Google is phasing out the internal use of Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows operating system because of security concerns, according to several Google employees.

The directive to move to other operating systems began in earnest in January, after Google’s Chinese operations were hacked, and could effectively end the use of Windows at Google, which employs more than 10,000 workers internationally.“We’re not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort,” said one Google employee.

Microsoft has revealed that its latest round of patches won't install on XP machines if they're infected with a rootkit.

Back in February, a security patch left some XP users complaining of endless reboots and Blue Screens of Death. An investigation followed and Microsoft discovered the problems occurred on machines infected with the Alureon rootkit, which interacted badly with patch KB977165 for the Windows kernel.

Microsoft on Thursday confirmed that the blue screen of death issues that affected a slew of users after the latest batch of Patch Tuesday updates is the result of an existing infection by the Alureon rootkit.

There was widespread speculation after the patch release that simply installing the MS10-015 update was causing the BSOD condition on some Windows 32-bit machines. However, Microsoft said at the time this was not the case and started an investigation into the problem.