The approaching launch of Windows 9 makes Windows 7 migration a must

Aug 12, 2014 09:18 GMT  ·  By

Windows users are getting through a long transition process, as Windows XP reached end of support in April, while rumors are pointing to a rapidly approaching debut of Windows 9.

Research firm Gartner has said in a statement today that users and companies running Windows 7 should already start planning their migration to a newer operating system just to make sure that they’re not experiencing the same problems as with Windows XP.

“The end of support for Windows 7 will be January, 2020, assuming there are no changes to its current support life cycle. While this feels like it's a long way off, organizations must start planning now, so they can prevent a recurrence of what happened with Windows XP,” Stephen Kleynhans, research vice president at Gartner, says.

Some could however wonder why the rush to get off Windows 7, since this particular operating system still has approximately 6 years of support.

Gartner explains that while upgrading Windows is no longer such a difficult job, there are still a number of issues that could be experienced, including app compatibility bugs and other problems. Of course, since Windows 9 remains an enigma, it’s very difficult to plan an upgrade to an operating system that you have never used, which could also cause a number of dilemmas for CIOs and endpoint computing managers.

“The biggest compatibility issues in terms of applications not working will continue to be those that require specific releases of Internet Explorer,” the Gartner analyst adds.

“Microsoft will improve the migration process — it will become easier and more reliable to upgrade PCs in place from an older to a newer version of Windows. However, Windows 8 may be the baseline required for more agile application management and upgrades, and improved processes and tools will not resolve the ISV support problem.”

Gartner says that new companies should deploy Windows 8 on new computers as they arrive in their organization and, in case they are still using Windows 7, they should wait until Windows 9 is released. Planning the migration to Windows 9 should already be started, Gartner says, as the upgrade could take more than expected when several thousands of devices are involved.

According to rumors, Windows 9 is expected to launch in April 2015, with two different beta versions to be provided to developers and beta testers before the public debut. A public beta could also be released to users sometime this year.