News 

The change will provide an additional five years of support for users of the OS who will not be upgrading any time soon, up to 2016, and it matches the support policy already provided for Windows XP Professional.

Essentially, Microsoft is ensuring that all consumer users of XP will continue to get security patches, long after its new, shiny cousin, Windows Vista, has been rolled out.

'Mainstream Support' expires April 2009, but 'Extended Support' now adds another

ADVERTISEMENT

five years. While the Extended Support includes security updates it does not include any warranty claims, non-security hot-fixes or design changes - though what design changes Microsoft would be introducing to Windows XP Home by 2009 is hard to imagine.

Essentially, Microsoft is often attacked over the weakness of Windows security and the prospect that a section of its user base remained unpatched - sitting targets for ever evolving worm and malware attacks - is not a desirable prospect.

'Microsoft has listened to customer feedback and realized that providing security patches for Windows XP Professional and not extending that support to the XP Home and XP Media Center Editions was not a consistent approach,' a company spokesperson told us. 'Therefore Microsoft is currently making the change for Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Media Center Edition only.'

You can read a FAQ on the Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy on the company's website.