It has been exactly nine months and 15 days since Microsoft had pulled the plug on Windows XP. Yet even before that, the security community was already (and continues to be) concerned. Looking at the statistics then, which I have listed a few below, it had a reason to be:

  • After informing Windows XP users about its inevitable end of life months in advance, 26 percent of them stayed with it even after April 8, 2014.
  • 95 percent of ATM machines were still running on Windows XP.
  • It was only by November of 2014 that Windows 8 and 8.1 began showing promising signs of market share progress.

We pulled out the latest market share numbers from StatCounter, which is the line chart below, and compared them with those we just mentioned to see any difference, and if there are any, how much has changed:

new-WinXP-23012015

So far, Windows 7 remains the most popular version among operating systems.

From 26 percent, the market for Windows XP dramatically dropped by 14.02 percent. At some point in November last year, the global share for Windows 8.1 users already surpassed that of XP’s by 0.26 percent.

StatCounter also revealed country-specific data, particularly for the US and UK markets, in a press release last December to show that 8.1 already overtook XP in October and April, respectively. It’s highly likely that this downward trend for the latter will continue in the succeeding months.

Aside from following suggestions we outlined in this post, we also encourage our readers who continue to use Windows XP to remain vigilant in exercising good computing practices. That means not clicking links and opening attachments in mails that may appear legitimate, not giving your personal information over insecure networks, not posting personal activities on social sites that may endanger lives or property, and not reusing passwords for online accounts.

Furthermore, it would also help you, dear Reader, to be aware of end-of-life cycles for your operating system. Links below are from Microsoft, which you may want to bookmark for future reference:

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