Microsoft offers $100-discount on new PCs to shift users from Windows XP

Microsoft is reportedly offering a $100-discount if users bought a new PC and ditched the old Windows XP system.

The software giant has already announced end of support for its Windows XP OS on 8 April and is desperately providing consumers and businesses a chance to upgrade their systems, lest they became more vulnerable to malware.

According to Cnet, the company's 'discount on new PC was the latest trick to transition users from the decade-plus old operating system.

Users running XP on their PCs could upgrade it at the Microsoft Store, and get $ 100 dollars off, 90 days of free support, as also a 'free data transfer.'

According to Microsoft the offer came with a new PC or Surface device priced $ 599 or more and excluded Surface 2 and some PCs.

With support for XP set to end in April no security updates or technical support for the old operating system would be available from the company.

Meanwhile, according to experts, Microsoft's move was not surprising in the backdrop of the OS being still one of the most popular around, with roughly 30 per cent of all desktop computers worldwide still running it.

XP's popularity and widespread use was the most likely reason for the company to throw a lifeline to users, offering both antivirus signatures as also security scanning from Security Essentials to those not being being able to upgrade until 2015, they say.

According to experts, companies would be better off upgrading to a more recent OS at the earliest, even in cases where hardware upgrades were not an option.

They say though the software giant had offered extension of security support, the security model of Windows XP was outdated.

This would leave PCs running XP extremely vulnerable as any newly discovered flaws in Windows XP would no longer be fixed.

They say hackers had had much more time discovering flaws in XP than they would have had with a younger system, and businesses still using this OS needed to take this very seriously.

On the other had consumers tended to stick with what they knew in terms of user interface, and often sought to avoid software upgrade costs which were perceived as lacking palpable benefit. There would, however, be significant number of users sticking to XP for a long time.

IT directors and business owners could though choose the software and OS they considered the best for their business, but according to experts, the cost implications of a potential security breach should be considered and an upgrade to a more recent OS be carried out at the earliest.