Microsoft is ending Windows 7 support one year from today

Today is an important date to note for Windows 7 users, because in exactly a year’s time, on January 14, 2020, all support for the operating system will cease, meaning that Microsoft will no longer deliver updates or critical security patches.

In other words, you’ve only got a year left before you need to consider moving to Windows 10 (or some manner of alternative).

Mainstream support for Windows 7 ended back in January 2015, but extended support, whereby Microsoft continues to deliver updates and fixes any vulnerabilities in the OS, runs for a further five years. So as mentioned, that means it all comes to a grinding halt in January 2020.

At that point, if holes are found in the OS which allow exploits to be leveraged by malicious types, there won’t be any patches provided, so you will continue to use the operating system at your own risk.

Of course, when it comes to businesses, they will be able to negotiate for extended support to continue – but companies will have to pay for the privilege.

Forced migration

All in all, this should mean that Windows 10 adoption will increase further next year, as many of those who have stuck with Windows 7 are forced to migrate. Unless the diehard holdouts choose an alternative path such as one of the many flavors of Linux, or simply stick with unsupported Windows 7, a choice many Windows XP users made (and still do, even to this day).

Windows 7 has remained popular in many quarters, and indeed Windows 10 only overtook the old OS this month according to one set of figures that measures desktop operating system market share.

Windows 8 is next on the chopping block, of course, and extended support for that flavor of Windows will cease come January 2023. The Microsoft Store has already stopped accepting apps for Windows 8/8.1 from developers.