» Mon May 14, 2012 2:22 am Microsoft’s support lifecycle for Windows is clearly spelled out. Consumer versions get five years of mainstream support, and business versions get an additional five years of extended support. That was true when I first wrote about this issue in 2008, and it was equally true in 2009 when I published an updated post covering Windows 7.
Under those guidelines, mainstream support for Windows Vista is set to end in less than two months, on April 10, 2012.
This month, with almost no fanfare, Microsoft has revised its support policy for consumer versions of Windows so that they qualify for extended support as well. If you go to the Support Lifecycle home page and search for a product family, you get new results for Windows Vista and Windows 7 that include Extended Support end dates for consumer versions of both products.
Under those guidelines, mainstream support for Windows Vista is set to end in less than two months, on April 10, 2012.
This month, with almost no fanfare, Microsoft has revised its support policy for consumer versions of Windows so that they qualify for extended support as well. If you go to the Support Lifecycle home page and search for a product family, you get new results for Windows Vista and Windows 7 that include Extended Support end dates for consumer versions of both products.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/microsoft-quietly-extends-consumer-support-for-windows-7-vista/4529
So Microsoft decided to extend the Home and Ultimate edition support for Windows Vista and 7 (Starter edition was also extended for Windows 7). Great news for Windows Vista users (I know there are still a few on here) as they made up about 10% of the market last time I checked. Glad to see I can stop telling people they need to get off Windows Vista Home, and it'll allow them to save some money.
Windows Vista (all editions) will now EoL in 2017, All editions of Windows 7 now EoL in 2020.
There's a couple of theories going around as to why Microsoft is doing this, two seem to have the most credit:
1. Microsoft is hedging against Windows 8 and angry people
2. Microsoft is afraid of a PR nightmare due to backlash for cutting support to the Home and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista when the Business edition still gets supported.
Anyway, I'm a bit sad over this. No, not because I hate Windows Vista (If I did, I'd be a hypocrite for liking Windows 7 since the two are virtually one and the same
They have more in common than Win2k and XP) but because I was quite looking forward to the aftermath of a major version of Windows reaching EoL. Win2k reached EoL, but it didn't have widespread adoption in the consumer market. There would have been a lot of interesting things that happened to Windows Vista after it EoL'd (malware, WGA) and would have been insightful to what the aftermath of XP EoLing will be like. *sigh* now I have to wait until 2014 to see a copy of WGA'd Windows EoL
