14 DAY TRIAL // Windows 8 support will officially come to an end today, so users still running the operating system need to update to 8.1 as soon as possible to continue receiving updates and security patches.
Windows 8.1 is offered free of charge to everyone running the core operating system and brings quite a lot of improvements, so unless you have a very strong reason not to update, there’s absolutely no excuse to remain on this unsupported version.
But according to third-party stats concerning desktop OS usage, Windows 8 is quickly collapsing, and only a few users are still running it today.
Figures offered by Net Applications show that, in December 2015, only 2.76 percent of the users were on Windows 8, down from 2.88 percent the month before. What’s interesting, however, is that the November market share was actually bigger than the one in October, when 2.88 percent of the users were on this particular OS version.
Final stop: Windows 10
Windows 8 was last month at the same level as in July 2015, the month that brought us the new Windows 10, which can be obtained free of charge by those still running this version.
Basically, if you’re ready to upgrade from Windows 8, your final stop should be Windows 10 because, after updating to Windows 8.1, the new operating system is available at absolutely no cost until July 29.
This is actually part of Microsoft’s plans to bring everyone on Windows 10, and if your computer is capable of running Windows 8, it should deal with the new OS quite easily because it has the same hardware requirements.
Support for Windows 10 will be offered until 2025, so it’s pretty clear that if you update to this particular version, you’ll be on the safe side for the next 9 years without moving a single finger.