Windows XP: 798 days until Microsoft turns off the light

Windows XP has been largely absent from the news in the last year, sitting back while Windows 7 sold hundreds of millions of copies, and Windows 8 became a publicly known quantity. Given the age of Windows XP, you might think that it is very much a closed chapter; you would be wrong to do so.

Not only does XP remain the most popular operating system in the world, but it is also still supported by Microsoft, despite the fact that it was released some 10 years ago. The software commands some 46.52% of the global computing market. Windows 7 controls 36.99%, by comparison.

The party, however, does have an expiration date. Microsoft recently reminded the market that it will only support XP for so long. As of this morning, XP has 798 days left of official support. Microsoft wants companies and other users to get off their duffs and move to Windows 7: “It takes 18-24 months to plan for and deploy a new operating system. If you haven’t started planning to migrate your Windows XP PCs to a modern OS, or if your migration plan have stalled here are some great tools to help you.”

Microsoft has been pushing Windows 7 as the spiritual ancestor to Windows XP, even telling enterprise customers that they should move to 7, and not wait for Windows 8. The reason for this, so far as we can guess, is that the company needs to keep total Windows revenue strong, and that Windows 8 is a relative unknown, while Windows 7 is a strong, stable edition of the franchise; it’s safe to move the enterprise to Windows 7, but its successor might have flaws that have yet to be flushed out that could cause havoc at major corporations.

According to WolframAlpha, 798 days is two years and two months, or some 19,152 hours. The clock is ticking.