Today is the day. We’ve all known it was coming, but it has finally arrived. Yes, today is the day Microsoft finally ends all support for Windows XP, the stalwart OS that has been gracing home computers, and many other devices, since late 2001.

Well, not all. If you have embedded XP, which is used in everything from ATMs to POS terminals, support will last until 2016 for some versions, later for others, but that’s not you. You have good old regular XP, and Microsoft will no longer support it. So what does that mean?

It means no more security updates, no more bug fixes, no more enhancements or service packs or technical support or anything else. The XP you’re running now is the XP you will ALWAYS be running from here on out.

But what does *that* mean?

Depending on who you talk to, XP is still installed on anywhere from 20% of workplace machines to 46% of home PCs worldwide! The numbers tend to be all over the place with the business estimate the less variable of the two, but either way, that’s a lot. A whole lot. 500 million at least. And they’ll be immediately more vulnerable to crashing, viruses and other malware, as well as dwindling resources and options for fixing those problems.

If you’re still using XP, what can you do? The only real thing you can do is keep using it and accept it’s the equivalent of a digital petri dish, or upgrade your operating system. Even upgrading to Windows 7 is a huge improvement. Keep in mind that if you have hardware that runs XP well, it likely will *not* run a later version of the OS as swimmingly. It might be time for a full upgrade.