Microsoft, after officially retiring Windows XP back in April, has decided in its infinite wisdom to issue a patch for the Internet Explorer zero-day vulnerability that affected all versions of IE across Windows XP, Vista, 7, and 8. While this might seem like the right thing to do, it's actually a huge mistake that undercuts Microsoft's efforts to get the hundreds of millions of Windows XP holdouts to upgrade. After all, if Microsoft fixed this bug in Windows XP, who's to say it won't do it again? IT admins, faced with the harsh reality of finally having to upgrade to a modern operating system, will sleep well tonight knowing that Microsoft is a push over and will continue to support XP while it has a significant number of users. The status quo is preserved.