Taken from CRN Canada, September 2010 Edition

In the last few months, Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista RTM, Windows 2000 Professional and Windows Server 2000 all reached the end of their support lifecycles – this means there will be no further security updates, patches, or hotfixes for these releases.

Microsoft strongly recommends that customers still running these legacy operating systems migrate to the latest versions or a supported service pack. in order to continue receiving security and hotfix updates and product support.  Not doing so leaves PCs and servers at risk.

For most organizations, a desktop OS migration can impact and-users, the applications and hardware they rely on to be productive, and the back-end IT infrastructure supporting operations.  This is an important decision for Canadian organizations that need to maintain secure environments, and it is a process in which partners can play a key role.

Organizations have a number of options, and it’s vital that they understand that not choosing to migrate to a supported OS could lead to problems down the road.  Businesses that continue to use older, unsupported operating systems may incur unforseen costs related to mounting technical support issues.  To avoid this, and ensure their PCs remain secure and operate a peak performance, they need to take action.