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Source: Net Applications

Attention, Windows XP users: The clock is ticking. Microsoft will officially end support for Windows XP one year from today, on April 8, 2014.

This will mean no more security updates, fixes or paid support for computers still running the operating system. Despite being more than 11 years old, Windows XP remains very popular, running on nearly 39 percent of the world’s computers, according to the latest data from the Net Applications analytics company.

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Greener pastures? More than 11 years after its release, Windows XP is widely used on computers around the world, with one year of support left.

To put that in context, Windows XP’s market share not that much less than Windows 7 (at 45 percent) and a whole lot more than Windows 8 (at a little more than 3 percent) which of course just launched a few months ago.

Redmond startup Browsium, founded by Microsoft veterans, notes in a blog post that the pace of migrations away from Windows XP has slowed. The startup offers technology that helps companies upgrade to new versions of Windows and Internet Explorer while maintaining compatibility with their legacy internal web applications.

“We’re now at the last minute, with one year to go until these organizations are faced with two equally painful options – buy an expensive custom support agreement from Microsoft, or go without support and risk a major security or support crisis,” says Browsium in the post.

To mark the last year of support, Microsoft this morning announced an upgrade promotion for small and medium businesses currently running Windows XP to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro and Office 2013 at 15 percent discount.

Microsoft says in a blog post, “Businesses still running Windows XP are missing out on the tangible benefits of modernizing their IT investments from dramatically enhanced security, broad device choice to meet the needs of a mobile workforce, higher employee productivity and lower cost of ownership by future-proofing their IT investments.”

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