14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft will stop providing support for Windows XP in April 2014, so users of the 11-year-old platform are constantly urged to make the move to a newer operating system.
The best choice, however, is Windows 8, said Pieter Uittenbogaard, marketing director in Microsoft's worldwide Windows marketing team.
In an interview with TechTarget, Uittenbogaard said that Microsoft does not expect to see recent Windows 7 adopters deploy Windows 8, but he recommends XP users to make the move to this particular OS and skip everything in between.
“We do think there is [added] value for customers running Windows 7 [to update to Windows 8, but] we don't expect customers who just moved to Windows 7 to forklift their whole infrastructure,” he said.
“If you're deploying Windows 7, then we think you should continue to deploy Windows 7. Now, if you're on Windows XP, you should just move to Windows 8 and skip everything in between.”