So you’ve finally decided to take heed of the warnings and upgrade your old Windows XP PCs ? That’s great, but now you should start planning ditch Windows 7 too.

That’s the advice of research firm Gartner Inc., which has just said that in spite of Microsoft’s promise to support Windows 7 until 2020, firms should begin planning things now to ensure the transition goes smoothly. Stephen Kleynhans, Vice President of Research at Gartner, said companies should learn from the lessons of Windows XP’s phasing out.

“Microsoft recently ended support for Windows XP and even though the end date was set in 2007 based on a life cycle support policy Microsoft introduced in 2004, many organizations were not able to completely eliminate the OS by the deadline,” explained Kleynhans.

He added that around one quarter of enterprise PCs were still running Windows XP after the deadline, leaving IT firms struggling to work out how to secure them.

Kleynhans says organizations should begin planning their migration now. He adds that in many cases it might be possible to transition gradually, by switching to Windows 8 as PCs are upgraded or replaced in the coming years.

Microsoft will no doubt be delighted by Gartner’s report, which failed to mention that companies do have other options – such as running OS X or Linux operating systems instead. The PC market is still struggling in the new world of mobile devices, and any sales boost from migrating business customers would be most welcome by Redmond and PC vendors.

However, Kleyhans notes that for some customers, it might be better to skip past Windows 8 and wait for Windows 9, codenamed “Threshold”. That’s because “many organizations, especially those in industries with government oversight or compliance requirements, require applications to be officially supported by the independent software vendor (ISV) and/or go through validation processes to ensure compatibility,” says Kleyhans.

In other words, Gartner seems to be saying that the ‘golden rule’ of every other Windows release (Windows XP, Windows 7) being better than those inbetween Windows ME, Windows Vista, Windows 8) will also hold true for Windows 9 when it comes out next year.

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