Microsoft To Provide XP Patches Beyond Retirement If Custom Support Is Purchased

ZDNet reports that Microsoft will provide XP Patches beyond its retirement in April 2014, but only to a narrow group of high-paying business customers. The statement made by a Microsoft spokesperson was as follows:

“After April 8, 2014, Windows XP users will no longer receive new security updates, non-security hotfixes, free or paid assisted support options, or online technical content updates from Microsoft. Third parties may provide ongoing support, but it’s important to recognize that support will not address fixes and security patches in the core Windows kernel. If an organization continues to use Windows XP and purchases Custom Support,they will receive critical security updates as new threats are discovered, along with technical support through their Premier contract.”

What is key to note is that Microsoft will only dish out these custom patches to users with an active Premier Support agreement with Microsoft. These custom support contracts are nothing new and Microsoft did the same for many Windows XP SP2 users who were struggling to make the migration to XP SP3 after the end of support for Service Pack 2 in 2010. ZDNet notes that many users need to continue using Windows XP because they have written custom internal facing applications dependent on Windows XP and in some cases Internet Explorer 6. Others refuse to make the upgrade because they cannot afford to and in those cases purchasing custom support packages will be out of the question anyway.

Business and home users continuing to use Windows XP without custom support packages will have to rely on their anti-virus and firewall providers to maintain strong internet security.

Image courtesy of Microsoft