End Of The Road For Windows 7 Security Updates: ‘It’s About Time’
Security News
Kyle Alspach
With Microsoft closing the book on Windows 7 bug fixes, one solution provider says we’re unlikely to see history repeat itself with the shift from Windows 10 to 11.
At long last, we’ve reached the end of the line with Windows 7.
On Tuesday, Microsoft cut the cord on security updates for the long-persevering operating system, which was hugely popular with many businesses in its day — and for some users, up through the present day.
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While the official end of support date for Windows 7 arrived back in January 2020, Microsoft had consented to continue offering Windows 7 security updates to businesses willing to pay for them. (Microsoft understands that “everyone is at a different point in the upgrade process,” wrote Jared Spataro, corporate vice president for Microsoft 365, in a blog post in 2019.)
Those “extended” Windows 7 security updates, however, came to a close on Tuesday. That gave Windows 7, which launched in the fall of 2009, a more than 13-year run.
As much as many businesses relied on Windows 7, “it’s about time” that the operating system reach its finale, said Luis Alvarez, president and CEO of Salinas, Calif.-based Alvarez Technology Group.
“In so many ways [the extended security updates] were a false sense of security for a number of people,” he told CRN. “They believed they could keep their Windows 7 systems secure by paying an annual fee — but really, the underlying issues that caused those security vulnerabilities weren’t being patched.”
Alvarez said that his firm can now get the “last stragglers” within the client base off of Windows 7, and onto Windows 10, the successor to Windows 7, or the latest version of the operating system, Windows 11.
Looking ahead, Alvarez doesn’t believe that we’ll encounter this type of issue again with…
