Windows XP Security Issues: Fact Vs. Fiction

In less than a month, Microsoft will stop supporting Windows XP, still the second most widely used PC operating system in the world. The company announced the OS's April 8 termination date years ago, but with as many as 500 million XP systems still active last month, not everyone is going to make a move in time.

XP users have vocally protested Microsoft's abandonment of such a popular product. Objections include upgrade costs, application compatibility concerns, and whether customers should be effectively forced to leave a product that they are happy with. Despite Microsoft's increased efforts, which now include daily pop-up notifications on XP systems, almost one in three computers still ran the 12-year-old OS in February, according to web-tracking firm Net Applications. More alarming for Microsoft, Windows XP's market share hasn't decreased since last year and Windows 8.1's has barely grown. Both trends imply the company's escalating messaging has fallen largely on deaf ears.

So what will happen when April 8 passes and millions of people are still running Windows XP?

"We're into panic time," Michael Silver, a VP at the research firm Gartner, said in an interview. He said the amount of risk depends to some extent on what XP laggards can accomplish in a hurry.

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