It means that there will be no more official security updates and bug¹ fixes for the operating system from Microsoft. 

 

Some governments have negotiated extended support contracts for the OS in a bid to keep users protected.

 

Security firms said anyone else using the 13-year-old software would be at increased risk of infection and compromise by cyber-thieves.

 

 

Statistics suggest 20-25% of all users have stuck with XP despite the fact that there have been three major releases of Windows since its debut² in 2001.

 

Some of those existing XP users have struck deals to get security fixes from Microsoft while they complete their migration³ away from the ageing code. 

 

The UK government has signed a £5.5m deal for extended support. Similarly the Dutch government has signed a "multi-million euro" deal to obtain help for the 40,000 PCs running XP used by the nation's civil servants. 

 

Anyone currently running Windows XP already faced a disproportionate risk of falling victim to malware, said Dave Emm, a senior research analyst⁴ at security firm Kaspersky.

 

"Our data indicates that less than one fifth of our customers run Windows XP but more than a quarter of infections are Windows XP-based," he said.

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