One year from today, on January 14, 2020, Microsoft will officially stop supporting Windows 7, the most popular version of the platform so far. Beyond that one fact, there are many questions, and the terrible previous experience of Microsoft’s repeated attempts at closing the door on Windows XP support.
“Every Windows product has a lifecycle,” the Microsoft support website notes. “The lifecycle begins when a product is released and ends when it’s no longer supported. Knowing key dates in this lifecycle helps you make informed decisions about when to update, upgrade or make other changes to your software.”
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From a support perspective, the key dates for Windows 7 are January 13, 2015, when the system ended its five-year mainstream support cycle, and January 14, 2020, when it exits extended support. As a legacy Windows OS, Windows 7 is governed by Microsoft’s old 10-year fixed lifecycle policy during which it could get feature updates during that mainstream support period; in reality, Windows 7 received only a single Service Pack, and it never really received any major new features.
Windows 7 is also impacted by Microsoft’s run-in with Intel over the “Skylake” generation of processors. As such, Windows 7 receives only “limited support” on Skylake and newer generation Intel and AMD processors, a move that Microsoft hoped would lead to improved Windows 10 adoption. That didn’t work, of course, and Windows 10 usage only very recently surpassed that of the 9-year-old Windows 7.
Which is why the next year is going to be so interesting.
As I wrote in Will Windows 7’s Exit Trigger a Windows 10 Upgrade Wave? (Premium), Windows 7’s user base is made up of individuals and businesses of all sizes, none of which seem particularly interested in upgrading. And based on history, especially what happened when Microsoft tried to retire Windows XP, Microsoft may find itself in a difficult position by January 2020.
It has already agreed to let its biggest business customers pay for additional support well beyond that January 14, 2020 date, and that support gets more expensive each year going forward. But that doesn’t help individuals or smaller businesses that are using PCs which, by most accounts, will continue working fine past that date, regardless of Microsoft’s semi-arbitrary support policies.
How Microsoft handles this will be interesting. With Windows XP, the firm had to extend support at least twice, and that system was officially supported for a record 12 years. Worse, Microsoft had to address emergency support requests, such as from the UK governmental health system, when their XP-based PCs were hacked years after support ended. Policies are one thing, but what else can you do when a government calls and pleads for help?
The situation with Windows 7 will be even worse, because there are far more PCs out in the world running this system now than was the case with XP when it was retired. In fact, there are over 600 million Windows 7 PCs being actively used right now. It’s unlikely that most of them will be replaced or retired within a year.
Offering free Windows 10 upgrades again won’t help: Most Windows 7 PCs are now several years old and are architecturally out of date, and more easily compromised by hackers. My advice to Microsoft is to adjust the Windows 10 support life cycle to entice upgraders. And while I don’t see a return to a fixed support policy of 10 years, there is surely some wiggle room in a scheme in which Microsoft now issues two major OS upgrades every single year, with little or no way to delay or ignore these upgrades.
What it does, Microsoft’s response to the real-world issues faced by several hundred million Windows 7 upgraders could emerge as the biggest Windows story of 2019. I suspect it will be something we return to again and again throughout the next year.
dontbe evil
<blockquote><em><a href="#396728">In reply to ghostrider:</a></em></blockquote><p>nothing, same thing was for win95->95, 98->xp, xp->vista, vista->7, 7->8…. </p><p><br></p><p>now let me ask you one thing, let's say you develop an OS and overall you spent 10.000$ (development, salaries, bills…), you sell 500 copies for 100$ = 50.000$ … you support it for 3 years, cost: 30.000$ … till now you earned 10.000$ . why you should keep supporting and pay for it?</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#396733">In reply to dontbe_evil:</a></em></blockquote><p>Your numbers are a bit contrived but what I would do as an ISV who would have very limited success, would be quite different than a large software company with many different products and a world-wide presence. The latter must consider how customers are treated with respect to one product impacts the success of the other products. </p><p><br></p><p>It's a bit like ride safety at a country fair vs a major theme park. The latter has a extensive reputation to uphold while a carny can just leave town if something goes wrong.</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#396792">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p>I already told you I was still on Snow Leopard.</p>
dontbe evil
<blockquote><em><a href="#396781">In reply to skane2600:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>of course, is just a fast and simple example, to give an idea … I hope I gave it</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#396819">In reply to AnOldAmigaUser:</a></em></blockquote><p>An OS is the foundation of a computer, a game is not. So the importance of support in each case isn't comparable.</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#396867">In reply to AnOldAmigaUser:</a></em></blockquote><p>What you said would make sense if the only thing you ever did on your Windows computer was to play that particular game. </p>
dontbe evil
<blockquote><em><a href="#396729">In reply to JustMe:</a></em></blockquote><p>nothing strange, till windows 7 windows had only service packs and not new features</p>
dontbe evil
<blockquote><em><a href="#396930">In reply to warren:</a></em></blockquote><p>yeah, overall, but still not a lot of new feature</p>
dontbe evil
<p>thanks and goodbye</p>
bharris
<p>Large customers have or will upgrade but for small businesses and home users, I think a large percentage do not understand the risk of running unpatched systems. Unfortunately, a lot of non-technical people think of their PC as an appliance and unless it isn't working, they just don't care about or want to change it. </p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#396744">In reply to jholbrook385:</a></em></blockquote><p>It's a matter of balance, but Ms essentially saying it's the user's problem is arguably why Windows 8 and subsequent releases were slow to be adopted.</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#396814">In reply to AnOldAmigaUser:</a></em></blockquote><p>Windows 8 was all about MS's agenda without much consideration of their customers. Windows 10 is largely a continuation of that agenda. Thus there is still an emphasis on Metro/Modern/UWP and live tiles.</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#396864">In reply to AnOldAmigaUser:</a></em></blockquote><p>I hate it when people comment using the template: "So are you saying <something we both know you never said>?"</p><p><br></p><p>You called Windows 8 a "debacle". It also ran most Win32 programs and didn't force everyone to use Metro/Modern apps. So I don't understand the distinction you're making. </p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#396760">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p>My last Mac Mini update was Snow Leopard because the subsequent releases weren't available for my (2nd?) generation device. Still Apple's decision however.</p><p><br></p><p>But the upgrade policy of other companies isn't really relevant to this issue. Nobody is going to say "We have issues using Windows 10, but it's OK because Apple isn't supporting Snow Leopard anymore".</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#396794">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p>I didn't express an opinion about customer respect with regard to either Microsoft or Apple. This discussion is specifically about Windows 7. If you want to start a forum post about Apple's support policies, I'll post my specific complaints about Mac Mini support there. And IMO, Microsoft's support policies would be likewise irrelevant to that discussion too.</p>
skane2600
<p>I suspect that extending the support of Windows 7 wouldn't be a significant burden on Microsoft since they haven't added new features for a long time. And they should realize based on their experience with retiring XP that lack of support isn't an effective motivator to get people to upgrade. I think they are just following an old policy out of inertia.</p><p><br></p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#396777">In reply to Informed:</a></em></blockquote><p>Nobody is suggesting that Microsoft be <em>forced </em>into supporting Windows 7. As I said in another post, what other companies do is irrelevant. </p>