Is Windows XP set to be toppled anytime soon?

And as a result, they haven't. Thus, every time Microsoft has looked to phase out support for Windows XP, it's had to backtrack on its plans as the mass market has shown surprisingly little interest in moving.

Deadline

There's another deadline coming up, too. From 13 July, Microsoft is stopping support for Windows XP Service Pack 2. On the same day, Windows Server 2000 will also reach the end of its support life. Interestingly, a Canadian firm, Softchoice, undertook research to discover just how many businesses in Canada and the US would be affected by this. It looked at over a quarter of a million systems as part of its research, and concluded that 45 per cent of them are still running Windows XP SP2 on their machines.

So given that support for the OS ends next month, does this mean they'll suddenly migrate? No, not at all. And here's another problem that Microsoft is facing. Because there's such a mine of knowledge with regards the foibles of Windows XP, that the end of formal support is near is less of an issue than it once was. Microsoft itself has a knowledge base of information freely available that's brought together the best part of a decade's worth of information, and the world is not short of people who can solve Windows XP problems.