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Windows XP starts countdown to end-of-support on April 8

Beginning Saturday, Microsoft will start pop-up notifications to remind users that as of April 8 it will cease providing any kind of patches or fixes to Windows XP.

Mary Jo Foley
Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 30 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008). She also is the cohost of the "Windows Weekly" podcast on the TWiT network.
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Mary Jo Foley
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Microsoft's countdown page on Monday morning. Screenshot by CNET

Microsoft will begin notifying Windows XP users -- starting Saturday -- via pop-up notification that April 8 will mark the end of Microsoft support for Windows XP.

Windows XP users still running the Home or Professional versions of the product and who have been getting their updates to XP via Windows Update will get a notification on their desktop screen reminding them of the April 8 end-of-support date. Users can turn off the notifications via a check box. If they don't, they will be reminded on the 8th of every month until the notifications are disabled. The notification also will include a link to Microsoft's Windows XP End of Support web site.

Also this week, Microsoft is making available a free transfer tool, called PCmover Express for Windows XP, which copies users' files and settings from an PC to a new machine running Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1. The tool, developed by Laplink, will let users customize exactly what they want to move to a new Windows machine over their home or work networks.

PCmover Express will be available for download in English starting later this week on Windowsxp.com as well as French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish coming later in March and it will be available in Korean, Chinese, Russian, and Brazilian Portuguese after that. Users who don't want to wait for the tool to be released in their local languages can get Laplink's tool by downloading it from Microsoft's Download Center.

For Windows XP users wanting to transfer applications from their old computer that will work on newer versions of Windows, Laplink is also making available its software that migrates apps, PCmover Professional, for 60 percent off at $23.95.

April 8, 2014 is the day on which Microsoft will cease providing any kind of patches or fixes, including security fixes, to its nearly 13-year-old Windows XP operating system. Microsoft will continue to provide updates to its anti-malware signatures and Microsoft Security Essentials engine for Windows XP users through July 14, 2015.

Windows XP's usage share is still about 29 percent worldwide.

This story originally posted as "Microsoft to start nagging Windows XP users about April 8 end-of-support date" on ZDNet.