windows xp

Features

• Windows XP: Pros and cons of not upgrading

  Windows XP users, your favorite operating system is a decade old, and if you're still using it, you're not cool anymore, at least according to Microsoft. That's the software giant's recent take on its aging OS, which is still more popular than Vista or Windows 7 worldwide. Microsoft is hoping the final cadre of users hanging on to XP will start to dump it and move to the more modern Windows 7.

• 2

  FAQ: How to upgrade XP to Windows 7

  If Microsoft wants Windows 7 to succeed, to do better than limp like Vista, it has to convince the majority of users to ditch their comfortable-as-an-old-shoe -- older than an old shoe, actually -- OS.

• A year after Windows XP's death, users keep it alive

  A year ago today, Microsoft pulled the plug on Windows XP, no longer selling new copies in most venues. The June 30 kill date for XP followed a six-month outcry from users about Windows Vista, with demands that Microsoft keep XP available alongside Vista for the many users who were frustrated by ease-of-use, compatibility, and retraining issues.

• Windows 7 alluring, but XP is the migration X factor

  Corporate migration to Windows 7 may be less about evaluating the new Microsoft operating system and more about how to properly gauge the correct time to get XP off client desktops.

• If Windows is a dead end, what's next?

  The writing is on the wall. Despite a major push to sell the much-maligned Windows Vista, customers aren't buying. Nearly two years after Vista's release, Windows XP remains the standard desktop OS in business, and Microsoft has extended its availability three times (currently to August 2009) due to customer demand. Microsoft itself forecasts just 2 percent growth in Vista sales in early 2009, after lackluster sales in 2008. And that's after forcing customers to buy Vista to get XP "downgrades."

• Worst Windows flaws of the past decade

  June 25, 1998, and June 30, 2008, marked two important milestones in Microsoft's evolution of the Windows OS -- the passing of the torch from Windows 95 to Windows 98, and the less seemly transition from XP to Vista.