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Back in October we celebrated the anniversaries of Windows XP and Office 2003 and took the opportunity to remind everyone that on April 8, 2014, we will officially end support for these versions of Windows and Office. Today, we want to acknowledge the two-year countdown to the end of Windows XP and Office 2003 support, which was this past Sunday. 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.
Windows XP and Office 2003 were great software releases for their time, but the technology environment has shifted. Technology continues to evolve and so do people’s needs and expectations. Modern users demand technologies that fit their personal workstyle and allow them to stay productive anywhere anytime, while businesses have an ever increasing need to protect data and ensure security, compliance and manageability. It is in a company’s – and its employees’ – best interest to take advantage of the modern Windows and Office software that is designed with these needs in mind.
Now you may be asking yourself – should I wait to upgrade until the next versions of Windows and Office are available? We don’t recommend waiting. 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. And with over 525 million Windows 7 licenses sold since its release, many customers are already taking advantage of everything Windows 7 has to offer.
If you haven’t yet already, we do hope that you take this end of support countdown as an opportunity to migrate your PCs to Windows 7 and Office 2010 so that your business and employees are more productive and secure. Below are some tools and resources we offer to help you with your migration. Additionally, in the coming months both my team and the Office team will be posting tips on deployment guidance so you can get the most out your new software.
Tools and Resources to Help with Migration
Don't forget, mainstream support of Vista ends on Tuesday.
Why?? I will wait until the Asus Windows 8 Tablet... to buy a hardware and new licenses..
Not until Microsoft acknowledges and fixes the design problems in Windows 7 for XP customers I am genuinely trying to upgrade but can't because many features don't exist on Windows 7.
The search on XP still blows the Vista and 7 search out of the water. Forget whether you index or not (which you never had to do on XP) 7 will often just flat out not find a file you know is there. Luckily, there's a free app call Agent Ransack that works like XP's search. You don't have to do anything, it just finds your files.
Windows 7 is a good OS, and it is better than Windows XP, but it introduced problems to Windows that have never been fixed. See this forum post for more information:
social.msdn.microsoft.com/.../78ca6ba5-efe0-486c-b7d6-dc16782dbac2
Don't forget to scroll down and read the part about the Sidebar as well.
For example, I requested Microsoft to fix this annoyance: social.msdn.microsoft.com/.../27314d0a-9c70-4b79-93e7-23fe60e7e374 This refuse saying it's by design. Then why should I "upgrade" to a system of reduced usability? There are at least a hundred others complaining about this usability problem.
I did want to point out one thing in the post. It says that modern users demand the changes provided in later versions of Windows, but I would argue that modern users (who you are asking to upgrade) are also demanding features and usability offered in Windows XP as is proved by it's continued market share (change simply for the sake of change isn't a compelling reason for a business to upgrade).
I use Windows 7 and I believe it's a superier alternative to XP, however, after using both releases of Windows 8 I can't see using it on the desktop. I have a Windows Phone 7, I enjoy the interface and it works great, on a touch screen. Windows 8 looks like it will work great, on a touch screen. On the desktop though, it's very difficult to navigate and unless Microsoft addresses that you'll see people years down the line that have stuck with Windows 7 as a current crop of users have stuck with XP.
Microsoft would be wise to learn from it's past. Shoehorning OS's onto devices creates a bad user experience (when you shoe horned a full version of Windows built for a mouse and keyboard onto tablets, they failed... when you shoehorn a good touch based OS onto a desktop, it will fail because of usability... listen to the feedback on the web and you'll see that soon enough).
I've already left XP and I aint never looked back. I got on the Vista train and seriously enjoyed it. Now, I'm with 7 which is even better. But, on this blog, I'm trying out Windows 8. It's not running smoothly right now, but given the conditions that I'm running it in _ on a very tired MAC via VMware Fusion 4 _ I cannot complain. Despite the "poor working conditions", I like what I see so far. I'm looking forward to trying out a smoother version somewhere or somehow.
Windows XP is not just great software release. Its the best OS window had offered. Its all part of the scheme to make people buy window 7/8 to generate more income. With so many unsolved problems in window 7(as said by other people), i strongly disagreed this move. Unless a better OS comes along and proves its worth.
I have a perfect windows 8 simulation. Tip: Windows vista, 7 and 8 use A TON OF MEMORY.
yet i have areo on windows xp and i no upgrade my linux to windows either.
STOP ENDING SUPPORT MICROSOFT
update office tough software counts :D