It’s been 13 years since Windows XP was released, roughly the age of an Egyptian artefact in a technological time frame. With Microsoft’s focus shifted towards Windows 7 and Windows 8 and more recently, the mobile platform, the last security fix for Windows XP is to be released on the 8th of April, after which the company will stop releasing patches and drop any kind of support to the operating system. But according to the numbers released by Net Applications, around 27% of all Windows generated web traffic comes from computers running Windows XP.
Read More: Windows XP deadline: Microsoft issues yet another warning as end nears
Once the support for Windows XP is dropped, users running this age old operating system will be vulnerable to attacks and could possibly result in theft of personal and financial data.
In an attempt to overcome this, Microsoft is now offering $100 discount coupons and $50 gift cards in an attempt to persuade users to migrate to Windows 8.
As much as Microsoft would like to see users switch to Windows 8, there has been a mere 2.2% drop from December 2013’s 30.5% share of Windows XP web traffic.
With hardly a week before support for Windows XP is dropped, Microsoft has good reasons to be worried about the fact that more than one fourth of it’s users are going to be running an unsupported operating system. Microsoft is also risking public relations and the user base has also started to criticize this move and voice their concerns.
Read More: Now EU asks Windows XP users to shift to a new OS before April 8 deadline
Security researchers and experts have already warned about about impending threats, stating that even the simplest of tasks like browsing and checking emails would make users vulnerable to attacks, including that of certain state sponsored threats. We’ll now have to wait to see what Microsoft does to address the issue and avoid fragmentation of the user base.
