End of Windows XP

Microsoft has announced that it will end support for Windows XP on April 8th 2014. Microsoft is pushing XP users to upgrade to Windows 7 or Windows 8. The company justifies this move on the basis that their policy in relation to these products receive 10 years support at the level of supported service pack. Therefore support for Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 will lapse from April of this year.

Windows XP on Home PC – Do I need to Upgrade?

Yes and no. As  support will end for Windows XP, this means that security updates will no longer be available, thus leaving your PC vulnerable for as long as you remain running the Windows XP Operating System. However, there are ways around this, and if you are one of the many people or organisations determined to stick with Windows XP, then view our advice below.

Upgrade to Windows 7 / Windows 8 or stay with Windows XP?

Not all computers will allow an upgrade to Windows 8, if you are having problems you can try upgrading to Windows 7 – view system requirements for Windows 7 here >

You may have problems with your Device Drivers after updating to a new operating system such as Windows 7 or Windows 8. You can view our ‘Fix Windows 7 Drivers’ article here and run a free Drivers scan to check for automatic updates.

Staying with Windows XP

If you opt to stay with Windows XP ensure you have a reliable antivirus tool in the first instance. You may be able to continue running Windows XP for a while but it is likely that most software companies will stop supporting XP, or providing patches, when Windows itself no longer offer support for it.