According to verification by the Microsoft official website, as the "shadow" of XP Pro, XP Home has today been forced into "retirement" following in the footsteps of its predecessors, Windows 98 and Windows 2000, making way for the upcoming release of Vista next month.
As a consumer-level product, XP Home has two distinct differences:
1. There is no extended support; instead, it directly transitions to online support after mainstream support ends.
2. After the release of the next generation operating system (referring to Vista here), it will not receive an additional 2 years of extended mainstream support. Thus, mainstream support for XP Home will end on December 31, 2006, and starting today, users will no longer receive services from Microsoft. As for non-security patches, users in need can visit Microsoft's "retired" product support website.
Starting today, XP Home users will be abandoned by Microsoft because they will no longer receive support such as security updates, a fact confirmed by a Microsoft spokesperson.
However, customers using XP Pro can still receive two years of extended support (until December 31, 2008).