Larry Magid: Windows Ending Support for XP, Upgrade Suggested

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS)— This week marks the last day that Microsoft will offer support for its popular XP operating system. The company followed up XP with Vista, which got a fair share of bad reviews when it was introduced.

Tuesday, April 8th is the important date. If you have XP, you need to move on. Normally I don't buy into hype, but this is not hype. Once Microsoft stops supporting XP, it becomes a sitting duck for all the malware and viruses.

Unless you intend on taking your computer offline, I definitely would not run Windows XP after this date.

There's not only individuals who haven't upgraded, but companies as well. They don't want the hassle of re-training staff and they don't want to go to Windows 8, which also got a negative response when it was introduced.

The good news is you may be able to go to Windows 7 on the same machine. Some people are really going to have to buy a new computer because their current computer may not have the horsepower for even Windows 7, let alone 8.1.

I think version 7 is as good as, if not, better than XP. As far as 8 goes, I've had my qualms and reservations.