Microsoft just dropped support for the most popular version of Windows

[JDDavis]

http://www.vox.com/2015/1/13/7537427/microsoft-windows-7-support-dropped

More than five years after its release, Windows 7 is still the most popular PC operating system on the planet; according to Net Applications, it's running on 56 percent of all PCs on the web. And today is the day Microsoft is officially dropping support for the software.

If you're running Windows 7, this doesn't mean that your PC is about to stop working. But it means that you'll no longer be able to call Microsoft to get free tech support. And Microsoft is going to stop adding new features to the operating system.

Microsoft will continue issuing security updates for the software for another five years. And during this time period, which Microsoft calls "extended support," you'll be able to purchase paid support if you want to.

Apologies if this has been posted previously, but I was shocked to read this.

For Windows users, I think Windows 7 is among the simplest and the best, much easier to learn and use than Windows 8, which is distracting and keeps wanting to sell me all sorts of other stuff, movies, music, etc.

[Paper Roses]

1. Money, Money!

Scare the dickens out of all of who use Windows 7. Maybe we will go off to buy a new computer!
Phooey on them. No money, no desire, no need for new and even more complicated machine.

This old timer will just plod along and see what happens. Does Microsoft not have enough money that they cannot continue to support those of us who have bought their machines with the expectation that they would not be disposable?

Built in obsolescence. Remember that phrase? Nuts.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. I just downloaded a bunch of updates for WinXP today ...

I thought that support had ended, too.

[hobbit709]

3. Microsoft help has always been pretty much useless.

[Sentath]

4. Well, yes and no.

They've stopped providing 'Mainstream Support' but will continue to provide up to date security support through January 14, 2020


For exact differences see part 6 of http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy

[mythology]

5. As others have noted, this is at the very least a deceptive article

Security updates will be provided for a long time into the future.

[ucrdem]

6. I have 8 and 7

on an HP desktop and laptop respectively and 8 seems a lot less troublesome. 7 isn't bad but every now and then it gets glitchy and needs to be tediously manicured. It also has trouble finding wifi signals in places my ipad finds them in a jiff. Hate using the ipad however. Anyway in my experience 8 plus the Classic Shell start button is better than Windows 7, although 8 by itself is terrible. For example the 8 search function sucks. I never really figured out how the older search interfaces were supposed to work, and finding old docs was always a chore, but the Windows 8 search is ridiculous. Not the Metro page one, which is okay, but the Windows Explorer one, which is just a huge piece of shit. But the Classic Shell search works better than any PC search I've ever used. So my conclusion is that Windows 7 is no great loss, and the guy who gives away Classic Shell could be a millionaire if he charged for it.

ETA: Windows 95 had a pretty good search function come to think of it, if you didn't mind waiting a few days for it to work, when it did . . .