14 DAY TRIAL // Windows 8.1 has officially entered extended support following this month's Patch Tuesday rollout and the operating system will no longer receive new features and updates other than security patches.
According to Microsoft's lifecycle fact sheet for the desktop operating system, Windows 8.1 will continue to receive extended support until January 10, 2023, after which it will become unsupported.
This means beyond this date no updates will be shipped and systems still running it will remain vulnerable to attacks based on found vulnerabilities – pretty much like what happens with Windows XP these days.
Mainstream support vs. extended support
In the official documentation covering the support services for Windows, Microsoft explains that during mainstream support, its operating system receives incident support (no-charge incident support, paid incident support, support charged on an hourly basis, support for warranty claims), security update support, and the ability to request non-security updates.
On the other hand, once a product enters extended support, it only gets paid support, security update support at no additional cost, while non-security related updates require Extended Hotfix Support to be purchased. In other words, if you want anything else beyond critical security updates, you have to pay.
Even though the end of Windows 8.1 is approaching, this doesn't seem to be too much of a headache for Microsoft, as users have already migrated en-masse to Windows 10. According to NetMarketShare data, Windows 8.1 is running on just 5.71% of systems worldwide, while Windows 7 is the leading choice with 43.08%. Windows 10 is the runner-up with 32.93%.
More concerning for Microsoft is the current market share of Windows 7, as this particular OS version will reach end of extended support before Windows 8.1 (in January 2020) and there are signs that it'll still be running on a significant number of machines when the time comes.
Microsoft still has some two years to convince users to give up on Windows 7 and upgrade to Windows 8.1 or Windows 10, though that's clearly going to be a very difficult thing to do given that the OS survived critical moments like the free upgrade promo for Windows 10.
