do not seem to reflect the urgency that Redmond, would have hoped to see.
Online statistics are another thing, but even the ground realities are stacked against the software titan.
According to a Microsoft Gold Partner that provides virtualization solutions, AppSense, no less than 45 percent of the organizations are still running Windows XP.
And this is while the Redmond-based software titan has made it very clear that sticking to the almost 12-year-old operating system is flirting with danger — in the sense that it puts their data at risk of cybercriminal attacks.
Microsoft has on more than one occasion announced that it will stop providing workstations running Windows XP patches and security updates after April 8 next year, and everybody should move to either Windows 7 or Windows 8 as soon as possible.
At this point in time, even with less than a year remaining, Windows XP is the second most popular operating system in the world. The latest Net Applications data reveals that the old OS still finds itself on 38 percent of the connected computers the world over.
All Comments
I would imagine leasing is a factor. That’s why we still have a few XP machines at my office. When the leases are up, they’ll be replaced by Windows 7 machines. I would imagine the long leases on these things has to do with cost. In some cases, we had some XP machines only because the printing software being used on them required it, but as the software gets updated, so does the OS.
Canada Post stayed with XP so long because Vista sucked. They updated the PC’s for all 6000 offices and wiped all the copies of Windows Vista off and replaced with XP. XD
I gave my 2008 MSI GX630 to my daughter. Back in 2008 it was delivered with Vista. I immediately installed XP until Win 7 Beta and then stayed with W7 release. I re-installed Vista for daughter and after three days of updates and service packs I found MS had actually made it very usable. Daughter loves it…and she is no Windows dummy.
Have to agree… I work for AT&T & all of our corporate computers still run on XP.. would love to have them upgrade, but all of our systems will not function on a newer OS.
Have you tested that theory of yours? Because our site has over 2,000 computers running either Windows 7 Professional (x64) or Windows 8 Enterprise (x64), and aside from some 16-bit apps from the early 90s (which don’t work on the x64 versions by design), everything else works a treat. In fact, some apps that failed to work at ALL in Vista, worked perfectly in W7 and W8. Application compatibility is pretty amazing in the new OSs. And if the apps still fail, there is the “Application Compatibility Toolkit” to make it work, and you have Hyper-V/Virtual PC (or other VM solution), and even Serial-over-IP solutions to get really old devices up and running. Has you IT Department even tried?
Very likely they haven’t even thought of that.
What happened to Windows 7 Professional XP mode???
I am just a lowly home user. I have at least three applications that do not work with Windows 7. Two are older games that I like. I re-cycled a flat bed scanner because all the drivers disappeared. I have an older but serviceable multi-function printer that just barely works because most printers no longer have OEM drivers but depend on the largess of Microsoft. It still works with Windows 7 but the software has been stripped to the bone with no way to check ink levels or perform any maintenance. I don’t like it but I may have to set up a machine for dual boot. If the PC is evolving what’s going to happen? Neanderthal VS. Cro-magnon until the old users die off?
That’s just vendors that totally lack support for their older hardware. They want you to buy new stuff. My old stuff honestly works just the same in W8.
I have two 2012 vintage high end notebooks from the same manufacturer. I had hoped to be able to dual boot Win XP. Much to my frustration the particular implementation of UEFI will not install XP. I just found an older notebook by the same that apparently uses UEFI differently and it is able to install XP. I may have to buy one, like I really need another new notebook. Unfortunately, I gave my trusty 2008 vintage MSI GX630 to my daughter. She is happily running Vista. The new hardware with UEFI takes some getting used to but the machines are really excellent. It looks like there is really no new off the shelf hardware that will handle anything older than Vista. That’s interesting because I found that WIndows 8 will run pretty well on old hardware except for a few driver issues. The big thing about UEFI is the ability to handle really big hard drives that address by block instead of sector.
If the device is a 2012 device, was it built for Windows 8? If so, have you gone into the EFI settings and turned off options like “SafeBoot”. If you have an option for “EFI/BIOS” (or “CSM”, or “Compatibility”), then try using that too. And if it’s already running Windows 8, remember that you’ll be dealing with a GPT partition scheme and not the old MBR. Google is your friend on these. I’ve managed to get a 2008 system running Windows 8, and a 2013 system running Windows XP. Anything is possible.
The machine is an Intel i7 Ivy-bridge HP notebook with Rapid Store 32 GB mSSD cache disk. It came with Win 7 64 Home installed. I bought a bargain Win 8 download and license and downloaded the Media Center expansion. ( What a pile MS has made that into). Installed the Win 8 stuff, found out they had emasculated Media Center and re-installed Win 7. Actually the Win 7 was a re-image. I tried installing Win 7 from a Genuine MS DVD and had no success. There is some kind of storage driver trick I need to learn. My next effort is to get some advice from HP support. They have been very helpful in the past.
After 30+ years dealing with PCs I thought I had seen it all. I hit the books(docs) on the Windows XP install on my 2012 HP i7 Ivybridge UEFI notebook. I located the Intel RST storage driver. Did the F6 process. It got to STARTING WINDOWS and then powered itself off!! BSOD is not the worse thing that can happen. i can hardly wait to see what HP support has to say.