XP's long reign over the hearts and minds of corporates will end on October 22 when Windows 7 is launched, predicts analysts Forester.

Soothsayers in Forester's tarot reading division have pulled the Death card for Windows XP on the corporate desktop. Forrester’s Benjamin Gray said that businesses needed refresh aging IT infrastructure. There was also a predicted end to XP support and getting copies of the operating system was becoming trickier.

Windows 7 had an XP mode which means that most of the software that businesses have will run on the new operating system. This will improve the OS's chance of getting adopted early. He predicts that within 18 months of Window's 7's release, or with the release of the first Windows 7 service pack, will crumble.

Forrester said that the top five Windows 7 features that IT professionals need to prepare for are DirectAccess, which promises to simplify connectivity for Mobile users, BranchCache, which promises to improve branch access networking, BitLocker and BitLocker To Go, which promise to secure the data on hard drives and removable USB thumb drives, AppLocker, which promises to deliver more granular control of user applications and federated search, which promises to simplify access to data across local and remote resources.