Windows XP was officially discontinued on April 8 after many months of warnings and recommendations, but it’s no surprise that so many people are disappointed with this decision.
Chinese state media, however, is so outraged with Windows XP’s retirement that it calls Microsoft “extremely irresponsible,” pointing out that the company “shows a lack of trustworthiness.”
The report was published by state-run news agency Xinhua and, according to Foreign Policy, claimed that Redmond’s decision to discontinue the operating system put China in a very “awkward position,” especially because “most of the operating systems are controlled by foreigners.”
Xinhua, on the other hand, claims that this critical moment for China’s IT industry is actually an opportunity to boost the market share of the domestic operating system, as the country could thus replace Windows XP with its very own platform that could be tweaked in such a way that it would better address the needs of Chinese users.
It’s estimated that 200 million computers in China are still running Windows XP even though end of support has come, but piracy also continues to be at record levels in the country.
Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in a statement last year that only 1 in 10 PCs running Windows XP were actually using a genuine copy of the operating system, so approximately 90 percent of all computers are relying on a pirated version of Windows.
Microsoft hasn’t obviously issued a comment on this, but the company has no reason to do it pretty much because Windows XP end of support happened all over the world and China is not the only country that blasts it for retiring this popular operating system. Instead, users should actually look into ways of keeping their data secure, as an unpatched vulnerability could allow hackers to get into their computers quite easily.
End of support doesn’t make any big difference for Chinese users, as many were already running pirated copies that weren’t receiving patches and security fixes via Windows Update. As a result, Windows XP’s demise doesn’t bring any changes to their computers, as the running software remains basically in the same state as before April 8.
Microsoft obviously warns that staying on Windows XP is a very risky thing, as the operating system has turned into a ticking bomb that could explode anytime. It all depends on how much time it takes for hackers to find a vulnerability in the operating system, it says.