People are getting pretty panicky with the end of support for Windows XP now just 24 hours away, but that doesn’t  have to be the case, so long as you have a spare few million dollars. And apparently, that’s what the Dutch government had, for it’s just followed the UK’s lead in signing a private agreement with Microsoft to receive custom support for its Windows XP machines, a rare privilege that’s going to cost it in the region of €6.8m and €8m euros (between $9.3m and $11m dollars).

The deal will cover between 34,000 and 40,000 of the Dutch government’s computers that are still running Windows XP (the exact number isn’t clear), and will ensure these machines continue to receive essential security updates for another 12 months, until April 2014, reports The Inquirer. The deal comes just days after the UK’s government ironed out its own arrangements with Microsoft, paying £5.48m for extended support until April 2015.

According to The Inquirer, Microsoft has set some pretty tough conditions for the deal, insisting the Dutch government commits to upgrading its PCs to a newer version of Windows within the next year – whether it’ll be to Windows 7 or Windows 8 wasn’t made clear in the report. It’s not clear if the UK was also subject to the same requirements, but we can assume that some sort of commitment was made.

Of the UK deal, a Microsoft spokesperson said:

“We have made an agreement with the Crown Commercial Service to provide eligible UK public sector organisations with the ability to download security updates to Windows XP, Office 2003 and Exchange 2003 for one year until April 8 2015. Agreements such as these do not remove the need to move off Windows XP as soon as possible.”

Scare tactics?

So the UK and the Dutch have solved their own concerns, but for much the rest of the world there’ll be no last minute reprieve. That’s the message being hammered home by Microsoft anyway, but today the company has been accused of overstepping the mark and irritating Windows XP users with annoying “pop ups” warning of the end of support every time they switch their machines on.

The warning apparently pops up on all XP machines running Microsoft Security Essentials, and warns users that support is about to end, directing them Microsoft’s website where they can learn about upgrading to a new OS. Stuff.co.nz, which first reported the news, was unable to confirm if it’s possible to disable these pop-ups, except for turning off Microsoft Security Essentials, but that could leave the machine even more vulnerable.

Stuff.co.nz reports that quite a few bloggers have labeled the pop-ups as ‘scareware’, part of Microsoft’s efforts to scare people into upgrading (and in all likelihood, buying a new computer running Windows 8).

Hit the road, Jack

In other news, and in what serves as a timely reminder of just how ancient XP really is, it’s been revealed that cars will finally be getting Windows. Yep, you read that right, though we’re not talking about the ones that can be wound up and down, but rather the operating system.

Getting Windows into cars is the natural evolution for an OS that’s migrated from desktop to mobile gadgets like smartphones and tablets, and looks not at all unlike Apple’s CarPlay, a method to project what’s on your phone screen directly onto a car’s infotainment system display.

Known as ‘Windows in the Car’, Microsoft’s latest Windows concept was unveiled at BUILD 2014 last week during a panel called “Windows and the Internet of Things”.

Microsoft’s connected car plans were discussed by Steve Teixeira, who said that the concept UI would look and feel a lot like Windows 8’s hated ‘Metro-tiley’ interface in order to keep a sense of uniformity. Just like Windows 8, users can pin apps and tasks to the car’s Start Screen, just as they do on their tablets and smartphones. Teixeira also revealed that developers would be encouraged to build apps specifically for Windows in the Car, together with a special marketplace for such apps, in the hopes that they will be encouraged to port existing apps into people’s vehicles.