In under a month the ongoing support for Windows XP will be coming to an end (April 8, 2014). Microsoft has finally stopped supporting a product that came out in October 2001. While no new computer has come with XP in years, there is a strong chance somewhere in your Church a computer is still running it.
Much has been made of the fact that there is no way to upgrade these computers to version 7 or 8 without loosing all your data. At a first glance it seems absurd that they would not design the software to upgrade to the newest version. After all don’t they want to sell us those versions! Of course they do, but there is an issue.
If we could transport ourselves back 12 years to the release of XP our world would be different. We would all have those amazing Nokia brick phones instead of our sexy smart phones, there is no such thing as a flat panel tv, and the internet was just starting to get interesting. This was 2 years before the first blackberry came out.
Since 2001 technology has made major progress, and here in lies the problem with these old computers. They do not have the internal power to keep up with the software running in 2014.
Why it is important to Upgrade
When support ends for XP there will be no more security fixes, or correcting of issues that could crash your computer (bugs). It is amazing that they have supported XP for as long as they have. For comparison Apple recently revealed they would no longer support version 10.6 that only came out in 2009.
Moving into the Future
On the bright side, a good laptop or desktop computer has never been more affordable. Along with the growing presence of cloud platforms, like Fresh Vine, these upgrades far more seamless. You no longer need to worry if your applications will work on the new computer; you just open your browser.
Part of the magic of these services is that they are responsible for upgrades to keep your data online and active. We’ve gone through several major operating system upgrades, and countless minor patches, fixes, and upgrades to our servers. We did it to keep your data secure, safe, and accessible.
Photo Credit: Robert S. Donovan
