Windows 10 may be Microsoft’s next big thing, but there are still some folks out there who thinks Windows XP is still the biggest thing ever. According to reports from CNN Money, the U.S Navy has been paying Microsoft $9 million a year to keep the legendary Windows XP operating system running legacy military systems despite of its end of support at April 8, 2014. In return, Microsoft has extended its support to the U.S Navy through June 8, 2017 while the latter is expected to complete its upgrades by July 12, 2016.
While there hasn’t been any specific military applications being mentioned on which is still running on Microsoft’s legacy operating system, the U.S Navy relies heavily on them and they cannot be simply migrated to the latest version of Windows due to how the application was being built around that time, and you really can’t blame them since Windows XP still consists of some Pre-x86 kernels and frameworks onboard.
Windows XP can be said as one of the best operating system in Microsoft’s portfolio and it isn’t really surprising to find some organisations using it despite Microsoft’s decision to end support. According to NetMarketShare, there around 14.6% of computers worldwide still running on Windows XP, and I’m pretty sure that a certain percentage applies to the U.S Navy, but its $9 million check certainly isn’t going to apply to everyone out there.
