One year left for Windows 7
Microsoft has announced that it will drop extended support for Windows 7 on 10 January 2023.
While home users have not been getting most of the updates to the operating system since 14 January 2020, the company has continued to offer critical patches and support to business customers through the paid-for Extended Security Update (ESU) programme.
Microsoft has confirmed that the ESU programme is set to come to an end in just over a year’s time, which means companies who still rely on legacy systems will have to upgrade to Windows 10 or Windows 11, or risk security vulnerabilities.
“For Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 7 Professional for Embedded Systems, the Extended Security Update (ESU) Program will be entering its third and final year of extended support beginning on 8 February 2022 and ending on 10 January 2023,” Microsoft stated.
Despite being more than 12 years old, Windows 7 still holds a respectable share of the market.
According to GlobalStats Statcounter, the operating system ran on 13.56% of Windows computers, while Statista puts the figure at 14.77%.
Despite its move away from Windows 7, Microsoft has still provided updates for general users for more serious security vulnerabilities outside of the support period.
However, this is the exception rather than the rule.
Microsoft also recently announced that the OneDrive app would stop syncing users’ personal files to the Microsoft cloud on Windows 7, 8, and 8.1, starting from 2 March 2022.
Users will still be able to access and upload their files on OneDrive for the web, but that adds quite a bit of effort to a process that was previously automatic.
For businesses, OneDrive support will be aligned with their Windows support lifecycle, which can last until 10 January 2023 if they opt to pay for the last year’s ESU programme.
Now read: Microsoft gives users 10 days to downgrade from Windows 11
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