2014-02-20 - IS&T Recommends Windows XP Users Upgrade to Windows 7 or Windows 8

Subject: IS&T Recommends Windows XP Users Upgrade to Windows 7 or Windows 8

To: itpartners; ist-all
Cc: Andrew Munchbach
Reply-to: security@mit.edu

Date: 2014-02-20

Good Afternoon,

Information Systems and Technology (IS&T) would like to remind Windows XP users that, effective April 8, 2014, Microsoft will end all support for Windows XP.

Failure to upgrade from Windows XP will result in an operating system that is vulnerable, in perpetuity, to all exploits and malware discovered (or disclosed) after April 8, 2014. IS&T and Microsoft recommend that all Windows XP users migrate to Windows 7 or Windows 8 as soon as possible.

Based on a sampling of machines, IS&T has determined that nearly 9% of users running a Windows-based operating system are still leveraging Windows XP. You DO NOT want to be a member of this population on April 8th.

As a reminder, IS&T offers both Windows 7 and Windows 8 to members of the MIT community free of charge (http://ist.mit.edu/windows).

More information about Microsoft's decision to retire Windows XP can be found here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/end-support-help

Those that need assistance migrating from Windows XP should contact their local IT support liaison or the IS&T Help Desk (http://ist.mit.edu/help).

A copy of this notice can be found in The Knowledge Base:

Regards,
Andrew Munchbach
–
Andrew Munchbach
Network Security Analyst
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
IS&T | Operations & Infrastructure | Security Operations
security@mit.edu

http://ist.mit.edu/secure