windows7 one of the most popular and
beloved operating systems of all time
ever since it was released about ten
years ago but all things must come to an
end and windows 7 extended support is
even going to be ending On January 14th
2020 it's gonna come a lot sooner than
you think so that begs the question is
it safe to use still doesn't make sense
to keep using it and I'm probably gonna
tell you the answer is no obviously in
the very short term before January of
next year but after that is going to be
very risky to you is very dangerous to
your computer so at this point we're
gonna talk about why you should think
about upgrading as soon as you can
- like Windows 10 or something like that
and also talk about more about the life
cycle of Windows in general so basically
every version of Windows typically gets
about 10 years of support you get 5
years of so-called mainstream support
which includes things like feature
updates design updates in addition to
bug fixes security updates that sort of
thing so that's when Microsoft is really
actively adding to and improving on the
operating system not just fixing things
wrong with it and then the next five
years after that is going to be extended
support which is basically just going to
be bug fixes and security updates no new
features or anything like that
now even though Windows 7 doesn't seem
like it's that old a lot of people still
do use it mainstream support for it did
and back in 2015 I think Microsoft
actually extended a little bit of
mainstream support for Windows 7 because
it was so popular but even now the
extended support is about to run out and
because it's not going to be getting any
security updates it's really critical
that you update to a newer version of
Windows before then I mean it's
absolutely devastating and very very bad
to use a version of Windows that is not
getting security updates that is a
hackers dream that you're using an old
version like that but wait up for a
second because even though officially
extended support for Windows 7 is going
to end in 2020 at the beginning actually
Microsoft is going to allow people to
pay to get an extra three years longer
of extended security
dates so they're still gonna be making
these security updates but you're only
gonna be able to access them for if you
pay for them and there's a couple
reasons for that we'll get to who
exactly that is for in a minute but
we'll talk a little bit about this
extension program so this is simply
called Windows 7 extended security
updates and like I said this will go
until 2023 so you get basically three
extra years however this is not going to
be cheap and the price is going to
depend on the addition of Windows you
have so if you have windows 7 pro it's
gonna be $50 for the first year and then
it's gonna double every year until 2023
so it's gonna be $50 then the next year
100 and then the next year $200 so if
you want to extend it out to 2023 that's
gonna be a total of $350 you'll have to
pay if you have Enterprise it's half the
price so it's gonna be $25 for the first
year 50 for the second and then $100 the
third year so that's gonna be a total of
175 dollars total
now this extended security updates
program is really not intended for
regular home users and that's why you
can't even get this option if you have a
home version as just for Pro and
enterprise and it's mostly intended for
businesses and that's because really
businesses especially big corporations
it's really hard to upgrade their entire
fleet of computers with a new version of
Windows people are using those computers
you know the downtime required to
upgrade will cost a lot of money you're
gonna have to train new users on the new
user interface even though you know you
and I might think that oh well it's
still Windows it's pretty easy to use
there's a lot of tech savvy people who
they are very very used to this version
of Windows and if you change any little
thing it's gonna mess them up so you
might have to retrain it and they're
gonna have like thousands of computers
they have to upgrade and that's gonna
just take time and also there might be
compatibility issues you might be using
some software that you've been using for
the past ten years and then if you
upgrade to a new version of Windows it
might break it for whatever reason maybe
it was poorly designed software or it's
just ancient and it they never released
a new version or something like that
there's a lot of business software that
is not as polished as you might think so
it's very very beneficial
to give businesses an extra three years
and say look you will give you some
extra time to switch over but you're
gonna have to pay for it and that kind
of incentivizes them alright it probably
is gonna be cheaper to upgrade then pay
like three hundred dollars per device
because this is a per device upgrade
system but how many people actually
still use Windows seven is it even that
many well it turns out yes there are a
lot of people so one website StatCounter
com does some analysis on this they have
basically analyze the information from
web browsers and they could see what
operating system people are using and
they saw that about 35% of all people in
the internet according to their stats at
least are using Windows 7 and it's about
like 53 percent or something that are
using Windows 10 so over 1/3 of people
are using a Windows 10 computer and
that's down only about 10 percent from
the previous year so only 10 percent of
people who are using Windows 7 upgraded
to Windows 10 so depending on how you
look at it I mean it's good because
Microsoft me that means Microsoft
released a really good version of
Windows but at the same time they're
gonna be stopping support for it so
that's very very bad that potentially a
third of all people will be extremely
vulnerable
I mean hackers are gonna be very very
excited to take advantage of this as
soon as bugs start being discovered for
Windows 7 after that period ends hackers
are gonna be jumping on that opportunity
because there's so many computers that
are not gonna be protected from them and
even when I look at the Google Analytics
for people who are watching my channel
in particular it's about 20% of people
are still using Windows 7 so I know a
good chunk of you are using Windows 7
I'm telling you you gotta upgrade and
another funny thing is if we look at the
usage of Windows 8 and 8.1 both of those
combined is only about 10 percent of the
market share of people using Windows so
it just shows how unpopular Windows 8
was I mean 30 percent or people are
using a version that was five years
older than that like no one uses 8 so is
it worth it to pay for these extended
security
dates and I would say it really depends
I'm not gonna say no definitely upgrade
I mean if you're willing to pay for it
whatever the first thing to keep in mind
is remember you can only do this if you
have a pro or Enterprise version of
Windows 7 and that's because you know
they're really only gonna be offering
this to people who are using it for
business purposes and there are more
legitimate reasons to keep it if you're
just using it for home use I mean
there's really no reason to keep using
Windows 7 if you do have Pro and you're
like well for 50 bucks whatever it's not
that much money it gives you an extra
year maybe to see if this computer holds
on or you're thinking well I don't want
to upgrade my computer and buy a new one
for another year then that also makes
sense just pay 50 bucks and then when
you do get a whole new computer spend
the money on it and then you'll
obviously not have to have an old
version the operating system that might
be worth it but after that unless you
have a really really good reason to keep
using Windows 7 it's just gonna get more
and more expensive and I mean paying at
the end of the lifecycle for two hundred
dollars just to use Windows 7 for an
extra year that's just stupid
now I know a lot of you are gonna be
thinking well I don't want to have to
pay to upgrade to Windows 10 you know I
missed the free upgrade period and now I
would have to pay well here's the secret
that is not necessarily true
you can apparently still get a free
upgrade to Windows 10 but Microsoft
really does not talk about this
technically Microsoft officially ended
the free upgrades to Windows 10 from
previous versions in about 2016 but if
you download the Windows 10 installation
media and you run that on an older
version and select upgrade this PC now
and you have a obviously genuine version
of Windows then apparently it will
activate that Windows 10 copy and not
make you pay for it and this has been at
least recently confirmed by lots of
articles users reporting that yeah this
still works I'm obviously not sure how
longer this is going to work so again
take advantage of it as soon as you can
but if you do think you want to upgrade
at least try it out and of course I'll
put the link to Microsoft's website that
has that installation media so you can
download it right
there of course that does kind of bring
up the question wait a minute why would
Microsoft offer this as a free upgrade
even though they say they aren't anymore
and the reason pretty much is the same
as for the reason they offered it for
free in the first place which is they
want as many people to use the latest
version of Windows as possible and
Microsoft at least believes that in the
long run this will actually make them
more money than it would selling the
upgrades and the reason for that is the
more people using the latest version of
Windows the more incentive there is for
software developers to develop more
software on Windows as opposed to like
Mac or something like that and because
these developers are making all this new
great software that's best compatible
with Windows 10 again that's more
incentive for users to choose to use a
Windows computer than for Mac and also
Microsoft will get some additional money
from people using services built into
Windows like from onedrive and Microsoft
Office their subscription service now so
the more people that use Windows 10 they
are easier to monetize in general now
why does Microsoft not tell you that you
can still upgrade for free at least at
this point and the reason is probably
because they didn't want to piss off
computer manufacturers like OMS of
original equipment manufacturers because
think of it this way if you're like HP
or Dell or something like that
making new computers for people to buy
and all these customers are saying why
would I buy a new computer I can get a
free upgrade to Windows 10 then you're
gonna sell a lot less computers because
people are just gonna be upgrading so
it's kind of like a balance Microsoft is
like all right we'll let people upgrade
for free for a while and then after that
point
hopefully they'll probably just start
buying new computers from you guys again
and that also kind of explains why they
still might be allowing you to upgrade
to Windows 10 for free without telling
you about it it's like it's not gonna
hurt them to allow people to upgrade to
Windows 10 for free but just because
they're not telling people about it that
means it's not going to hurt
manufacturing sales so obviously I'm
going to urge you guys if you're still
using Windows 7 or even 8.1 at this
point you may as well upgrade to Windows
10 I mean it really is a great operating
system they they improve it every six
months although I wouldn't recommend
installing the feature
dates every six months as soon as they
come out because sometimes those can
cause issues but obviously always
install security updates right away
so that's another reason I would suggest
if you can afford it to definitely get
Windows 10 Pro you get a few extra
features but the big one is that you can
delay feature updates in Windows and
delay them for like a long time
potentially and the benefit of that is
that even though Microsoft has been
updating windows with feature updates
every six months big updates they kind
of release these without doing a lot of
testing which really sucks
there's been a lot of braking issues
when people install Windows 10 new
updates I mean we saw that issue where
it was deleting some people's files
that's obviously not good
so with Windows 10 Pro you actually in
the settings have an option to delay
them I have it for like 60 days that way
you still get the updates eventually but
it's when all the kinks are worked out
and of course you still get the security
updates which are essential to get right
away you do get those right away
so there's not much more to say other
than to super simply answer the question
is Windows 7 still safe to use like I
said yeah but only for a little while
and then it'll be extremely unsafe to
use so it's not like it's gonna
gradually be getting less safe it's
gonna be like immediate so definitely
upgrade as soon as you get the chance
now is about that time thanks for
watching guys if you want you can watch
some other videos I have on here just
click on those and I make a couple new
videos a week so it should be worth it
to subscribe so thanks again guys for
watching be seeing you