Windows XP End Of Support

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As of April 8, 2014, support and updates for Windows XP are no longer available, this means that technical assistance for Windows XP is no longer available, including automatic updates that help protect your computers operating system to fix bugs and patch any security flaws that can be exploited.

Please note that support for Office 2003 also ended on April 8, 2014.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows/end-support-help

Microsoft has also stopped providing Microsoft Security Essentials for download on Windows XP if you already have Security Essentials installed on your computer, antimalware signature updates will continue to be released for a limited time, although this does not mean that your computer will be secure due to the fact that Microsoft is no longer providing security updates for the Windows XP operating system or Office 2003.

Install Linux Ubuntu And Stay Protected

If you are running Windows XP on an older computer that does not have the resources to run a newer version of Windows preferably Windows 7 there is no need to buy a new computer, you can install a Linux operating system on the computer such as Ubuntu whether it is a desktop or laptop.

If the computer has limited resources there are also light weight flavours of Linux such as Linux Puppy which is designed specifically for netbooks and older computers with limited resources.

You can even boot Ubuntu from a DVD or USB drive to try it before you install it, the graphic user interface is similar to the Windows operating system and you get access to a heap of free software for basically any task you wish to perform, if you need to work with spread sheets or create documents you have the Open Office suite and for graphics there is the Gimp for pixel art and image manipulation and Ink for vector graphics.

If you really need to run any flavour of XP because the application software you need to use won’t run on later versions, the only way to run XP would be as a virtual machine which would mean the operating system would be sandboxed.

You can find more information about Ubuntu and downloads here www.ubuntu.com/desktop/features

If you wish to install Ubuntu download the LTS version for extended support, which is more stable, select the appropriate OS type 32 bit or 64 bit depending upon your computers resources, if you are not sure if your operating system is 32 or 64 bit open the Start menu, right click on My Computer to open a contextual menu and then left click on the menu item marked Properties.

This will open a new window containing information about your operating system and hardware, look under the heading System and you will find the operating system type, once you select the correct type, download the ISO image of the operating system, you will then need to burn the ISO to a DVD to create a bootable disk which you can then use to try and install the OS on your computer.

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