Java support for Windows XP Ends This July 2014

Oracle has ended support for the Java platform running on Windows XP, and has advised customers continuing use of the product will be “at their own risk”.

Windows XP hold-outs pay attention. If you run the Java runtime on XP, it looks as if the current version is about as good as it gets. The next version, 7u65 and 8u11, due to ship in the middle of July, will not support or run on XP.

The next versions of Java 7 and Java 8 plug ins, 7u65 and 8u11, which are due for general availability later this month, will not support Windows XP.
Oracle confirmed the cessation of support on its FAQ support site, and referenced its third party support terms as the basis for the cancellation.

“Microsoft stopped supporting Windows XP and therefore it is no longer an officially supported platform."

Windows XP users are unable to install Java 8 on their systems without receiving error messages, and are being asked to upgrade to Windows Vista or later to install the product.

According to Danish security firm Heimdal, which first noticed the issue after being tipped off by partners, XP users will be able to download and install the new version of Java but it won't load correctly. Oddly, when the firm tried to confirm this with Oracle it got no reply.

Techworld asked Oracle for a comment and was met with a similarly chilly silence. It seems that the firm has made its position as clear as it wants to and that's the end of the matter.

"Windows XP still accounts for approximately 20 percent of the PC's in use, according to global market data. Of those XP users some 82 percent also use Oracle Java according to our intelligence.

This means that millions of PC users, who still run Microsoft XP, are being left in the dark with a piece of software that is known to be very vulnerable," said Heimdal's CEO, Morten Kjaersgaard.

Java had experienced 131 CVE reports in 2013, more than in XP itself, meaning that running Java on the latest version (Java 7 update 60, 7 June) represented a huge risk going forward, he said.
"This is a huge security problem."

Given that vulnerabilities for this version will accumulate over time, XP users determined to continue using Java should disable and then de-install all versions on their computers as soon as possible.