This means that after this date technical support and security patches will no longer be issued by Microsoft for the software, although Microsoft will be offering an option for users to pay for continued updates.
© Microsoft
Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system
Reports have suggested that the UK government has paid Microsoft £5.5 million for ongoing security updates to Windows XP, Office 2003 and Exchange 2003 on public-sector computers.
However it worth pointing out that many companies are still using the old os. AppSense appears to indicate as much as 77% of organisations across the UK were still using the old OS. It is believed that as a result of Microsoft ending its support, it will be putting some British businesses at a greater risk of hacker intrusion. Although the amount of machines running the software is said to be relatively small within a particular company. However security experts warn that it just takes one vulnerable PC within an organisation to put an entire network at risk.
