As you have probably heard on the news lately, Microsoft has finally retired its old operating system, Windows XP, after 13 years on the market. But what does this mean for you? Well, if you’re not running any computers with Windows XP, then nothing! However, if you have computers that still rely on Windows XP, you should seriously consider upgrading to Windows 7 or 8 sooner rather than later. But why? Microsoft will no longer be issuing patches or updates to XP – even those related to basic or serious security flaws. This means that hackers will start targeting XP-based system more and more because they will be considered “low hanging fruit” as more and more ways to exploit the system become available.

Upgrading to Windows 7 or 8 from Windows XP is a much larger jump than going from XP to Vista or Vista to 7 – there is not a direct upgrade path from XP to 7 or 8. In addition, hardware that’s old enough to have XP installed isn’t likely to run Windows 7 or 8 very well anyway. Usually the most cost effective way to upgrade a system for XP to 7 or 8 is to purchase a new system and transfer existing data over. However, there’s another potential gotcha in that some programs that ran fine under XP will not function under 7 or 8.

If you have computers running XP, give us a call today and we can assess what it will take to upgrade your systems and protect your data!