InformationWeek's Community of IT Professionals Discuss the Impending Windows XP Deadline

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 13, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The new community-driven InformationWeek is playing host to an energetic discussion among IT professionals on Microsoft's deadline for the end of Windows XP, just three months away.  According to InformationWeek's "Windows XP Won't Go Quietly" feature story, even with the impending deadline fast approaching, three out of four IT professionals must still support the operating system.

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Microsoft will stop supporting XP, its most popular operating system ever until Windows 7, on April 8, 2014.  This means no more updates, no more bug fixes, and – perhaps most important of all – no more security patches.

Despite this announcement, InformationWeek reporter Kevin Casey states that many businesses are in no huge rush to leave the aged OS behind. Citing recent data, the article says that 76% of IT professionals still support at least some XP machines in their corporate environments; with 36% reporting that they plan to leave at least some of their existing XP systems in place after the April support cutoff. 

Members of InformationWeek's community are chiming in on the pros and cons of XP, the impending deadline, and other issues around this hot topic.

DDURBIN  l  1/7/2014 | 1:37:17 PM

"XP does a lot of things very well.  The old adage "if it's not broken don't fix it" comes to mind particularly in business.  If you have a hotel chain with say 1000+ XP machines available for customers to use the cost to replace them is significant with what advantage?  A Win7 machine won't do anything better that the XP machine did for customers, mostly browse the web and check email.  While a Win8 machine will just give the hotel's support personnel migraines.  Microsoft has already forced this hotel chain to install an alternate browser (Chrome or FireFox) since Microsoft only allows I.E. 8 on XP.  The chain will probable look at Chromebooks as the XP replacement."

gfouts15  l  1/7/2014 | 1:57:47 PM

"If your job is to manage IT infrastructure and you failed to plan for this or any other technology changes, either you are incompetent, without vision, without power or a combination of these.  This isn't something that just came up.  This is the CIO/CTO's job to manage technology and the transition of such!  All this is really doing is exposing many CIO/CTO's poor decisions and lack of planning.  Seriously, if all you ever had to do was install software once and be done, anyone could do it.  Apparently too many in IT positions of power don't know what they are supposed to be doing there."

DDURBIN  l  1/7/2014 | 2:49:58 PM

"@gfouts15, 29% of the computers in the world still run Windows XP. This is close to 600 million machines. How could this still be?  XP is not obsolete just because Microsoft says it is. So you propose spending let's say $500 per machine for this hotel?  Remember now that Win7/8 machines do exactly the same thing that currently happily running XP machines do. What does the $500,000 get for the hotel's bottom line?  Hey, I agree with you but for those that count the pennies it's not so clear on the benefits.  They usually choose to replace/fix when broken."

the5thHorseman l  1/7/2014 | 2:55:44 PM

"XP will not be going anywhere soon. There is far too much banking, security, point of sale, ATM and custom, business specific software out there that has not been ported to Windows 7 or 8 for the countless reasons littering forums across the web. And Microsoft doesn't care. This EOL for XP is simply their embarrassing last ditch effort to force you to buy their next dysfunctional and woefully inadequate operating system."

BGREENE292  l   1/8/2014 | 2:00:16 AM

"Launched in 2001, Windows XP is the most field-proven Windows OS ever, and Microsoft users, not Microsoft, made much of that possible. Windows XP users reported problems, they vetted solutions, and third-party developers formed a rich XP-oriented infrastructure that survives to this day. 

"Because of XP's sprawling, global user base, more hardware is ready for XP than any other Windows OS. That univerality, alone, permits us to stay with XP, and go on to more important things. After all, we run an OS to do work, and it makes no sense to 'migrate' at Microsoft urging to anything else."

Gmtrmt l 1/7/2014 | 9:59:26 AM

"From experience the problem is not apathy. Instead many businesses have incumbent systems that rely on specific technology being in place. It is these systems not the basic desktop machine, that are most at risk and that require more than simply popping in a windows 8 CDROM, what's more as these systems can be around 10 years old, their specifications need upgrading too which means more expense and frustration as old systems get upgraded to new."

To read the full story or to join the conversation, visit "Windows XP Won't Go Quietly."

The new InformationWeek community combines the brand's world renowned content, over 200 new expert contributors, fresh content-sharing tools, and a proven, editorially-facilitated engagement platform.  If you want to contribute to the community conversation on InformationWeek as a blogger, contact Rob Preston at Rob.Preston@ubm.com.

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