Microsoft Stops Releasing Updates for SP2

The software giant 'Microsoft' has released a warning for enterprises using its Windows XP operating system Service Pack 2 to upgrade their systems as the company has decided to stop giving support services to the software. The enterprises using this operating system will not receive software updates from Windows.

The Service Pack 2 (SP2) will reach its end life on July 13, 2010 after which the company will stop releasing updates for SP2. According to the security experts, the Microsoft customer service will neither give support services, nor release updates and hot fixes for this service pack.

It is worth mentioning that IT services vendor Softchoice stated in its research report that almost 80% of enterprises surveyed might face the risk of security beach if they failed to upgrade their SP2 to SP3, as reported by NETWORKWORLD on June 22, 2010.

Softchoice data revealed that 46% of the computers had been using Microsoft Windows XP SP2. Besides, it was estimated that 77% of the enterprises had enough SP2 in their environment for immediate updates.

Moreover, the companies which have decided not to upgrade their systems from SP2 to SP3 could pose a serious security risk for themselves as the hackers look for loopholes after knowing that Microsoft would not release software updates.

This will lead to higher risk of computer spyware, virus and other malware, said the security experts.

Expressing his view on the issue, Dean Williams, Services Development Manager at Softchoice said that this was a red alert. Enterprises could not ignore this as they might have done earlier, as reported by COMPUTERWORLD on June 22, 2010.

Although Microsoft will not release update, it will provide a break-fix scheme to Windows XP SP2 users. This will provide a low level software support, but the scheme will not run for long time.

Ian Moulster, Windows Product Manager for Microsoft UK, Vista and XP, stated that users could migrate to XP SP3 or to the later version of Vista or they could select for Microsoft break-fix, a low level support, as reported by ITPROPORTAL on June 22, 2010.

Related article: Microsoft Patches Live OneCare to Tackle Quarantined E-Mails

» SPAMfighter News - 7/3/2010