The horrible things to come for Windows XP on April 8th 2014

[Cowboy72A]

Windows XP is now more than 12 years old but according to data from Net Applications, it is still used on more than 31% of desktop and laptop computers around the world. Those tens of millions of PC users could be in for a very rude awakening next year once Microsoft cuts off support for the aged operating system. Microsoft itself even warned users of the imminent tsunami of viruses and other malware that will inevitably wash over XP stragglers once it stops issuing updates and fixes for the OS. Now, a recently discovered critical zero-day flaw has been acknowledged in a Microsoft support document that could cause serious problems for XP users.
“The vulnerability is an elevation of privilege vulnerability,” Microsoft said in a recent security advisory. “An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code in kernel mode. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full administrative rights.”
Microsoft confirmed that it is working on a fix for the flaw, but let this serve as a warning — after April 8th next year, critical flaws like this one (and worse) will go unfixed, thus leaving gaping holes in Windows XP that are just begging for malware to exploit them.

[khongquan2]

Metro haters beware: 2014 will be the end of new Windows 7 PCs
BGR.com By Brad Reed

If you’re looking to buy a new PC and you hate the idea of looking at Live Tiles, then you’d better get a new PC within the next year or so. As ZDNet points out, Microsoft has told its manufacturing partners that they can keep selling new Windows 7-based PCs through October 30th, 2014, which means that by this time next year every new PC that OEMs release will come preloaded with Windows 8. Microsoft has also announced that it’s officially stopped selling Windows 7 box copies at retail.

Windows 8 has had a bumpy ride over its first year as its growth has seemingly stalled and Windows 7 adoption is still growing at a faster pace than Windows 8 adoption. Of course, Microsoft may release a Windows 8.2 update sometime next year that will go even further in appeasing Metro UI haters than Windows 8.1 did so you may not need to scramble to scoop up the last remaining Windows 7 PCs after all.