Why am I still getting updates for Windows 7?
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"I have a Windows 7 laptop and I'm still getting updates.
Why is that?"
Of course, we've talked a lot in recent
years, actually, of Windows 7 coming to its, quote, unquote, end of life.
But exactly what that means is important to understand because it actually reflects
on what happens when your machine goes out and looks for updates.
So Windows 7, end of support happened,
gosh, some time ago, years as I record this.
And yet I understand that there are many people still running Windows 7.
Windows 7 will continue to work,
just like Windows XP is still working for some people.
The catch is that what end of support
means is that there will be no further updates to the operating system itself.
Windows 7 is no longer supported.
Chances are what you're getting updates
for are things other than Windows 7 itself.
So let me take you to my Windows 7 machine.
Yep, I still have one too, and let's see what happens when we check for updates.
So those that are still using, Windows 7 will go to control panel.
And down here is Windows Update.
There's one already available for me without even checking.
I'm going to go ahead and check
for updates again because that number might actually change.
In a moment, we'll take a look at just
exactly what those updates are, and I think you'll see very quickly why we
might still be getting updates for Windows 7.
OK, it looks like the one update that was available to begin with is still the only
update that's available. But if Windows 7 is passed
end of support, why are there any updates at all?
Well, let's have a look and see what's available.
Microsoft Silverlight.
Well, that is not part of Windows 7.
It's an add on component that is
apparently still being revised, still being updated.
And more importantly,
the updates are still being delivered through Windows Update.
I'm going to go ahead and hit, OK, and let that installation proceed.
Yes, I accept the license terms.
You can see that it's still going through everything that we've become familiar
with with Windows Update, except it's not updating windows,
it's updating something else that was added to Windows 7 later.
And that's an important point,
because that is why you will still continue to see updates in Windows 7.
The most common update that honestly,
I'm surprised we didn't see here, Microsoft Security Essentials,
that if you remember way back when was the anti malware tool that we installed
in Windows 7 to be our antivirus and our anti spyware and our anti everything.
It wasn't part of Windows 7.
It wasn't built in to Windows 7.
It's a separate piece of software that Microsoft continues to support,
and it, too, delivers its updates through Windows Update.
So, like I said, I'm kind of surprised that it didn't show up here.
Perhaps when I do this again tomorrow, it will.
But the bottom line is by far the single most common update that you will continue
to see on Windows 7, for now at least, is Microsoft Security Essentials.
Now, there's more to it than that.
Obviously, we've just seen Silverlight get
updated on this machine, but there are other pieces of software
that potentially could get updated that you may have installed later.
They're all delivered through the same
mechanism, but they are not technically part of Windows 7 itself.
Windows 7 itself no longer supported.
But the things that you added to it potentially could be.
Now, there's one other confusing aspect to this in that you may remember at one
point you had the option of turning Windows Update into Microsoft Update.
What that would do is use the same update
mechanism to update not just Windows or pieces of windows that were added later,
but all of your Microsoft software, most notably Microsoft Office.
So if you've got Microsoft Office installed on this machine and it is still
a supported version of Microsoft Office, then you may find that through this same
Windows Microsoft Update mechanism, you will still be getting updates for your
supported version of office on your unsupported version of Windows.
It could happen and it will happen for a while.
Now, I do have to point out
that eventually it seems likely that those components,
be it Microsoft Security Essentials, be it Microsoft Office, be it Silverlight,
be it something else, they're all going to stop being supported someday.
And that means, of course,
that updates will simply stop arriving this way, but until that happens, yeah,
keep running Windows Update and keep taking the updates that are made available
because they are for things that are on your machine.
They may not be Microsoft Windows itself,
but they are important things like your anti-malware software, which is perhaps even
more important now that Windows 7 is no longer being supported.
Now, I do have to point out that there are
a couple of other things that we at least need to talk about.
And these are, I'll just call them,
unrelated pieces of software, software that don't get updated through
Microsoft Update or through Windows Update.
Again, this is going to vary dramatically,
depending on exactly what software you happen to be running.
Some of them will continue to be updated
as well for as long as they feel like supporting Windows 7.
And I know that that could be for some time.
Again, it depends on just how aggressively that software wants you to move to Windows
10 or not or how difficult it is for that software to continue to support
Windows 7 while still maintaining the new features.
I'm sure they're adding for Windows 10.
The bottom line is that all
of the software on your machine could potentially continue to be updated.
It's not Windows 7.
Windows 7 is not being updated.
But everything else that's on your machine
could potentially continue to be updated until some day when it's not.
For more information, for the article on which this video was based on, for
comments, for related links and more, visit askleo.com/135886.
I'm Leo Notenboom.
This is Askleo.com.