The end of XP support: Will it make you switch?

Gman496

Super Moderator
Staff member
April 14th 2009, the day before the U.S. federal income tax filing deadline (somehow that seems appropriate) marked the last day of free support for Windows XP.

We’ve all known that this time was coming, and now it’s upon us. Come April 14th Microsoft will pull the plug on free support for Windows XP (and Office 2003) and the only option available to users will be paid support, which only applies to XP Professional.

Does the end of free XP support help push you to Vista, Windows 7 ... or Linux?

Vote Here!


Dates to be aware of:

Windows 2000: Free support ended June 30, 2005; paid support ends on July 13, 2010. Service Pack 3 was retired on June 30, 2005. No more SPs planned.

Windows XP SP2: Service pack will be retired on July 13, 2010.

Windows XP SP3: Service pack due to be retired two years after SP4 (if there is one) releases or in April 2014, whichever comes first.

Windows Vista Business: Free support ends on April 10, 2012; paid support ends on April 11, 2017.

Windows Vista SP1: Service pack will be retired two years after the release of SP2 (which is expected in April 2009), so likely in April 2011 (?).

Office 2003 SP3: Service pack will be retired one year after SP4 (if there is one, which is doubtful) is released or in August 2014, whichever comes first.

Office 2007: Free support ends on April 10, 2012; paid support ends on April 11, 2017.

Office 2007 SP1: Service pack will be retired a year after SP2 debuts, so likely in April 2010 (?).

Windows Server 2008: Free support ends September 7, 2013; paid support ends October 7, 2018.

April is also the rumored due date for the final Vista SP2 and Office 2007 SP2 updates. The support clock starts ticking on those once they are released to manufacturing.


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I may eventually upgrade to Windows 7, but not due to the end of support. I can find all the support I need in places like this site and people like you.
And as far as supporting m$, if all of the programs I ran would work on it, I would probably be running a version of Linux right now.
 
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