14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Vista, which is often referred to as Microsoft’s biggest flop in the operating system industry, has entered its last 2 months of support, as Redmond will pull the plug on updates and security patches on April 11 this year.
With 55 days left until Windows Vista is retired, users are recommended to move to a newer version of Windows as soon as possible.
Microsoft’s choice is undoubtedly Windows 10. And yet, Windows 7 should be just fine for Windows Vista users, as it still gets updates until January 2020, although it’s very clear that Windows 10 is the long-term solution for everyone.
Windows Vista has already reached end of mainstream support on April 10, 2012, and on April 11, 2017, the operating system exists the extended support period, meaning that it no longer receives patches for the security vulnerabilities that Microsoft discovers. Windows 7, 8.1, and 10 will thus remain Microsoft’s only supported desktop operating systems.
Effortless transition off Windows Vista
Back in 2014 when Microsoft pulled the plug on Windows XP, the company really struggled to convince users to upgrade to a supported Windows version, especially because XP was still the world’s second desktop OS at that point. And nearly three years after that, XP is still running on some 9 percent of computers out there.
In the case of Windows Vista, however, there’s no such risk, mostly because this OS version has long been considered an operating system to avoid because of the problems that many people experienced after installing it.
Windows Vista is currently running on just 0.84 percent of the world’s desktops, and its biggest share in the last 12 months was 1.42 percent in April last year, according to NetMarketShare.
As a result, the demise of Windows Vista is likely to go smoothly, with the remaining users expected to migrate to supported Windows either by the time end of support is announced or shortly after that.