Will XP Ever Die Soon?

It seems Windows XP won’t go into oblivion without a fight.

Even though Microsoft has signed the death sentence, so to speak, for the old but popular operating system, it seems people still trust it and can’t let go of it.

According to statistics from analytics firm Net Applications, Windows XP was still the biggest operating system by market share on desktops for the month of April 2012. It was installed in 46.08 percent of computers involved in the Net Applications study, having a comfortable lead over the next biggest operating system by market share.

That second-largest operating system also happens to be a Microsoft product, the now-famous Windows 7 OS which notched a 38.67 percent share of the pie. Next up is the flop which was and is Windows Vista which still has 7.32 percent market share. If there’s any surprise with these stats, this would be the second biggest bombshell apart from XP still holding its own. You’d think people would have migrated to Windows 7 or reverted back to Windows XP once they tried Windows Vista.

Apple is on the losing end, however, when it comes to desktop operating systems. Its Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and Mac OS X 10.7 (Mountain Lion) got 2.71 percent market share each.

Anyway, Microsoft effectively reminded people that Windows XP has two years to live, announcing recently that it will drop official support for Windows XP on April 8, 2014 or approximately two years from now.

What this means is that Windows XP (and also Office 2003) will stop getting official patches and updates from the Redmond, Washington-based software giant.

It doesn’t stop people from trusting in and staying with Windows XP, however, as the OS actually saw a rise in users for the month of March as it tallied a 46.68 percent share from 45.39 percent during the month of February. These are still mighty impressive numbers, if you ask me, as Windows XP has been around for more than a decade now. That’s an eternity in tech land.

Still, there will come a time when everything passes. Windows XP will be no exception but it’s holding its ground pretty well.

When the time comes, however, that people will have to migrate from XP, we hope Microsoft has the best replacement for it for those still wanting to install Windows. From the looks of it, however, it seems the software giant is making a worthy successor with Windows 8.

Nonetheless, Windows XP will always have a special place, especially for those who grew up in our generation, the ones who used XP towards the end of high school and the start of college. What would you remember most about XP? Tell us in the comments below.

Source: Net Applications

Images: SFSD Technology Help Desk on Flickr (CC) and

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