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Windows 7 Will Get Updates for Four More Years -- If You Pay (zdnet.com)
An anonymous reader quotes ZDNet:
With the Windows 7 end-of-support clock slowly winding down to January 14, 2020, Microsoft is announcing it will offer, for a fee, continuing security updates for the product through January 2023. This isn't the first time Microsoft has done this for a version of Windows, but it may be the first time it has been so public about its plans to do so.
The paid Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESUs) will be sold on a per-device basis, with the price increasing each year. These ESUs will be available to any Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise users with volume-licensing agreements, and those with Windows Software Assurance and/or Windows 10 Enterprise or Education subscriptions will get a discount. Office 365 ProPlus will continue to work on devices with Windows 7 Extended Security Updates through January 2023.
The paid Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESUs) will be sold on a per-device basis, with the price increasing each year. These ESUs will be available to any Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise users with volume-licensing agreements, and those with Windows Software Assurance and/or Windows 10 Enterprise or Education subscriptions will get a discount. Office 365 ProPlus will continue to work on devices with Windows 7 Extended Security Updates through January 2023.
That puts you on the embedded track?
Windows is not securable. It is riddled with fundamental design flaws. If you're using it for any mission-critical systems, you suck at your job and you should be ashamed of yourself.
Software so shoddy it just has to have regular updates or you know you're screwed*. The new version looks and feels completely different, so if you want to use the older edition... YOU VILL HAF TO PAY, HA HA HA HA.
Something something separation of mechanism and policy something something. Yes I know that X leaves lots to be desired, but it can at least be made to behave. On windows, all even the best third party software is slow the bleeding a little.
* Contrary to popular belief, not all software has this property.
Windows hasn't been the safe and secure option, so why start now.
Does anyone know what the terms/prices are? An MS link anyone?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
If this means ie11 lives on until 2023 then I frelling give up. Edge is no 11/10 but at least it puts on some make-up, exercises and tries to eat right. I havenâ(TM)t used windows for years except for browser testing so this is the only thing I care about, please kill ie11, with fire.
Gee that's a nice computer you've got there, it'd be a real shame if someone broke into it...
I am using it right now and you aren't hahaha!
https://support.microsoft.com/...
It's like going au-natural, free and loose
With the Windows 7 end-of-support clock slowly winding down to January 14, 2020, Microsoft is announcing it will offer, for a fee, continuing security updates for the product through January 2023.
Office 365 ProPlus will continue to work on devices with Windows 7 Extended Security Updates through January 2023.
How is January 2020 to January 2023 four years?
You are pure evil
If it's about the spyware and malware in Windows, all those patches are pushed to 7 just as they are to 8 and 10.
Why do you stick with Windows 7?
This gotta be changed to "Windows 7 Will Get Updates for Three More Years after 2020 -- If You Pay". 7 is still supported you know.
Do not update your win 7, but use comodo firewall 5.3 or older in mode that blocks even windows processes from internet.
Remember, in CIA wikileaks dump the cia-nsa whine about old comodo firewall programs (before 6) blocking even windows native processes from internet.
Its time to grow up to windows 10.
Piracy is bad, I know but I still hope that someone will set up a semi-public repository of postmortem Windows 7 updates, so that we could enjoy the last sane OS from Microsoft for three more years (not four as the title erroneously states - there's exactly three years between 2020-01 and 2023-01).
Just Ditch Windows. The effort will pay off.
People, just use your brains, as you are supposed to do!
I knew Terry Davis wasn't really dead.
People don't want the six monthly "Windows as a service" model. All this wasted time installing updates constantly. I wasted SIX HOURS updating a laptop yesterday. Follow the Ubuntu model of releasing LTS versions every two years, and make it available to everyone one, not some obscure enterprise only version like LTSB is. Microsoft is already doing this with Windows Server 2019, so replace Windows 10 with Windows Desktop 2019 as well. If Microsoft doesn't do this it can deal with people using Windows 7 and even XP into the late 2020s.
Also in the linked article:
another link to a new support policy for Windows 10:https://wwwmicrosoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2018/09/06/helping-customers-shift-to-a-modern-desktop/. Quote:
All currently supported feature updates of Windows 10 Enterprise and Education editions (versions 1607, 1703, 1709, and 1803) will be supported for 30 months from their original release date. This will give customers on those versions more time for change management as they move to a faster update cycle.
All future feature updates of Windows 10 Enterprise and Education editions with a targeted release month of September (starting with 1809) will be supported for 30 months from their release date. This will give customers with longer deployment cycles the time they need to plan, test, and deploy.
All future feature updates of Windows 10 Enterprise and Education editions with a targeted release month of March (starting with 1903) will continue to be supported for 18 months from their release date. This maintains the semi-annual update cadence as our north star and retains the option for customers that want to update twice a year.
All feature releases of Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Pro, and Office 365 ProPlus will continue to be supported for 18 months (this applies to feature updates targeting both March and September).
So if you develop anything using "feature updates", your guaranteed support time on Windows 10 shrinks to 30 months on Enterprise and 18 months on Professional and Home. The Microsoft website does not say if security updates will be supplied longer than 30/18 months for those features. I guess the original promise of 10 years' updates for Windows 10 LTSB keeps the change in policy away from the feature set at release for now.
For comparison, Canonical is promising 5 years of "security and maintenance updates" for their LTS versions of Ubuntu.
Red Hat even promises 10 years as part of the "basic" product, although Red Hat Linux appears limited to enterprise environments. Plus even longer support for extra money.
It seems Microsoft is finally less willing to promise long therm stability than at least two prominent Linux vendors.
One might argue that this was already the case in practice, but now it is official in the support policies of Microsoft vs. Canonical and Red Hat.
C - the footgun of programming languages
the low producers somewhere. May as well use them to keep obsolete stuff alive. Can you imagine working at MS and being in a department whose task is to keep Win 7 running? I wonder if they'll be putting suicide netting around the buildings like Foxconn did...
Maybe that's how MS gets rid of people they decide are finished. Instead of firing them, they just put them to work on Win 7 and let nature take its course.
You're just delaying the inevitable. Debian 9, Ubuntu 16, RHEL 7... you even have the free choice of what to upgrade to.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
We stopped patching Win7 2+ yrs ago when the EULA changed to allow their spying and when MSFT stopped saying what each patch was for.
It just became too hard to deal with MSFT.
We had little choice. MSFT decided to fire us by forcing things into the agreement we just couldn't agree with.
No thanks.
Or get a Mac and get the best of both worlds.
The fact that people continue to use Microsoft products is mind-boggling.
greedy mofo's.
10 is crap, 7 is probably the best they have done.
I'll run 7 till I'm ready to relearn a *nix desktop
I have a "crappy bit of unsupported proprietary software that doesn't run on windows 10 and will cost a bucket load to replace" is something that I wrote for my company that requires Bluetooth data support with proper com port operation which was rewritten for Windows 10 and was not fully tested. I complained for literally years to Microsoft (https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware-winpc/how-do-i-delete-the-unused-com-ports-in-windows-10/9f25e5ca-35a7-4c9c-a892-a4be660eb2fe being the main thread).
This app by the way, runs fine of:
- Windows XP
- Windows 7
- Windows Vista
- Mac OS X
- Linux with Blueman
- ChromeOS
Why would/should I use an operating system that doesn't run *my* software, I'm probably going to have to pay a monthly fee for, requires a login and just feels sluggish (I know that's subjective but Windows 10 has never felt "crisp" to me like Windows 7 and some of the others)?
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
At this point, Microsoft knows that they own you and your laptop. Why should they care what you want when they know you will keep paying and promoting them regardless of what they do to you?
They should be very careful about making that assumption. As I've said here a number of times, I got a Macbook Air in 2014 and it has been the best laptop I've ever owned - the only thing I would complain about with it is Microsoft Office for Mac, it's not as compatible with Windows Office as Microsoft would like you to think and is actually less user friendly than Windows Office. I've been using it less and less and going with the Mac (and Chrome) equivalents more and more.
If Microsoft thinks they own me because of my laptop and Office, they have another think coming.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
So, six more years!
That is a sad state of affairs. After all, security updates fix defects in their product. It is not as if they are improving anything, it is that they fix the mess they created. To ask for money for that is unacceptable, and to exclude ordinary users is even more unacceptable.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Just like in arrays, you start counting with ZERO. [0],[1],[2],[3] that's 4. Just like Steve Jobs claiming he is employee number ZERO at Apple.
Lets be honest, Microsoft has gone past peak. They have been desperately looking for a new business model and this is just another attempt to look at another money stream.
I guarantee that if this works to any degree, all versions of Windows will follow this model in the future, with shorter and shorter timelines. I guess I have been lucky to not really have problems with Windows, on the other hand I always turned off their auto-updates. If Microsoft convinces people to migrate to the cloud (for Office products) I have a hard time imagining that the Windows desktop will not be replaced with Linux at some point. That was always their biggest tie-in, once you lose that why not look at alternatives?
I paid handsomely for the OS I am running.
Now I have to pay them again to fix their fuckups?!!!
That is not how it works for cars, if there is something wrong with a car they recall it.
This aligns with M$'s intended income path and converts a product that was paid in full for into a subscription.
Just like cable TV told us there would be no commercials.......
*SPIT*
Rick B.
Microsoft: Vote of No Confidence
Why start from scratch? Just download one of those Debian variants or Fedora variants of Linux and be done with it.
Don't reinvent the wheel.
It'd be sad if somethin' happened to it...
A vendor sells a fundamentally flawed unsafe product. Then refuses to take responsibility for at the very least fixing security problems at their own cost publically known to endanger users.
I don't understand how they get away with this or why they are even allowed to.
In other industries vendors would be successfully sued to oblivion for such refusals.
For some dumb reason Microsoft blocks windows update fromw working on Windows 7 if it detects that you have newer hardware. This is just because they try to force people to downgrade to Windows 10.
If you support Windows 7 to 2020 and now maybe to 2023 then how about letting us update the OS? There's no real reason not to.
“Nice operating system your computer has there.”
(breaks monitor glass)
“Would be a real shame if something happened to it...”
Microsoft managers lack social ability. They have done ENORMOUS DAMAGE to the Microsoft brand name.
Some of the many, many reports of Microsoft managers thinking they can manipulate and control everyone, as though the managers are government dictators:
Microsoft is infesting Windows 10 with annoying ads (March 17, 2017)
Microsoft, stop sabotaging Windows 10. (March 21, 2017)
Microsoft's Intolerable Windows 10 Aggression (May 27, 2016)
Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." (Aug. 4, 2015)
A huge problem: A high percentage of people who work with Windows computers make more money if there are more problems with Microsoft and Windows. There is a conflict of interest.
Apparently, because desktop computer sales are slowing, Microsoft managers decided they would try to make Windows 10 like Google's Android. They apparently decided to try to gather information about everything, and try to sell that information. Most people with cell phones don't have the technical knowledge necessary to know if they are being abused.
Court cases? If a company supplies Windows 10 computers to businesses and doesn't get a signed agreement from all business customers that the customers know Windows 10 allows Microsoft to gather data from their computers, the supplier could be the target of court cases, and possibly even go to prison. No business customers want Microsoft employees to have access to their company information. My opinion, shared by many others.
People working with desktop computers don't want to be distracted by ads. They don't want to try to learn an new, complicated user interfaces.
This comment is my best understanding and opinion.
Windows 10 is still a mixed bag. The Bluetooth file transfer is crippled. The Power schemes have been hobbled since Windows XP. Window 10 spies on people. Printer settings are buried deep in the menus, as if people with business don't need to print things.
The only solid advantages that Windows 10 brought: A black quick-launch bar, and mounted drive disk checks. Did I mention that the quicklaunch bar is black?
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
So, your W7 machines have security holes now. Why not just change to something else like Linux that is supported?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I am sure there will be something along the lines of the XP WEPOS hack to continue allowing free updates far into the future. XP STILL gets current monthly security updates with the WEPOS registry change in place.
[Different AC]
Sure. Soon as the vendor for thousands of dollars of third-party software software decides to support another platform besides Windows. I'd call them up and ask them if they could do it over the next week.
If all you want to do is run an operating system and compile your own software, it's easy to switch these days. If it's some third-party vendor selling 5 or 6-figure specialized software, it's not so easy.
They did the same with Windows XP -- at a cost of $200 per computer you could get updates for the first year past the end-of-life (or pretty much the cost of a new windows install anyway), but IIRC it was $400 for year 2, and $600 for year 3 to put pressure behind companies/governments to start upgrading.
I'm sure that there would be volume discounts, but still -- unless there are software incompatibility issues, it's often cheaper in the long run to just upgrade.
(Heck, for the $1,200 it cost to drag along XP for three more years you could easily buy a new computer with new OS)
Downgrade to SELL.
M$ may say it is going to do this but when the raeg comes and Win 7 fanbois threaten to jump to Ubuntu will they be persuaded to do otherwise?
Perhaps a ad-financed edition of Old Number 7?
Not patching any version of Windows has nothing to do with security holes. There have been two patches for Win7 and Win10 which turned off a Windows feature which was thought to be insecure. A user could have turned of the features in 2 minutes without the 1.6GB and 2.1GB windows updates.
Every other thing put in Windows update since WinXP is not for the user and has nothing to do with the security of the user or the users data.
Learn to understand what your OS is doing and all the stuff it is sending out of your PC. If you saw that you would realize that Microsoft and all of its products should not be trusted.
With an emphasis on "crappy".
Though I will also say that this quote from MS: "99 percent of existing Windows 7 apps are compatible with new Windows 10 updates" is also complete BS, or at least disingenuous.
I have at least one project that falls into this bucket, where in anticipation of all of this, we have to try and figure out how to replace these apps. The problem isn't Windows 10 really. The problem is that most of the programs out there that run on Windows 7 are running on the 32bit version of Windows 7, while the version of Windows 10 that most enterprises are moving to is 64bit. I'd say compatibility is a bit lower than that "1%" when trying to accomplish that task. IT departments have a hard enough time without trying to support multiple client OS versions. (i.e. Sure chances are better that they may work with windows 10 32bit, however that isn't the issue as few will be moving to that).
Though I notice they never seem to mention what the fee per device is, not that many are going to likely support it anyway, its the proverbial thumb in the dyke anyway.