Microsoft Ends Windows XP Service Pack 2 support today

And what does this mean to the average small business computer user?

< a href="http://consumerist.com/2010/07/security-patching-for-xp-service-pack-2-ends-today.html">“Security Patching for XP Service Pack 2 Ends Today”.

It costs money to have teams of people, like fire fighters, employed for the “in case of emergency” situations. Yes, while they aren’t responding to the latest hacker attacks, they can be doing productive things with their product line, but consider Microsoft has two other fully functional PC operating systems they have to support as well: Vista and Windows 7.

Short translation: If your computer(s) is (are) running Windows XP, and you haven’t updated beyond Service Pack 2, then you are potentially at risk if the hackers figure out a new way to end around the security features of XP/SP2.

The good news? Make sure you’ve installed Service Pack 3. Microsoft will still have resources that keep that “vintage” of XP updated and patched for security holes.

In the long run, it’s notice to consider drafting your plan to upgrade your operating system software, and possibly your systems. I have been using Windows 7 on various machines for about a year now, the first installation on a very old computer, and I did it just to see if it worked…it did. Not that some of the others I’ve upgraded haven’t had a few issues with finding drivers, but it’s time. Besides, it runs fast like XP, yet is pretty like Vista!

If you need help laying out a plan and a budget for your business, contact me!

Tags: microsoft, Patching Operating Systems, SP2, windows, Windows XP, WinXP, WinXP SP2

This entry was posted on July 13, 2010 at 10:37 am and is filed under Data Security, Efficiency, Malware, Security Issues, Software, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.