When is Windows support ending?
Hi, everyone. Leo Notenboom here for askleo.com with an
answer for a question whose answer keeps changing
frequently and with some big news over the past couple of
weeks. Before we get into it, if you're not a patron of Ask
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experience when you're visiting askleo.com. So, So, when
does Windows support end? Well, there are a couple of very
simple answers depending on your version and then things
get complicated. For example, everything prior to Windows
version 8.1 is no longer supported. Windows 8.1,
it's support ends January the tenth of twenty
twenty-three. So, we've got about a year and a half left on
that one as of this recording. Windows ten is where it starts
to get complicated. Every feature release. In other
words, these half yearly updates. They're supported for
eighteen months. So, once a feature release is released,
you have 18 months and that one will be completely supported.
Now, within that eighteen months, there should be two if
not three newer feature releases that reset the clock.
So, you get a feature release, you 6 months later, get another
feature release and that resets your clock for another eighteen
months. You get another feature release 6 months later and
again, that resets the clock for 18 months worth of support.
If for some reason, you cannot update to the most recent
version or feature release, then, what you have will be
supported for only eighteen months. Now, on top of that,
Microsoft has announced that support for Windows ten, at
least the pro and home editions ends on October the fourteenth
to So, that's about four years, a little over 4 years from when
I'm recording this. That's lots of time. It also tells us if we
work 18 months backward from that date that the last feature
release for Windows 10 will be roughly April of twenty
twenty-four. So, Windows 10 definitely has a lot of life
left in it. It's not dead by any stretch but they did
announce Windows 11. Now, of course, Windows has no
formal end of support date for it. It's indefinitely
supported. Of course, certainly, there will be an end
date someday but they haven't told us what that's going to be
yet. What they have told us though is that the feature
release model is changing a little bit. Instead of
releasing a new feature release every six months, Windows
11 will go to an annual cycle. Once a year, there will
be a major release of Windows 11. That release will be
supported for 24 months or two years. So, for whatever feature
release you happen to have for Windows 11, you've got it
for twenty-four months. Again, within a year, you should have
another one that'll reset that twenty-four-month clock but
we're talking Windows 11 here. That's a long way off.
It's not something that the average consumer should really
be thinking about right now. It's the middle of 2021 as I
record this and we don't expect to see releases of Windows
11 until the end of the year at the earliest probably
further than that. So, focus instead on the Windows 10 end
of support dates. Make sure you get the feature releases as
they are released to extend the length of life of your Windows 10
as long as possible. Now, there is one question we also
need to answer and that is, what is end of support even
mean? I mean, Microsoft keeps telling us that we're gonna
stop supporting this, that, or the other version of Windows
but what does that really mean? Well, I'll put it this way.
Windows XP machines are still running. Windows seven machines
are still running. Windows of Vista machines are still
running. All of those machines that have the older versions of
Windows that are no longer supported, yeah, they're still
working. The difference is that they're not getting any update.
To the operating system. No bug fixes, no security fixes. So
for example, if a security vulnerability is discovered in
Windows seven, it's not gonna be fixed. It's gonna be up to
you to protect yourself from whatever that vulnerability
exposes you to. Now, the good news to extent here is that
this end of support is about the operating system. It's
about Windows itself. I get a lot of questions occasionally
that from people who are still running. Windows 7 for
example and Windows Update keeps running and in fact, it
keeps updating stuff. Well, the stuff that it's updating is not
Windows itself. Typically, it's other components from
Microsoft. Potentially office if you have opted in for that
but also Windows Defender or Microsoft Security Essentials
or Microsoft Security or Windows Security. Whatever
they're calling it on the version of Windows that you
happen to be Running, that's still getting updates. That is
still getting updates, getting up-to-date anti-malware
databases, getting up-to-date changes to the actual
anti-virus or anti-malware software. That too will end
someday, don't get me wrong but that is the kind of a thing
that continues to be updated even though the operating
system itself is no longer supported. It's something you
need to at least be aware of and understand if you are
running one of these no longer supported versions of Windows.
It's important to understand because you can either elect to
upgrade to one of the feature editions or one of the versions
of Windows that continues to be supported or you can keep
running your unsupported Windows. You just have to know
that it's unsupported and what that means and what that
typically means is you need to be extra careful. You need to
make sure your security software is still supported by
whatever vendor that may be and is still getting kept up to
date and that all of your software is still being kept up
to date and that you are basically practicing best
practices when you use your computer but that's all in the
support really needs. No more bug fixes. No more security
fixes. Everything else kinda sort of keeps working at least
for a while. Hope that was helpful. I hope that gives you
an idea of what to expect out of future versions of Windows
and compared to what you have on your right now. How long do
we expect that to keep working? For updates, for related
articles, for comments, and more, visit askleo.com/13845.
I'm Leo Notenboom. This is askleo.com. Thanks
for watching.