Windows Vista users now have less than 30 days to migrate to a newer Windows version, as Microsoft is pulling support for the old operating system on April 11.
Windows Vista, which is often considered Microsoft’s biggest flop in the operating system market, will thus become unsupported, so no security patches would be released. Systems still running Vista beyond this date will remain unprotected and will be vulnerable to attacks trying to exploit unpatched operating system vulnerabilities, just like it’s the case of Windows XP.
But when comparing Windows XP with Windows Vista, Microsoft’s mission this time seems to be a lot simpler, as only about 1 percent of the desktops out there are still running the version getting retired next week.
Retirement not mission impossible
Windows Vista reached end of mainstream support on April 10, 2012, and the last security fixes released as part of extended support will be shipped in April.
“After April 11, 2017, Windows Vista customers will no longer receive new security updates, non-security hotfixes, free or paid assisted support options, or online technical content updates from Microsoft,” Microsoft explains on a FAQ page for Windows Vista end of support.
“Microsoft has provided support for Windows Vista for the past 10 years, but the time has come for us, along with our hardware and software partners, to invest our resources towards more recent technologies so that we can continue to deliver great new experiences.”
Obviously, Microsoft’s choice when it comes to choosing an operating system to upgrade to from Windows Vista is Windows 10, and the company says that customers who decide to go this path should have in mind that certain hardware upgrades might still be needed.
Fortunately, there aren’t too many users running Windows Vista right now, so retiring this operating system shouldn’t be a very difficult thing to do. On the other hand, with the January 2020 end-of-support date for Windows 7 approaching, Microsoft should consider the demise of Windows Vista as a rehearsal for a much more critical moment.
