Microsoft officially releases the new End of Support report for their flagship operating systems Windows XP and Windows Vista. Windows XP was widely popular and Microsoft has decided that all support for the now ten year-old Operating system will end in April of 2014. It has been in Extended Support for the last three years. Windows Vista is already beginning to show its unpopularity and will be entering Extended Support April 10, 2012; tomorrow as of this posting.
What does this mean for our San Diego Windows customers? When a new version of Windows is released, customer can utilize support tools such as: No-charge incident reporting, warranty claims, design change feature requests, and non-security hotfix support. This is part of their Mainstream Support Phase. Windows versions that are five years-old or two years after its successor has been released enter the Extended Support Phase which only includes paid technical support, security update support, and access to the web-based Microsoft Knowledge Base for that product.
What this boils down to is this: Windows XP will be shelved in 2014 which has been a long time coming. This date has been extended multiple times and Microsoft recognizes that it cannot continue to use man hours maintaining software that does not fully support current computer hardware. Windows XP users cannot properly enjoy the benefits of solid state hard drives, multi-core processors, more than 4GB of RAM , nor graphics cards with Direct X 10 or 11 support. Microsoft hasn't updated the Windows XP hardware compatibility since 2008!
Windows Vista is on schedule to leave Extended Support by 2017, so customers will still be able to get limited support until then. This is a good thing! There is no word as of yet when the Windows 7 Service Pack 2 will be released. Developers from older versions of Windows will be used to begin working on improving the already stellar Windows 7 or focus on new projects entirely.
-- -Greg Mobile Computer Wizard Office: 619-255-1215
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