Vista retires on April 11, the same day the Windows 10 Creators Update is expected to launch for retail users

Mar 10, 2017 05:53 GMT  ·  By

April 11 turns out to be quite a special day for both Microsoft and its users this year, as it could witness two essential moments for the Windows ecosystem: the death of Windows Vista and the debut of the Windows 10 Creators Update.

Out of these two milestones, only one is confirmed so far, and it’s the end of support for Windows Vista. Specifically, Windows Vista, which no longer receives mainstream support since April 2012, is projected to reach end of extended support on April 11, which means that no other updates, not even security patches, would be released after that.

This shouldn’t be a problem, though, given the fact that less than 1 percent of the desktops are still running Windows Vista, and this shows how big a failure this operating system actually was.

Windows XP, which was launched in 2001, is still running on some 8 percent of the world’s PCs, while its successor Windows Vista is close to extinction with Microsoft pulling the plug on it.

The launch of Windows 10 Creators Update

The second key moment is the debut of the Windows 10 Creators Update, which is also known as Redstone 2.

The April 11 launch date is not yet confirmed, but there are reports that Microsoft is planning to finalize work on this update as soon as next week and then ship the RTM build to insiders before releasing it to everyone else next month.

While the timing seems to make sense, there’s one little thing that could indicate the April 11 might not be the best choice for launching the Creators Update, especially because this is a Tuesday, and it’s not like any other Tuesday, but the day when Microsoft ships Patch Tuesday security updates for its software.

In most of the cases, Microsoft reserves the second Tuesday of each month for the security rollout exclusively, just in case something goes wrong and additional work needs to be done, so shipping the Creators Update the same day seems to make things a little bit more complicated.

In the end, no matter if April 11 is the day or not, April still remains a very special month for everyone in the Microsoft world. One Windows goes dark, while another one sees the light of the day for the first time.