Sunsetting Support For Windows 7 8 8.1 And Windows Server 2012 And 2012 R2 In Early 2023

[Billi Plancarte]

Iam now finding out more and more that Windows 7 is no longer supported. Is there a way to get upgraded to another windows with out any to minimum cost? Or is there another fix to this , that I may not know about? My computer still runs great just can be supported by certain programs. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

I have also noticed on my HP ProBook 6560b which is running on the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Ultimate, that certain programs have issued this message: "This operating system version is no longer supported", but personally all the software on this laptop continues to work just fine.

Personally, I will keep W7 on this laptop. It provides certain advantages to me, including stability, less drain on my battery, W7 collects far less data about usage habits than W10/W11, and I got some legacy software that will not run properly on W10/W11 -as a matter of fact, when I upgraded to W10 in 2016, this laptop crashed all the time, whatever I tried to do to fix this. So, restored back to W7. For me, as long as my third-party security software (Webroot) keeps this laptop safe and protected, I will keep W7.

For Windows 7, you can improve the security status by installing the free Microsoft security essentials which is both an Antivirus/Antimalware program instead of just using the basic built in Windows Defender software, which is antimalware only.

The biggest problem for anyone using Windows 7 is the sunsetting of most browsers effective beginning of February 2023. This is because all chromium-based browsers will stop updating on w7 machines, and their new versions will NOT be compatible with w7/8/8.1. This unfortunately includes Microsoft Edge (chromium now):

"We also encourage developers to end support for Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1. We acknowledge that this may not be easy for some developers to do, however ending support for these operating systems will help keep end users safe from potential security threats and risks as both operating systems go out of support on January 10th, 2023."

Microsoft will stop selling downloadable licenses for Windows 10 on its website on January 31, according to a message on the product pages for Windows 10 Home and Pro. Although Windows 10 will continue to be supported with new security updates until at least October 2025, Microsoft is pushing anyone buying or building a new PC to use the newer Windows 11 instead.

For people buying new PCs who simply don't want to use Windows 11 for some reason, Windows 10 and Windows 11 have (so far) used interchangeable product keys; on systems that shipped with Windows 11, I have had no issues installing and activating the equivalent edition of Windows 10 on the same hardware. Technically, only Windows 11 Pro licenses shipped with OEM PCs qualify for downgrade rights (PDF), but downgrades of the Home edition of Windows 11 should generally work anyway.

Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009.[10] It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly three years earlier. Windows 7's server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 R2, was released at the same time. It was succeeded by Windows 8 in October 2012.

Extended support ended on January 14, 2020, over ten years after the release of Windows 7, after which the operating system ceased receiving further updates. A paid support program was available for enterprises, providing security updates for Windows 7 for up to three years since the official end of life.[11]

Windows 7 was intended to be an incremental upgrade to Microsoft Windows, addressing Windows Vista's poor critical reception while maintaining hardware and software compatibility. Windows 7 continued improvements on the Windows Aero user interface with the addition of a redesigned taskbar that allows pinned applications, and new window management features. Other new features were added to the operating system, including libraries, the new file-sharing system HomeGroup, and support for multitouch input. A new "Action Center" was also added to provide an overview of system security and maintenance information, and tweaks were made to the User Account Control system to make it less intrusive. Windows 7 also shipped with updated versions of several stock applications, including Internet Explorer 8, Windows Media Player, and Windows Media Center.

Unlike Windows Vista, Windows 7 received critical acclaim, with critics considering the operating system to be a major improvement over its predecessor because of its improved performance, its more intuitive interface, fewer User Account Control popups, and other improvements made across the platform. Windows 7 was a major success for Microsoft; even before its official release, pre-order sales for the operating system on the online retailer Amazon.com had surpassed previous records. In just six months, over 100 million copies had been sold worldwide, increasing to over 630 million licenses by July 2012. By January 2018, Windows 10 surpassed Windows 7 as the most popular version of Windows worldwide.[12] As of 2024[update], just 3% of traditional PCs running Windows are running Windows 7.[13] Windows 11 overtook Windows 7 as the second most popular Windows version on all continents in August 2022.[14] Windows 7 remains relatively popular in some countries, as of 2024, e.g. China (where Windows 11 has tied it),[15] and is second most popular in some countries.[16]

Windows 7 is the final version of Windows that supports processors without SSE2 or NX (although an update released in 2018 dropped support for non-SSE2 processors).[17] Its successor, Windows 8, requires a processor with SSE2 and NX (for any then-supported architecture).[18]

Windows 7 is the successor of Windows Vista and its version name is Windows NT 6.1, compared to Vista's NT 6.0. Its naming caused some confusion when it was announced in 2008.[19] Windows president Steven Sinofsky commented that Windows 95 was the fourth version of Windows, but Windows 7 counts up from Windows NT 4.0 as it is a descendant of NT.[20]

When released, Windows Vista was criticized for its long development time, performance issues, spotty compatibility with existing hardware and software at launch, changes affecting the compatibility of certain PC games, and unclear assurances by Microsoft that certain computers shipping with XP before launch would be "Vista Capable" (which led to a class-action lawsuit), among other critiques. As such, the adoption of Vista in comparison to XP remained somewhat low.[26][27][28] In July 2007, following the shelving of the Vienna project and six months following the public release of Vista, it was reported that the next version of Windows would then be codenamed Windows 7, with plans for a final release within three years.[29][30] Bill Gates, in an interview with Newsweek, suggested that Windows 7 would be more "user-centric".[31] Gates later said that Windows 7 would also focus on performance improvements.[32] Steven Sinofsky later expanded on this point, explaining in the Engineering Windows 7 blog that the company was using a variety of new tracing tools to measure the performance of many areas of the operating system on an ongoing basis, to help locate inefficient code paths and to help prevent performance regressions.[33] Senior Vice President Bill Veghte stated that Windows Vista users migrating to Windows 7 would not find the kind of device compatibility issues they encountered migrating from Windows XP.[34] An estimated 1,000 developers worked on Windows 7. These were broadly divided into "core operating system" and "Windows client experience", in turn organized into 25 teams of around 40 developers on average.[35]

In October 2008, it was announced that Windows 7 would also be the official name of the operating system.[36][37] There had been some confusion over naming the product Windows 7,[19] while versioning it as 6.1 to indicate its similar build to Windows Vista and increase compatibility with applications that only check major version numbers, similar to Windows 2000 and Windows XP both having 5.x version numbers.[38] The first external release to select Microsoft partners came in January 2008 with Milestone 1, build 6519.[39] Speaking about Windows 7 on October 16, 2008, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer confirmed compatibility between Windows Vista and Windows 7, indicating that Windows 7 would be a refined version of Windows Vista.[40]

At PDC 2008, Microsoft demonstrated Windows 7 with its reworked taskbar.[41] On December 27, 2008, the Windows 7 Beta was leaked onto the Internet via BitTorrent.[42] According to a performance test by ZDNet,[43] Windows 7 Beta beat both Windows XP and Windows Vista in several key areas, including boot and shutdown time and working with files, such as loading documents. Other areas did not beat XP, including PC Pro benchmarks for typical office activities and video editing, which remain identical to Vista and slower than XP.[44] On January 7, 2009, the x64 version of the Windows 7 Beta (build 7000) was leaked onto the web, with some torrents being infected with a trojan.[45][46] At CES 2009, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the Windows 7 Beta, build 7000, had been made available for download to MSDN and TechNet subscribers in the format of an ISO image.[47] The stock wallpaper of the beta version contained a digital image of the Betta fish.[48]

The release candidate, build 7100, became available for MSDN and TechNet subscribers, and Connect Program participants on April 30, 2009. On May 5, 2009, it became available to the general public, although it had also been leaked onto the Internet via BitTorrent.[49] The release candidate was available in five languages and expired on June 1, 2010, with shutdowns every two hours starting March 1, 2010.[50] Microsoft stated that Windows 7 would be released to the general public on October 22, 2009, less than three years after the launch of its predecessor. Microsoft released Windows 7 to MSDN and Technet subscribers on August 6, 2009.[51] Microsoft announced that Windows 7, along with Windows Server 2008 R2, was released to manufacturing in the United States and Canada on July 22, 2009. Windows 7 build 7600.16385.090713-1255, which was compiled on July 13, 2009, was declared the final RTM build after passing all Microsoft's tests internally.[52]

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