Windows XP

The attack that hacked RSA Security's network earlier this year succeeded because the company failed to take a basic security precaution, a researcher said today.

Windows XP users, your favorite operating system is a decade old, and if you're still using it, you're not cool anymore, at least according to Microsoft. That's the software giant's recent take on its aging OS, which is still more popular than Vista or Windows 7 worldwide. Microsoft is hoping the final cadre of users hanging on to XP will start to dump it and move to the more modern Windows 7.

Microsoft's Windows XP lost an unprecedented amount of online usage share last month, according to Web metrics firm Net Applications.

The stubborn popularity of Windows XP is offering an easy target for the creators of rootkit malware, according to antivirus company Avast. Three quarters of all rootkits it found in a new study were on XP machines.

Although enterprises are in the midst of migrating more machines to Microsoft's Windows 7, the aged Windows XP still accounts for nearly 6-in-10 PCs in corporations, according to a recent report by research firm Forrester.

Windows 7's market share is expected to pass XP in the third quarter 2012, just when Windows 8 is expected to arrive.

Windows 7 has passed the 10-year-old Windows XP in U.S. usage share, according to data from an Irish Web analytics company.

Windows 7 cracked the 20% share mark last month, a milestone the problem-plagued Vista never reached, a Web measurement vendor said over the weekend.

Nearly half of the companies still using Windows XP plan to keep running the aged OS even after Microsoft withdraws its support in 2014, a research analyst said today.

There are a number of IT trends users will see in coming years, but one that's expected to rise to the top will be the need to migrate off Windows XP and Office 2003 as the end of support nears.

Windows 7 has been around for almost a year now, but lots of people are still sticking with Windows XP. Now, Microsoft is getting ready to pull the plug on Windows XP sales. No! Really! They mean it this time. Would they lie to you?

Security organizations today raised Internet threat levels to warn users that they expect widespread attacks using exploits of a just-acknowledged critical bug in all versions of Windows.