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With the clock ticking down until Windows XP goes end-of-life on April 8, Microsoft's dangling $50 gift cards to coax people into buying new PCs and fleeing the threat of perpetual zero-day attacks.

A new Microsoft Store offer entices holdouts with a $50 gift card, 90 days of free support, and free data transfer (using Laplink's software) to their new PC. The free support is par for the course for Microsoft, while the Laplink data transfer off is open to all Windows XP users, so the $50 is the only truly unique part of the offer. The deal, which has been going since the beginning of the month and noticed by The Next Web this weekend, persists until April 30.

The $50 gift card has a few strings attached, however. You'll only receive the bonus if you buy one of the 16 devices profiled on the offer page: There are four laptops, four tablets, four hybrids, and four all-in-ones to choose from, all running Windows 8.1. The simply superb Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet is the cheapest option, ringing in at $230, though the $50 discount can't be applied to the purchase of the new device; it's only good for future Microsoft Store purchases.

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A $50 gift card might not be as tempting to stubborn Windows XP lovers as a $50 discount might be, but it's a nice touch for folks already looking to jump ship from the soon-to-be-sunk operating system. And hey: Grabbing a new PC means never having to see Microsoft's annoying "Run from Windows XP!" pop-ups again.

Buying a new PC isn't the only option for Windows XP owners, though. If you don't have the cash or desire to buy a whole new PC but don't mind trying something new, these three free Linux operating systems make it easy to migrate from Windows XP and they work just fine on older hardware. And if you absolutely, positively can't break loose from the operating system—like, say, because you have a critical program that only works on Windows XP—be sure to check out PCWorld's guide to staying secure after the Windows XPocalypse hits.

Either way, you should be thinking about how you're going to get away from Windows XP: Sticking with the operating system past April 8 is a security risk. Every single bulletin in this month's Patch Tuesday touched Windows XP in some way, and after the OS goes end-of-life, those exploits will be wide-open "hit me!" signs for hungry hackers.

Source: PCWorld

 

Consider this also: many XPs I've installed during the years haven't been patched or updated with anything beyond SP3 and nobody complained to me about being hacked and I only had two cases of irreparable virus damage and those were really some hard core viruses. I had no such experiences on my personal computer, though. This talk about security and no support is just gibberish. Your OS is best secure with the nice choice of 3rd party apps anyway because Microsoft software is traditionally full of security holes. You think you're safer with Windows 7 or 8? The bigger the code, the bigger the amount of bugs and the bigger the holes. Stories for little kids or gullible and ignorant adult kids. The chance somebody will hack your computer is as big as a chance that a meteor will struck you while you're walking down the street.

The only thing I'm worried about is stupid software companies who will not make XP compatible programs and plugins any more so some software will stop working. But on the bright side that could mean a boost in creativity... if you get my drift. I've got 10x too much of everything anyway.

 

I agree with you SineWave but the fact of the matter is that presently the biggest targets are no longer the OS but 3rd party programs like Flash and Java. This is a big shift and I have to give Microsoft credit because they've really stepped up their game on the security front. For example none of the exploits that worked against Windows 7 work on 8, that's pretty impressive. I can tell you one thing the lack of UAC on XP is a big security hole because you can literally bring a computer to its knees with little effort. It even prompted me to send Microsoft a suggestion to either password protect the registry or require some approval before system changes are made.