What day would be complete with a Windows XP retirement news story? The one that doesn’t end in ‘day’. One can almost see April 8, 2014 on the horizon now, the day when Windows XP will be officially retired by Microsoft.
With support coming to an end, Redmond and its partners are talking about pulling the plug on the 12-year-old operating system, and what security risks users could face if they choose to stay on the OS.
Now Avant Embedded, a software and distributing firm has rolled out a new paper titled ‘Panic? What panic? Is the industry in denial over the death of XP?’ where it explains how the old platform will be vulnerable to attacks after the flaws will no longer be patched by Microsoft.
According to Nick Donaldson, software director at Avnet Embedded:
“The businesses that manufacture, distribute and use these payment devices and mechanisms have been lulled into a false sense of security that they can simply deploy Windows 7 or 8 to do the same job as XP – but this just isn’t true. Basically, if these businesses don’t identify workable, PCI-compliant alternatives soon, there will be wide scale consequences.”
However, the firm maintains that a quick transition from Windows XP to a newer version of Windows is not always doable in many cases. Hardware comes squarely into the picture — running Windows 7 or Windows 8 on old Windows XP hardware is not always possible.
Higher system requirements, worryingly, is the main reason why businesses are delaying their move.
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I hate Windows XP!!!