Microsoft begins final two years of support for XP

Microsoft has confirmed that it'll end support for Windows XP and Office 2003 in two years.

Pete Voss, senior response communications manager at Microsoft Trustworthy Computing, said that both Windows XP and Office 2003 will lose support in April 2014 and encouraged all customers to upgrade to the most recent operating system to aid protect their systems.

The first talk of an end of life for XP was originally mentioned by analyst group Gartner in 2010, when it said that organisations has to be trying to migrate to Windows 7 with the intention to moving off Windows XP by the top of 2012.

Gartner predicted then that Microsoft would end support for XP in April 2014; by the tip of 2012, new versions of many applications aren't expected to support XP, it said, and independent software vendors (ISVs) will increasingly eliminate XP support.

Fortinet's Stefanie Hoffman noted that while there's an lead to sight, this does give users of legacy systems two years to plot upgrades and migrate to newer versions.

“Many users stayed with XP, forgoing the migration to Vista, known for its numerous compatibility and function issues, before leapfrogging to Windows 7. However, through the years the legacy XP has become the low-hanging fruit as attackers have found a growing number of how you can exploit critical vulnerabilities within the ageing operating system,” Hoffman said.

“The eventuality of discontinued support for both XP and Office 2003 may very well be the impetus for users to upgrade to newer systems fortified with better security controls.”

A survey in 2010 by NetMarketShare found that two-thirds of users were still working with XP; its latest statistics showed that XP was utilized by 43 per cent of users, while Windows 7 was utilized by 35 per cent of users. Vista was utilized by only seven per cent.

Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of Qualys, said: “Organisations and end-users have to start planning for his or her migration to a newer version of the OS before Microsoft stops issuing any further security updates.”

Paul Henry, security and forensic analyst at Lumension, said there's a measurable security benefit in moving off Windows XP, adding that Vista's extended support will continue until 2017.