Microsoft Pushes for Demise of Windows XP

Those of you still holding on to Windows XP have two years to spend with the now-antiquated OS before Microsoft pulls the support plug.

On April 8, 2014, Microsoft will officially end support for Windows XP and Office 2003, the software giant reminded business users in a blog post this week. "If you still have some PCs running Windows XP and Office 2003 in your organization, now would be a good time to start migrating them to Windows 7 and Office 2010," wrote Microsoft's Stella Chernyak.

Chernyak warned against waiting for the next Windows and Office update. "Not only is it important for companies to complete deployment before support runs out, but they should also be aware that by upgrading to Windows 7 and Office 2010 today they can gain substantial results today while laying the foundation for future versions of these products," she wrote.

Chernyak outlined a number of upgrade options in the blog post, including and .

"Windows XP and Office 2003 were great software releases for their time, but the technology environment has shifted," she said.

Windows XP made its debut in 2001. According to March data from Net Applications, approximately 46.86 percent of global Windows users are still running XP, with 37.54 percent on Windows 7. That's up slightly from February, when 45.39 percent of users were running XP.

The much-maligned followup to XP, Windows Vista, is currently in use by 7.65 percent of Windows fans, Net Applications said.

This is not the first time that Microsoft has pushed users to abandon one of its older products. In March 2011, a website dedicated to the demise of its Internet Explorer 6 browser, in an effort to get users to upgrade. As of March, about 6.9 percent of worldwide Internet users were on IE6. IE8 is the most-popular version with 25.4 percent usage, according to Net Applications.

For a trip down memory lane, see PCMag's overview of from 2001, as well as our full reviews of and . Also check out our and the slideshow below.