According to Microsoft, sales of PCs with XP pre-installed ended last year and sales of PCs with Vista pre-installed will end in October of this year.

All support of Windows XP Service Pack 2 ended last year, but XP's third service pack is on extended support until April 8, 2014. The program is not just a simple patch that adds Windows updates to your system, it is a complete packet of major improvements and tools like the firewall is better, powerful. Since Vista was never that popular, the bigger issue applies to users of Windows XP, still the most widely used version of Windows. Windows Service Pack 2 (sp2) is the official package from Microsoft that comes with the purpose of bettering the security and stability of your Windows XP program. Many Vista machines have the hardware necessary to upgrade to Windows 7, and this week Microsoft said any PC capable of running Windows 7 will be eligible for future upgrades to Windows 8. And still, Microsoft has released what seems to be the only Windows 7 Service Pack 2 replacement, the so-called Slow Boot Slow Login (SBSL) Hotfix Rollup for Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, a pack. A Vista machine, of course, can upgrade to the second Service Pack for free. Just because your software is out of date doesn't mean you need to buy a new computer.

The end-of-support dates follow published Microsoft policies and so are known months or even years in advance. Windows Vista users can also use Windows Update to update their PC to the latest service pack available which is Service Pack 2 (SP2).' In the Windows Team Blog, Microsoft said: 'We recommend folks look at upgrading to Windows 7, which is the fastest selling operating system in history, selling over 400 million licenses to-date.

Windows service pack 2