windows-xp is going to withdrawn---- why?

Windows 7 Windows 8

its being withdrawn so they can focus on new operating systems XP was released over 14 years ago it's time for an upgrade ! :)

Windows XP is NOT going to be withdrawn - the actual sale of XP was withdrawn many, many years ago anyway.

It will NOT suddenly stop working on the 8th April. All that is being withdrawn is the update support for it.

There is a risk that when the updates stop your system "might" be open to attacks from hackers, but then again Windows is always full of holes anyway - they just keep plugging the holes with updates - like sticking your finger in a dyke to stop the water coming through.

You should be fine still using XP after this date as long as you have a decent firewall set up and anti-virus protection.

The biggest problem is that XP came out back in 2001, after XP came Vista which was pretty awful - unless you had a top of the range computer it was unusable (I had Vista on my PC and it was fine, because I had decent enough hardware, but I also saw it on non-decent hardware and it was pretty poor!). Because of this no-one wanted to upgrade.

Then along came Windows 7 - which fixed everything that was wrong with Vista, and to be honest with you 7 is probably the best one to upgrade to after XP. It is just as stable, and can run on most XP systems with very little upgrading (you might need more RAM - 32-bit is 1Gb min, 64-bit is 2Gb min, but that's about it). The only thing is with 7 being so similar to XP and people couldn't really see any enhancement except spending another £80 on new software they didn't upgrade (in the past the major upgrade points for Windows have always been when major changes were made - Windows 3.1 -> Windows 95/98 -> Windows XP but there hasn't been anything major after XP).

Now Microsoft released 8, hoping that this was the next stage on after XP to force people to upgrade - it had a whole new interface in comparison to XP so it was hoped it would be the next step like 3.1 -> 95 or 95 -> XP, but the biggest problem is people hate it - it's way to complicated and certainly not friendly enough for a business desktop environment, it's too much based on a tablet interface, but even that isn't too good.

Carry on using XP if you want to, it'll be at your own risk so you might be risking that the system could be hacked, or go up to Windows 7.

Another option is to use something like Puppy Linux (www.puppylinux.org) which is a small linux live CD that would allow you to have a secure operating system with no need to pay for expensive upgrades.

It is NOT being withdrawn, they are just ceasing to develop further updates for it. It can no longer be fully updated to comply with current os requirements. You can still use for a long time. But may gradually find some web sites will not work properly with it.

Give Linux a chance. There are around 400 free distros of Linux. The most popular one is Ubuntu. 99% of the programs are free. If you need any specialized programs you may need to pay.

www.ubuntu.com

http://bit.ly/UbWXG8