A long goodbye from XP

Nine editions, three service packs, millions of PCs worldwide – Windows XP has seen plenty in eight years. Its era ended on June 30, 2008, when Microsoft stopped retail sales of XP. Mainstream support was offered until April 2009, with security updates, hot fixes and technical support. The service packs included new features during this period. Extended support began in April 2009 and will run until April 2014. In this phase, Microsoft will offer technical support and security updates. With one exception: customers with a paid support contract can also request non-security patches. All told, XP users should be safe until 2014. They should, however, make sure to switch to Service Pack 3 by July 13, 2010. Support for Service Pack 2 ends on that date.

New toolkit on board

Windows 7 offers a multitude of clever built-in tools. Now instead of implementing expensive, non-supported external software, organizations can use the features that come standard with Windows. Each tool eliminates an unnecessary source of faults and extra licensing costs. And it makes life easier for system integrators.