back to article Windows XP still has 27 per cent market share on its deathbed

Remember where you were once your patch Tuesday downloads end, because today is Windows XP death day. Users other than the well-heeled and well-organised won't receive so much as another byte of code to update the operating system as of today, bringing to an end an era that started with the operating system's release to …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lots of last-minuters out there.

    My experience may not be universal, but in the last two weeks I have had a rash of customers calling me about the need to replace their XP systems. They've known about it for months, they've been told the system needs replacing, but until an alert appeared on their machine telling them that Microsoft Security Essentials would stop working, they've done nothing about it. I now have a couple of months of completely full order books while I replace these computers for Windows 7 or 8 (mostly 7) systems.

    I would guess that there'll be a reasonably big drop in the number of XP users over the next 8 weeks, then you'll be left with the die-hards and the people who can't afford/don't understand.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Lots of last-minuters out there.

      I suspect you're not alone but what will people be upgrading to?

      You can still get Windows 7 for "professional" machines - HP is selling them. Large companies are mainly already on 7 or are getting extended support for XP. Consumers, I think, are likely to continue replacing their PCs and notebooks with the media consumption devices they've always wanted.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Mushroom

        Re: Lots of last-minuters out there.

        From my experience even most small companies with staff who primarily use their systems for mail and web browsing have long upgraded from XP. Don't forget that these are typically companies with no fulltime administrator where the company owner simply buys off-the-shelf with whatever operating system said systems happen to have on them during the time of purchase.

        Hence any such user who has purchased a system over the past seven years should already have Windows Vista installed (and believe me when I say that despite Vista's issues a lot of regular users simply didn't care as that's what the computer came with).

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Lots of last-minuters out there.

          It's possible, Entrope, that your small companies are richer than mine. Some of mine have upgraded, but many have put it off for too long. Some have been planning to but this is the nudge they needed to get around to actually doing it.

        2. ps2os2

          Re: Lots of last-minuters out there.

          One of our machines went belly up last week (XP). We went out and bought a new machine and a license for XP and reformatted the HD and installed XP.

          MS is not going to tell us ho to run our business.

          F*&^K off MS.

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

      3. Enrico Vanni

        Re: Lots of last-minuters out there.

        "Consumers, I think, are likely to continue replacing their PCs and notebooks with the media consumption devices they've always wanted."

        Yup. I'm predicting sales of Hudls and Lifetabs will see a sharp increase in the next couple of weeks.

    2. Craig 2

      Re: Lots of last-minuters out there.

      Personally, I think it was a mistake to make MSE complain about the end of life for XP. A lot of people ringing are worried that the antivirus is being retired and that they will be fine if they just load on AVG or something similar. It takes a lot of explaining to convince them that the OS (and usually the PC) is obsolete.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Lots of last-minuters out there.

      FWIW, I run a forum that's only relevant to consumers in the UK, and gets around 130,000 unique visitors per month, so a fair sample of what Joe Public here is using. Even now in April, 12% of those visitors are still using XP, and that figure hasn't changed since late last year. There are a lot of people holding out still, and not just in those regions generally considered more relaxed about IP issues!

    4. BongoJoe

      Re: Lots of last-minuters out there.

      You missed those "those who can't move" from that list.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Lots of last-minuters out there.

        I did, but that still doesn't explain the downvoting. Was I advocating the death sentence for cyclists or something?

        1. James O'Shea

          Re: Lots of last-minuters out there.

          "Was I advocating the death sentence for cyclists or something?"

          Shooting's too good for them. Rope is cheap (and reusable!) and gravity's free.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Lots of last-minuters out there.

            "Shooting's too good for them. Rope is cheap (and reusable!) and gravity's free."

            And the rope suspending infrastructure is already in place (street lamps)

  2. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

    Does El Reg have any stats as to how many people running XP are reading its hallowed words?

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      El Reg's continues to fail to corroborate sources…

    2. Spoonsinger

      Re :-Windows XP still has 27 per cent market share on its deathbed

      That would be interesting.

      Not related but also interesting is that on the wikimedia statistics page, XP/Server 2003 only account for about 8% of the hits in the "Breakdown per OS version, non mobile" space for February.

      http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOperatingSystems.htm

    3. ElReg!comments!Pierre

      Re: How many XPers?

      > Does El Reg have any stats as to how many people running XP are reading its hallowed words?

      Well, there's me, for example. My personal machines mostly run Debian but this work one is an old XP system, with manny overexpensive specialist pieces of software installed. I'm probably going to upgrade in the coming weeks, but I still don't know what to do about said software...

      1. GreyWolf

        Re: How many XPers?

        Go dual-boot with Linux. I went to Mint Cinnamon a while ago. Looks like XP, mostly works like XP, closer to XP than Win 8, easier upgrade path than Win 8, lower rate of support calls from friends and family ...and in my experience, it's lighter and faster and more responsive than XP. So, no, I won't be laying out hundreds of pounds/dollars on a new machine or even more hundreds on replacing all the software that will not work on Win 8.

        When I "need" XP (for software I've paid for), I select it at boot time.

        BTW, I have an nVidia graphics card - it works smoother and faster under Mint Cinnamon than it did in XP.

        1. Goldmember

          @GreyWolf Re: How many XPers?

          I think the point was more that he has old, specialist software which can't easily be moved to a new machine. We have a similar situation on the odd machine at my place; old expensive software, some of it written by companies no longer in existence, not much in the way of alternatives, install media long since been lost etc.

          A Linux dual boot wouldn't help in that case, and the XP install would still be prone to attack.

  3. king of foo

    where are the stats

    For ms update?

    I'd like to know how many of those XP machines are currently "virgin".

    I know for a fact that certain well known and well used outsourced support engineers like to use 5 year old XP images with java 6 and an ancient flash player. Ugh. Oh, but they remove minesweeper and solitaire...

    Add to that the genius group policies actually completely disabling windows update for fear of unwanted reboots.

    Throw in a sprinkling of perhaps 90% of the users running laptops with kids at home managing to install utorrent on mummy or daddy's laptop, or simply the users rocking insecure WiFi when they are out and about and swapping USB drives with customers and suppliers...

    Stir briskly and add a splash of " antivirus only updates when I'm on the work LAN, but I never bother connecting because its too slow. I do all my work at home or in the field"

    I'm going to get some popcorn.

  4. Justin Stringfellow
    Go

    today is a good day to bury XP

    If I was the sort of scumbag who actively discovers & exploits vulns, builds botnets etc, I'd have saved a good one for around about now. What's the betting that something nasty turns up very soon indeed?

    +1 for popcorn

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: today is a good day to bury XP

      This stuff is already happening, regardless of the end of support.

  5. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

    I'll try to get Win 7 working on my old (8.5 years), decrepit, but still functional VAIO SZ2XP/C, which should be able to run it (with some drivers I have unearthed) later this week. Through a university license I can get a win 7 pro update cheap, so it is worth a punt. Should it fail I will wipe my last Win XP install make it single boot again (but this time with OpenSUSE Linux).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Opensuse

      Good choice

      PS Linux deals with the Sony Vaio function keys out of the box.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 8.5 year old VAIO SZ2XP/C

      >I'll try to get Win 7 working on my old (8.5 years), decrepit, but still functional VAIO SZ2XP/C

      Why? if you're not using it a lot.

      If you are using it alot then I'd put a new system on the shopping list as your biggest problem will be hardware failure.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Post-Death Updates

    I rather suspect XP will soldier on for some years yet. As for the post-death updates, they'll surface in various places. The binaries are cryptographically signed, so they should be easy to check. I know a developer's private signing key appears to have been stoled recently, but that's why you check the file manually before running it to make sure it is signed with MS' own cert rather than some random 3rd party's.

    This is going to drag on, even if the media hype will, hopefully, die down a bit.

    1. Andy Gates

      Re: Post-Death Updates

      Well, the public sector just got a year of patches. A very reasonable £5.5m, too. Given the porosity of the internet, those updates will get public smartly. Getting updates from random sources of course opens the home user to the risk of fake XP updates... fun fun.

      My Y2k-sense is tingling. I think more of a whimper than a bang, but I'm ever so glad for the extended support while we grunt through updating our zillion desktops.

  7. David Knapman

    What's really depressing is that, due to how these stats are collected, we know that these are all machines with access to the internet.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Also what it doesn't say how many of these are simply VM's / Windows 7 XP mode machines, just getting their patches.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It will drop....

    ...as one big factor was missing.

    UK financial year end.

    As a reseller, as every year, there was a huge surge at the end of March, as the large companies and public sector business need to dump some profits / justify budgets.

  9. hammarbtyp

    I don't believe it...

    Vista still 3%. What were they thinking!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Mushroom

      Re: I don't believe it...

      Some months ago I saw a photo on Reddit of a lost notebook someone had found. Fella tried to boot the system up and was greeted with the lovely sight of the Windows Vista smartcard logon screen...

      ...along with a US DoD Property notice.

      Does that answer your question? :P

  10. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. M Gale

      and they have been scared off by the stupid clown/teletubbie appearance of Win 8.

      So... Windows 7, then?

      1. GreyWolf

        So... Windows 7, then?

        No. Dual-boot with Linux. Mint Cinnamon looks like XP, mostly works like XP, closer to XP than Win 8, easier upgrade path than Win 8, lower rate of support calls from friends and family ...and in my experience, it's lighter and faster and more responsive than XP. So, no, I won't be laying out hundreds of pounds/dollars on a new machine or even more hundreds on replacing all the software that will not work on Win 8.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        IT at work are now absolutely insisting that people upgrade for security reasons.

        My replacement refurbished Win7 machine with all my data transferred on immediately went down with Cryptolocker.

        I think it got in through the reading pane of Outlook (on by default). I hadn't actually done any work with it.

    2. Malcolm 1

      An ironic choice of insult given that XP suffered significant derision for its "Teletubby" default UI theme.

    3. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: You had a long and productive life

      Well given the 50th anniversary celebrations around IBM's S/360, and Oracles commitment to Solaris etc. I think it is over egging it a bit to suggest Windows XP had a long life.

  11. jake Silver badge

    Underlying meanng of the data ...

    85-90% of El Reg's readers use an OS from Redmond.

    Kinda explains the quality of the commentardy.

    1. Piro Silver badge

      Re: Underlying meanng of the data ...

      Surprisingly high quality for an internet community? I thought so too.

      If you think the comments on El Reg are of low quality in general, you clearly have yet to visit the "have your say" section of the Daily Mail, or read any YouTube comments.

    2. Khaptain Silver badge

      Re: Underlying meaning of the data ...

      And strangely enough so are 85-90% of business: ie the people that actually pay us.

      If 85-90% of business used *nix there would probably be 85-90% of El Reg's readers using *nix.

      I really don't have a preference whether it is indirectly MS, Apple, Canonical or IBM that helps me pay my bills just as long as my bills get paid and my company can keep doing business.

      .

      1. Daniel B.

        Re: Underlying meaning of the data ...

        "If 85-90% of business used *nix there would probably be 85-90% of El Reg's readers using *nix."

        Or they're using Unix stuff, just not in the desktop PC's.

      2. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: Underlying meaning of the data ... @Khaptain

        And strangely enough the majority of business'es do use *nix, but only a (brave) few on the desktop and hence it is largely invisible to the majority of employee's.

    3. jake Silver badge

      Re: Underlying meanng of the data ...

      After an hour ... 2 thumbs up. 10 thumbs down. QED :-)

      (Yes, I know, correlation does not imply causation ... but I found it amusing nonetheless.)

      1. Khaptain Silver badge

        Re: Underlying meanng of the data ...

        So what exactly was your point ?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Underlying meanng of the data ...

          "So what exactly was your point ?"

          Windows users think Jake's an arsehole?

          QED?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Underlying meanng of the data ...

            "Windows users think Jake's an arsehole?"

            I use Linux and OSX.

            I guess that makes him a cross-platform arsehole, then?

        2. AceRimmer

          Re: Underlying meanng of the data ...

          "So what exactly was your point ?"

          Only 10 down votes ... people are starting to warm to jake's opinions.

          1. Woodgar

            Re: Underlying meanng of the data ...

            "Only 10 down votes ... people are starting to warm to jake's opinions."

            Not really.

            Clicking the down vote is still feeding the troll.

        3. James O'Shea

          Re: Underlying meanng of the data ...

          "So what exactly was your point ?"

          Jake's a troll.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Underlying meanng of the data ...

            No. I don't think jake is a troll. I think he genuinely believes the bollocks he spouts.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Underlying meanng of the data ...

      "85-90% of El Reg's readers use an OS from Redmond.

      Kinda explains the quality of the commentardy."

      This from the man who was recently telling us all how real men don't need Helpdesk Systems when there's 'just' 200 users.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    For those still on XP:

    Who are either to skint or too mean here are some zero cost alternatives:

    http://software.opensuse.org/131/en

    http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

    Please, for the sake of everybody else's spam box do something.

    The technically inept please go here and surrender your wallet :

    http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/download-shop

  13. frank ly

    It's not dead

    It's just resting.

    1. Anonymous Bullard
      Coat

      Re: It's not dead

      I bet you say that to all the women

      1. frank ly

        Re: It's not dead

        Ah, the budgie. I don't want to talk about it.

  14. Tannin

    It's not the OS you have to worry about

    The usual media hype at work. The primary XP vulnerabilities have got nothing to do with the operating system itself, they are the brain-dead Microsoft add-ons: Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, the image viewing stuff that's shared between various MS applets, and Outlook Express. Smarter XP users have been running fast, modern third-party browsers and image viewers and email clients and movie players for more than a decade now, and their exposure to malware is much, much smaller than people running XP with Outlook and Explorer and so on.

    Indeed, a smaller exposure, in all probability, than that of users running Windows 7 or 8.x but still with Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player. That last remains to be seen, but don't be surprised if it turns out to be the case.

    1. Ian Ringrose

      Re: It's not the OS you have to worry about

      I don’t think so, a large number of government Windows NT machines are still in use due to internal “websites” that only work with IE6.

      Then there are the consumers that just don’t understand, I know a few people that are still using XP that cannot understand what a OS is, yet alone that you may have to upgrade one. They have whatever software that come with their PC.

      1. Tannin

        Re: It's not the OS you have to worry about

        Cheers Ian, I think that depends on which market you work with. In my working life I never see these corporate and government machines you speak of (the ones still running XP because they have ancient intranet setups which depend on IE). I don't doubt that they exist, but I'd expect them to be a very small proportion of the massive total XP user base. To be fair, I mainly service the home, home office, and small business markets, with few corporate and no government clients, so I'd be unlikely to see those machines anyway. Nevertheless, I do not believe for one moment that the total of locked-in-by-IE XP systems in corporate and government use would add up to more than a small fraction of the whole. (Wild guess? Let's say 10%.) Further, these systems presumably have some at least notionally competent IT department staff to look after them. (A mixed blessing there, I freely grant.)

        Then there are the completely clueless consumers you mention who don't even know what an operating system is, and yup, there are certainly plenty of them. The Microsoft end-of-support messages are bringing lots of these people out of the woodwork and everyone in retail IT is working longer hours just now to deal with all the upgrades. (I certainly am! A bit too much of a good thing right now.) Those that ignore the messages without understanding them will very likely fall victim to some scumbag malware in short order, but then these are the exact same people who have been getting viruses and spyware on their systems since Windows 95 was new and fast Internet was a 56k modem. I am not convinced that the end of Windows XP support will have all that much effect on these people: their already-high infection rate will double or even triple for a while and people like me will do a lot of malware removal and security reeducation. Shrug. We have been doing that for a couple of decades now, and this won't be the first spike in malware work, nor will it be the last one.

        Thirdly, there is the vast pool of XP users who are not clueless (they range from near-clueless at one end of the scale right through to very bright and well-informed at the other). They are still using XP out of simple practicality. For these people - probably the largest single group of XP users by a fair margin - computers are just a tool which does the things that they require with a minimum of fuss, bother, and expense. These are practical people who don't throw working tools away without good reason.

        But all of this is dancing around my main point, which is that the main problem here isn't Windows XP as such, it's the various Microsoft add-ons associated with XP, such as Internet Explorer and Media Player. A very large proportion of existing XP users have long since upgraded from IE to Firefox or Chrome, from OE to Thunderbird, from the Windows Picture and Fax viewer to Picassa or Irfanview, and/or from WMP to VLC or SMPlayer. The simplistic "XP is bad" message is largely wrong. The bad things (like IE) can be replaced (and often have been already) by superior alternatives and the remaining risk is by comparison quite small.

        Does this mean that no-one should upgrade? Of course not. But it does mean that we (as IT professionals) should be advising clients on a case-by-case basis. For some XP users, the right answer is "do nothing, you already have good security and backup, and your system is low-risk". For others it is "buy a whole new machine, this one has reached the end of its useful working life", and for some it's "throw this machine away and just use your tablet, it's all you need". And for others again, it is "Let's upgrade to a newer OS version and, while we are at it, add some extra RAM and a few tweaks here and there". This last response is the right one for more than half of my users, but every case is different, and your client mix will vary, of course.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: It's not the OS you have to worry about

        "They have whatever software that come with their PC."

        Indeed - those are the ones where you boot up their PC, finally get to the desktop after about 10 minutes of disk thrashing, and are left with the unshakeable sense of being watched by all the evil things the PC has accumulated over years of non-maintenance. Malware scuttling just out of sight, eyes watching from the dark, that sort of thing. The only thing out in the open is the 10 toolbars installed on their copy of IE6

        1. ecofeco Silver badge

          Re: It's not the OS you have to worry about

          Pure poetry Andrew Fernie!

          Have an upvote,

        2. SineWave242

          Re: It's not the OS you have to worry about

          And why should anybody care about these? Everybody can learn and if you're too lazy to learn it's you're fault you're staying ignorant about these things.

    2. SineWave242

      Re: It's not the OS you have to worry about

      Indeed, if you're running 3d party apps for everything you're pretty much safe and so much better off.

  15. M Gale

    Anecdotally, many of those users may not have exactly paid for their operating system or reside in nations where the word about XP's demise has spread widely.

    I always like the whole "pirated Windows" thing. Really, if you bought a PC, you bought the license to run Windows with it. Just because the manufacturer is a shit who doesn't give Windows disks and pretends that a hidden partition is a "backup", therefore demanding a hasty trip to the 'bay when the HDD goes tits up, doesn't mean you aren't legally running that hastily-acquired copy of Windows.

    Granted, if you're running Windows Datacentre Edition on your PC with a Vista Home Basic license, that's probably not kosher.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Perhaps...

    ...if Microsoft hadn't built such a clunker in Vista, this wouldn't still be such a big issue.

    A 27% market share in anything is usually something worth nurturing and supporting.

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: Perhaps...

      Doesn't bode well for Jan 2020 when Win7 drops off support ...

      But then as I've commented elsewhere, the more business minded members of the open source community really need to target this date for having a full suite of enterprise grade product offerings.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The 'sadistics' aren't helpful to understanding problems going forward.

    I agree with the sentiment that XP will soldier on for many years yet. Families still have old netbooks sitting around, some realize it and some don't. In addition last weeks articles dealt with engineering SMEs that are locked-in. To understand the risks better, I wish we had more details such as browser type, media player and email client if applicable, as well as confirmation that Java & Flash are installed...

    I used to be the 'go-to' tech guy but no more as I live on anther continent! Many in my family still have unpatched XP netbooks. But they don't use them for anything financial. They don't log in to any services, nor do they have Java installed. Flash is deactivated, and they don't surf random websites where they might get hit with a drive-by-attack. They also have many ports disabled, including the usual suspects as reported by the Reg: WinVNC, Remote Access, SQL Server...

    Before you ask several are too old to upgrade, both the user and the netbook! :) Learning a new OS and operating a new laptop just isn't an option for them realistically and I've given up trying. But I wonder what are the risks a compromised XP machine can infect Win7 and Apple devices on the same home network?

    1. SineWave242

      Re: The 'sadistics' aren't helpful to understanding problems going forward.

      If people do have such XPs, which I highly doubt, then they should absolutely not worry about anything. In my opinion, if you "fortify" XP in this way and use 3rd party apps you're quite safe. But not as safe as if you used Linux, even the default install. Simply because Linux is never targeted by hackers. If I was to write a virus I would write it for Windows, obviously, since so many people run Windows.

  18. Jim McCafferty

    Go Vista

    lol Popularity spike in December 2013.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Go Vista

      It pains me to admit this on El Reg forums, but my Windows machine (an old high-end Thinkpad) is now running Vista. It's there for when Windows based tools are needed, otherwise I tend to use Linux or a Mac.

      I think it's probably OK due to the Vista "golden rule" - Vista is easily satisfied with the best, so with a proper graphics chip, 4GB RAM, and an SSD it's not at all bad.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nevermind Windows XP, did you see the Windows 7 vs Windows 8 numbers?

    Windows 7 gained more than Windows 8. That sure says something about how much people hate Windows 8!

    1. roblightbody

      Re: Nevermind Windows XP, did you see the Windows 7 vs Windows 8 numbers?

      It tells you no such thing. It tells you that businesses move slowly, and rarely to the very latest version of an OS.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Nevermind Windows XP, did you see the Windows 7 vs Windows 8 numbers?

        Except those numbers are for the market as a whole, not for corporations. Come the curve of uptake for Windows 8 with that of Windows 7, and see how poorly Windows 8 looks by comparison. Sounds like you're an MS fanboy who eats whatever shit they serve, but most people have decided trying to force a touchscreen type single tasking interface on PCs is a terrible idea.

      2. SineWave242

        Re: Nevermind Windows XP, did you see the Windows 7 vs Windows 8 numbers?

        You're comforting yourself.

  20. Camilla Smythe

    Misplaced Lack of Interest..

    On the @Home front perhaps El Reg Journalists might ask owners of Linux Flavoured Based Suppositories for statistics on increased activity. Just a thought.

    1. Camilla Smythe

      Re: Misplaced Lack of Interest..

      It was a serious question.

      Obviously it will be my fault but I just scrubbed someone, a home user, off XP and moved them over to Debian.

      Bearing in mind I am 'not all that', or anything approaching it..

      Let's see how that one goes.

    2. SineWave242

      Re: Misplaced Lack of Interest..

      Yes, Linux has gained a few more percentage of user over the last few years. Thanks Microsoft for making a new garbage operating system.

  21. andy gibson

    Euro Car Parts

    I was in a Euro Car Parts branch yesterday, all their sales team office desktops were on XP.

  22. roblightbody

    Why split 8 and 8.1 in your table?

    I think its misleading to split out 8.1 from 8 in your table. 8.1 is just the latest version of Windows 8 and anyone on 8 can and should update to it for free.

    I've had no significant problems with Windows XP, Vista, 7 or 8, and each has been better than what went before.

  23. ecofeco Silver badge

    These number will change monthly

    These numbers are going to change dramatically over the course of the rest of this year.

    All I've been doing for the last 6 months is XP->Win 7 migrations at the 10s of thousands at a time, level.

    I expect to be able to freelance for the rest of the year.

    1. SineWave242

      Re: These number will change monthly

      I've done a lot of XP to Linux migrations as well.

  24. CRConrad

    Market share?

    Doesn't "market" mean economic activity -- stuff being bought and sold, so on and so forth?

    Windows XP isn't sold any more, and hasn't been for a long while. It doesn't have "27 % market share", it has 0%.

    27 % of the _installed base_ is a good thing, but it's not "market" share.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So, no more patches

    Does this mean that if I reinstall XP on a machine that it won't find any patches available from Windows Update? Or are they only ceasing to release patches to the general public for XP?

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: So, no more patches

      >patches available from Windows Update?

      This is a big question. I suspect (based on previous MS product upgrades) that it could be a year or so before XP updates (up to and including 8-Apr-2014) are dropped from Windows/Microsoft Update site. Future patches (we are told) will only be distributed directly to those organisations who have contracted for XP support and so won't appear on Windows Update.

      Additionally, it may be several years before an XP system is unable to connect to Windows/Microsoft Update because of the products currently in support that can be installed on XP (eg. MSE and Office 2007) and hence MS will still have to honour these licenses. In fact I suspect that MS may use the auto update mechanism to send out periodic reminders to XP and Office 2003 users that they are using unsupported products...

      Personally, I've used WSUS Offline to create my own set of critical updates, just to be safe. (Cumulative XP updates ~1.6Gb and Office 2003 (Word, Excel, Powerpoint & Access) ~1Gb). But then there are still all the non-MS drivers and app's...

  26. SineWave242

    What deathbed? Where? Have you seen XP on the deathbed? For what reason?

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