Windows 10: It looks as if Microsoft could extend Windows 7 Support by another three years

Microsoft ended support for its Windows 7 operating system in 2020. The company offers extended support to organizations and businesses, but not to Home customers.

Microsoft's initial plan was to limit extended support to three years after support end, but it appears that the company could extend support by another three years, making it six years in total.



Our colleagues over at Deskmodder report that the July security updates KB5015861 and KB5015862 include the required ESU licenses and keys to extend support beyond the first three years. The second extension would guarantee support of Windows 7 until January 2026.

Microsoft creates updates for the following Windows 7 editions as part of the extended security updates program:

• Windows 7 SP1 Enterprise
• Windows 7 SP1 Pro
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Windows Embedded Standard 7
• Windows Embedded POS Ready 7

Microsoft released the monthly and security-only cumulative updates for Windows 7 ESU systems as part of the July 2022 Patch Day. ESU updates can only be installed officially on licensed machines. Bypasses exist to install Microsoft's official updates on Windows 7 Home devices, including Windows 7 Home and Professional.

Microsoft has not confirmed or denied the extension of Windows 7 ESU. Windows 7 holds a sizeable share of the desktop operating system market. Statcounter, one of the third-party companies that is tracking usage statistics, sees it at 11.54% of the Windows market share. Windows 11, Microsoft's newest operating system, sits at 10.96%, which makes Windows 7 the second most used version of Windows according to the company.

It makes sense to extend support if the numbers are close to real usage numbers. Organizations may require more time to move to a new version of Windows, or another operating system. The extension gives organizations that time. Organizations who have devices with ESU can protect the devices for another three years.

Microsoft announced earlier this month that it won't provide Windows 8.1 customers with a similar offer. Windows 8.1's usage share is less than 3% according to Statcounter, even though it is still officially supported.

If Windows 7 support is extended by another three years, it would mean that the operating system will be supported for longer than its direct successor, Windows 8.1, and even Windows 10. Both operating systems will run out of support before 2026. Microsoft could offer support extensions for Windows 10, the most used version of Windows at the time of writing.

Now You: what is your take on this?

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Microsoft Increases Windows Vista & 7 Consumer Support to Ten Years

Redmond-based software giant Microsoft Corp. has recently updated its support policy for both Windows Vista and Windows 7 and will be offering extended support to the consumer versions of the two operating systems.

Previously, Microsoft provided 5 years worth of 'mainstream support' for consumers while only businesses got an extra 5 years of extended support. Now, all Windows users will be able to get security updates for 10 years after the operating system's release.

As a result of the policy change, Windows Vista's consumer support was extended to April 11th, 2017. Windows 7 support will end on January 14, 2020.





Source: ZDNet

 

Microsoft Botches Up UEFI Support for Windows 7 on ASUS Motherboards



Microsoft suggests updating to Windows 10 to patch Windows 7

• 
  
  
• Chris Merriman
• 
  @ChrisTheDJ
• 05 May 2016

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9 Comments

MICROSOFT HAS confirmed a potentially lappy-borking problem that it won't be fixing, because Windows 7.

Woody Leonhard, the respected Windows columnist, points to a problem involving Asus motherboards, which also appear rebadged in a variety of other manufacturers' machines, and the activation of UEFI Secure Boot for Windows 7 in a patch KB3133977.

Short version: install update, welcome to Borksville, population you.

Both Asus and Microsoft acknowledged the problem. Microsoft entitled the article "BitLocker can't encrypt drives because of service crashes in svchost.exe process in Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2", but we prefer to just call it "Trevor for brevity."

The firm's advice was that it's an optional update, leave well alone, you'll be fine, or alternatively turn secure boot off.

Then Microsoft did a silly, silly thing.

It moved the update from 'optional' to 'recommended' and anyone who reads this site regularly will know what happens when Microsoft does this. That's right boys and girls - it makes it automatically install, unless you've specifically told your machine not to.

So now, if you have one of the affected motherboard and you keep your security updates automatic like wot Microsoft recommends, then your machine will stop working properly.

We should add it's not permanently bricked, but it will take some mucking about in the BIOS to fix and that's a pain even for an experienced computer user.

Microsoft has, by offering a workaround, suggested heavily that it won't be fixing the problem, though we have asked the question, so expect a response in about a fortnight.

But the real kicker is this piece of advice: "Note The Secure Boot feature is supported in Windows 10. To learn more about the security advantages of this feature and about the upgrade path from Windows 7 to Windows 10, go to the following Windows website"

Holy toledo, this company really knows how to rub people up the wrong way.

After all - if the advice is to manually avoid the update or move to a version of the operating system where there's virtually no control over updates, then Microsoft is dealing in massive contradictions.

A more cynical site would suggest that it's yet another example of Microsoft running Windows 7 into the ground and adding built in obsolescence to encourage quicker updates. But we're not that sort of site.

Its the patching to force secure boot that is the problem win 7 does not support secure boot
hence it borks systems and well microsofts answer is Cactus >your Asshole > insert

from the inquirer

 

Windows 7 Extended support

Have a look here for details on extended support. It gets costly quite quickly.

Windows 7 Extended Support Costs Revealed