MS to WinXP diehards: Just under 3 more years' support

Microsoft continued its campaign yesterday to convince stuck-in-the-mud Windows XP customers to upgrade to Windows 7, the company's current operating system.

Windows XP is now 10 years old, and for some, it's still going strong. So Microsoft has reminded those users that support for the OS that refuses to die will end in less than 1,000 days.

Yep, that's still about two years and nine months from now, which may in fact leave some continuing to have warm fuzzies for XP until, well, 2014.

"Wouldn't it be great if the glory days lasted forever? But reality is trophies get dusty, records are broken, and what it took to be the best 10 years ago just isn't enough for today's standards," wrote Microsoft's Stephen Rose in a blog post on Monday.

"Things get better, faster. And eventually, it's time to move from good enough to something much better."

Support for XP officially ends on 8 April 2014, when security patches and hotfixes for all versions will be canned for good.

Unsurprisingly, Rose took the opportunity to big up Windows 7, which Microsoft's Steve Ballmer separately announced yesterday had now reached 400 million licence sales worldwide since its retail release in October 2009. ®