Technical: Microsoft killing free XP support next week

ICU : Microsoft killing free XP support next week

Office 2003 on chopping block too

By Austin Modine in San Francisco

7th April 2009

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/07/microsoft_xp_free_support_ends_april/

 

Microsoft will drop free support for handful of aging products next week, including consumer versions of Windows XP and Office 2003.

 

On April 14, the Redmond giant ends "mainstream" support for Office 2003 in addition to Windows XP Home and Professional. This means the software will no longer include no-charge incident support, warranty claims, design changes, and bug fixes not related to security.

 

After next week, consumer XP and Office 2003 will be put into an "extended support" phase, which means customers will need to pay for Microsoft assistance on a per-incident, per hour, or alternative basis.

 

Security updates will still be provided for free for Office 2003 and XP Home and Professional until August 4, 2014. After that, the software is retired and users are on their own.

 

Customers can still get non-security critical fixes if they've enrolled in Microsoft's Extended Hotfix Support program. However, they must purchase the Hotfix agreement within 90 days of mainstream support ending - so it's rather late for that now.

 

On April 14, Microsoft is also "retiring" Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, meaning it will no longer provide support for the release. In other words, time to upgrade to SP2.

 

Mainstream support for Exchange Server 2003 Standard and Enterprise edition will also end April 14. Extended support dies April 8, 2014.

 

 

Best Regards,

chirag gandhi