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My faithful Dell Windows XP Pro laptop which is on it's third power adaptor and still using IE8 because XP will not support IE9 is facing retirement.

XP was launched in 2001 and I did not replace it with what turned out to be the flash in the pan Vista in 2006 nor when that was superseded a mere 2 years later in 2009 by Windows 7.

In fact in the interim I made the leap and joined the Apple brigade (no regrets) and whilst having to adapt and readily acknowledging that numbers falls so very, very short of Excel and with which I now have to shuffle back and forth between the two systems. I just had enough of booting up time and patches.

You Are Vulnerable

Now as Support for windows XP ended in MAY 2014 and that includes providing security patching it is deemed to be a risk in repect of being vulnerable to malware and facing  compatibility issues with developing programs and hardware accessories, so be warned.

But, looking at the Desktop (NOTE DESKTOP) Worldwide usage of the Microsft XP operating system; it has a very solid 25% share with Vista (launched 5 years after XP) having a 2.9% share.

The stats * as of May 2014 for those interested are as follows:

Windows 7     50.06%

Windows XP    25.27%

Windows 8.1   6.35%

Windows 8     6.29%

Mac OSX 10.9  4.15% 

Windows Vista 2.9%

Linux 1.62%

Other 3.36%

Back to the retirement of XP- Microsoft advises that you take action.

"After April 8, 2014, Microsoft will no longer provide security updates or technical support for Windows XP. Security updates patch vulnerabilities that may be exploited by malware and help keep users and their data safer. PCs running Windows XP after April 8, 2014, should not be considered to be protected, and it is important that you migrate to a current supported operating system"

*

Stats derived with thanks from www.netmarketshare.com