While Microsoft plans to keep supporting its free Security Essentials program with new signatures for Windows XP users until July 2015, the company may be planning to inform XP owners that support for the OS itself is ending soon.
ZDNet reports that Windows XP users who have downloaded and installed the pre-release version of Microsoft Securuty Essentials 4.5 have seen the following message while running the program:
Support for this operating system is ending. When this occurs Microsoft Security Essentials Prerelease will no longer be supported and your PC might be unprotected.
While the pre-release version of 4.5 officially does not support Windows XP, a spokesperson for Microsoft did tell ZDNet that "Windows XP customers already running Microsoft Security Essentials will receive version 4.5 when it ships." That could mean those users will also receive similar messages when support for Windows XP ends on April 8th. Neowin has contacted Microsoft to get more information on this matter.
Microsoft has confirmed that Windows XP owners will soon see a message on their desktop informing them of the support shut down date. It will also release a free transfer application to move files and settings from an XP machine to a PC with a more recent version of Windows.
Source: ZDNet | Image via ZDNet