Microsoft To Punish Windows XP Holdouts With Doubled Support Costs

Microsoft is so keen to persuade Windows XP users to finally upgrade that it is doubling the support costs for the aging operating system. Despite XP being followed by three different iterations – Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 – many home and business users continue to rely on the 14-year-old software.

The per-PC price of Microsoft custom support agreements for enterprise users will rise to $400 (£249), double the previous fee. Though official Microsoft support for the OS ended on 8^th April 2014, 15.17% of the world’s PCs still run Windows XP.

Though Windows XP is still preferred by a significant number of users, the operating system is vulnerable to memory injection attacks, a problem that is not solvent for Microsoft to patch, considering its understandable focus on supporting its more current operating systems, especially with the release of Windows 10 on the horizon. Since there’s no practical way of making XP safe, Microsoft is making it as unattractive as possible not to upgrade.

Source: Daily Tech