Official support ends April 7th, 2014, zombie support available at huge price

Windows XP, we hardly knew ye! Yet by this time next year, the adolescent operating system will be headed for the big Recycle Bin in the sky, thanks to Microsoft's planned obsolescence policy and the inevitable march of progress.

Introduced in 2001, XP was a big hit. But Microsoft will end support for XP on April 7th, 2014. That won't be the very end, however, as analyst firm Gartner says if you're happy to pay between $US200,000 and $500,000 a year for custom support Redmond will ensure XP has a pulse. Gartner does warn, however, that custom support “can as much as double [in price] from year to year as the product moves further away from the end of support.”