Support for Windows XP is ending soon

Many thanks to all of you who took the time to reply. Much to think about now.

Has anyone considered moving to Ubuntu or made the move (what was your experience). I've been told it's free and reliable. Appears to be a viable option to Windows.

I use "Linux Mint 16"  64bit  on my laptop. Great OS and it's Free and it has  Start Menus like earlier versions of Windows. It's Ubuntu based, but the Ubuntu Linux doesn't have a Start Menu like Linux Mint.

I am not on the Microsoft forums to help walk through migrating to Linux.  ;-)

You would need to choose your own distribution of Linux based off your own needs.  I gave the distributions of Linux that seem to be (in my estimation) the ones being most recommended for those wishing to make the move from Windows XP to something other than Windows XP without spending money on the operating system itself (although they may spend money elsewhere - that is seldom mentioned.)  Those are (no ORDER...) CrunchBang, Bodhi, Peppermint, Lubuntu or Zorin.  I believe all but one of those is based off Ubuntu.  One reason they may be making the list other than what I mentioned already: the assumption is that people still running Windows XP may have limited resources and those are "smaller" distributions of Linux for the most part.

So what you would need to do to switch to Linux (generally):

1. Figure out what distribution (sub-distribution) of Linux you want to run.  You'd have to do this either by trying them (most can run from a LiveCD type environment and all should be able to run in a virtual machine environment) or just make a call by visiting the web pages for each and researching them.
2. Make sure the hardware you have (mainly external - it'll *probably* work fine for internal components) has Linux drivers available and you understand where to get said drivers and how to install them.  You'll visit the manufacturer's web page for each of those components to figure that out.
3. Backup your data at the very least as the applications and such do not matter.  You are going to lose those.  However, it might be a good idea to image the system completely so you can go back to the starting point with Windows XP as is is now if everything doesn't work out with minimal effort.  That assumes you know how to make such an image and/or have software and resources to do that.
4. Install the chosen Linux distribution.  Install the drivers and such for the hardware and get everything working the way you want.
5. Install software.  Firefox should work fine.  Thunderbird too.  I'd personally suggest LibreOffice as opposed to OpenOffice - but that's a personal preference thing. hah
6. Use the system.  At that point, it's no different than before other than you may be limited somewhat as to what software you might want to run/use in comparison to before.

Now - could you continue running XP?  Sure.  It's a risk you have to decide whether or not is acceptable.  It is all but assured there will be a security issue found on Windows Vista/7/8/8.1 that gets patched that affects Windows XP, but after April 8, 2014, XP doesn't get that patch.  Not all security issues found require your interaction for them to get exploited - just for the machine to be connected to the Internet and someone trying to exploit it coming across it.  It may sound like a low-percentage possibility

• but it actually happens more often than most think.

You can lower the risks (mitigate them) with antivirus software, firewalls and/or just not using the system on the Internet.

Whether or not you could upgrade to Windows 7/8.1 - that'd be determined more by your hardware specifications and such than anything else in my mind.  Windows 7 would likely be what I would recommend (if the specifications of the system in mind are acceptable) and it would still be a clean installation for you - so almost as much trouble as switching to Linux in many ways since you still have to get drivers, install them, install all your software, etc.  The advantage would be that you are running an OS used by over 40% of all desktop OS users out there today and it will get patches automatically from Microsoft until sometime in 2020.  Businesses that make other software tend to make it for the larger market-share operating systems - naturally.

As for what the majority of other users of XP plan to do - who knows?  Of the ~29% of desktop OS users that are currently using Windows XP - likely a large majority of those systems are banks, hospitals, retail sales POS (point-of-sales) equipment, etc.  The banks - thousands of ATMs for example - are even going so far as negotiating additional support (extra year+) for Windows XP while they migrate - to what is unclear, although it looks like Windows 7 from most articles.  (Speaking strictly of XP Desktop - not XP Embedded; the latter has support until sometime in 2016.)

And the last question:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Why+is+life+complicated

*grin*

LCRT,

It's an old comment (almost two full weeks) - but it's wrong - so I'd like to correct it:

<snipped>XP hasn't been sold for the most part of a decade.</snipped>

Windows XP was being shipped to retail stores that ordered it until June 30, 2008.

Windows XP could be sold as a pre-installed operating system by OEMs until October 22, 2010.

It was March 2, 2014 when you made the comment about "most part of a decade".

Depending on your definitions of "most part of" (Greater than 50%?  Greater than 75%?  Greater than 90%?) it may or may not qualify if you restrict it to when Microsoft stopped shipping retail copies only to retail stores (maybe not so much for when retail stores ran out of stock, as the difference between Microsoft sending out their last possible shipment of retail licenses/CDs and the date you made your comment is 5 years, 8 months and three days, inclusive - and I would bet some still had stock for 8 months and four days after Microsoft shipped their last retail copy out.  ;-) ) 

As for when people could not get Windows XP pre-installed, I don't believe any definition of "most part of" would be less than 50% - so the 3 years, 4 months and 9 days, inclusive to the day you made your comment - that's less than "most part of" when it comes to a decade (10 years.)

Yes - Windows XP was still a viable option (pre-installed on machines) for one full year after Windows 7 was released to the public.

Want to know more about "End of Sales" for Microsoft products?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle#section_2

Hope that helps!