Dell to end shipping of Windows XP systems
By siliconindia   |   Friday, 10 September 2010, 22:17 IST   |    1 Comments
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Dell to end shipping of Windows XP systems
Bangalore: Abiding by the Microsoft's guideline which bars OEMs from shipping any PCs with Windows XP Professional or XP Home after October 22, 2010, Dell has announced its decision to stop shipping Windows XP systems. According to Dell, it will stop offering XP as a OEM or downgrade option on its PCs beginning this month in preparation for the termination of all consumer licensing agreements for XP by Microsoft. Dell is advising customers who need to use XP for any reason to run XP Mode in Windows 7 Professional if required. Microsoft's Windows customer support blog has also advised customers that Windows XP SP2 support officially ended on July 13, 2010; however, support for Windows XP SP3 will continue through to April 2014. "Per Microsoft guidelines regarding Windows XP, system vendors like Dell will no longer be able to ship systems with XP Professional and XP Home after October 22, 2010," states a company blog post. "This means that we will stop offering XP as an option for customers starting this month in preparation for next month's deadline. One other important thing to note is that Dell plans to continue Windows XP driver support until December 2012," the post adds. In addition to simply migrating customers to Windows 7, IT administrators also have the option of using Custom Factory Integration (CFI) services to load XP images onto corporate machines, Dell said. After the deadline expires, Dell's CFI service will be the only means by which Windows XP systems will be available to qualified customers.