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Microsoft revs dump-XP campaign, says 'time to move on'

July 12, 2011 06:41 AM ET

Unmentioned Monday -- for some time, actually -- was Windows Vista, the hapless 2007 version that has been called Microsoft's first OS failure since 2000's Windows Millennium. Customers agree: Vista peaked at just under 19% in October 2009 but has lost about half its share since.

Instead, Reller talked up not just Windows 7 as the replacement for XP, but its successor, Windows 8, as well, which is widely expected to ship next year.

While Reller encouraged corporate customers to continue deploying Windows 7, she promised that Windows 8 would run on the same hardware.

"For our business customers, your customers," she said, speaking to the partners at WPC, "this is an important element, because the ability of Windows 8 to run on Windows 7 devices ensures that the hardware investments that these customers are making today will be able to take advantage of Windows 8 in the future."

While neither Reller nor Ballmer mentioned Windows 7's life cycle, the company will push consumers now running Windows 7 to upgrade to Windows 8 too. According to Microsoft's longstanding practice, it will support Windows 7 Home Premium, the most popular edition for consumers, for five years, half the time slated for enterprise support.

Windows 7 Home Premium will be retired from security support in January 2015.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at Twitter @gkeizer or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed Keizer RSS. His e-mail address is gkeizer@computerworld.com.

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