In case you haven’t heard yet, Microsoft is ending support for more Microsoft applications.
If you run a Windows XP operating system on your computer(s), whether business or personal, Microsoft has either already stopped support for your system, or will soon.
- Support for Windows Vista without any service packs ended on April 13, 2010.
- Support for Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) ended on July 13, 2010.
- Support for Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1) ended on July 12, 2011.
- Support for Windows XP is ending on April 8, 2014.
- Support for Microsoft Office 2003 is ending on April 8, 2014.
What this means is if you do not upgrade to at least Windows 7 by the date indicated, you will no longer get security updates for Windows.
According to the Microsoft Windows website, it states:
“An unsupported version of Windows will no longer receive software updates from Windows Update. These include security updates that can help protect your PC from harmful viruses, spyware, and other malicious software, which can steal your personal information. Windows Update also installs the latest software updates to improve the reliability of Windows—new drivers for your hardware and more. “
Even if you have an unsupported version of Windows XP or Windows Vista without any service packs, Windows will continue to start and run as usual. You simply won’t get any updates.
What isn’t said is that without the updates, you may run into problems with some of your other programs that do get updated. They might stop being able to run properly on your older operating system.
You may find more information and access to a Deployment Tool Kit on Microsoft’s related website page for <a href=”http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/endofsupport.aspx”> Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003</a>.