IT bods: Windows XP, we WON'T leave you. Migrate? Chuh! As if...

Die-hard XP admins just won't let go, reveals survey

It's not going to be easy to pry open the death grip of IT bods on the last copies of Windows XP, according to Spiceworks, whose survey had a whopping 33 per cent of tech professionals planning to keep the OS on at least one device after its end of life.

The social business network for IT pros, much beloved of sysadmins, quizzed over 1,300 of its users on how they were going to get over XP and found that 76 per cent of them were still running the operating system on some devices today and 36 per cent would be keeping at least one copy around.

Any movement so far in migration has been to Windows 7 rather than 8 or 8.1, with 96 per cent of those surveyed running a copy of the 7 OS on their network somewhere, compared to 42 per cent using Windows 8 or 8.1 somewhere and 30 per cent using Apple's OS X.

Half of the tech bods that still have XP running on company desktops or laptops will be upgrading at least some of their devices to Windows 7, but only seven per cent are planning a switch to Windows 8 or 8.1.

Companies won't be able to hang onto the past much longer, however, since the OS is nearing the end of its life.

“Organisations currently maintaining PCs on Windows XP need to understand that they will put their networks and data at high and increasing risk if they continue to use it after Microsoft discontinues support in April,” said Scott DeTota, senior director of product and partner management at IT firm CDW, which sponsored the research.

Of the folks hanging onto XP for dear life, over half said they hadn't made the switch because of a lack of budget, 39 per cent said they didn't have the time and 31 per cent said they didn't have the resources. Three-quarters of the respondents are feeling pretty good about their migration plans, but the rest are feeling "not very" or "not at all" confident. ®