Windows 7 ESU is officially ending on January 10 2023

by Alexandru Poloboc

With an overpowering desire to always get to the bottom of things and uncover the truth, Alex spent most of his time working as a news reporter, anchor,… read more

Published on January 9, 2023

We’ve already discussed the fact that some of the beloved old versions of the Windows operating system are going out of service this year.

The same goes for Windows Server 2012, so keep that in mind when considering your personal safety and that of your enterprise.

Just like it did with Windows 8.1, Microsoft is pulling the plug on Windows 7 as well, and you should know that all extended support will be over this month.

Please note that paid security updates for Windows 7 via Extended Security Updates (ESUs) are coming to an end tomorrow, January 10, 2023.

Consider upgrading from Windows 7 to a supported version

This is actually really serious, so anyone still running this system should upgrade to Windows 10 soon to remain safe.

Keep in mind that free Windows 7 updates stopped being issued in 2020 but due to its popularity, Microsoft decided to offer Windows 7 ESUs for a price that extended security updates until now.

Furthermore, users that bought the extended support got updates delivered each month through Patch Tuesday when other versions of Windows were updated.

Unlike newer versions, however, Windows 7 ESU only received security updates, but not feature updates, due to the fact that it is pretty old now.

The last Patch Tuesday update for it will be released tomorrow but afterward, you need to upgrade to one of the supported versions.

And, with Windows 8.1 support ending this week as well, you’ll need to move to Windows 10 or the newer Windows 11.

For PCs that don’t support those versions of Windows, running Linux is also an option you might consider. 

In case you didn’t know, Linux Mint 21.1 came out just before Christmas and it looks a lot like Windows 7 so it may be a good option if Windows 10 is off-limits.

Also, keeping updates coming for Windows 7 is something Microsoft doesn’t really want to do, as it’d much prefer to see users upgrade to newer versions of Windows.

Just to give you a basic idea, in order to make it worth its time to keep Windows 7 supported, users had to buy Windows 7 ESU SKUs each year in 2020, 2021, and 2022 if they wanted updates.

Additionally, just if that wasn’t bad enough, if you decided you want this in the second or third year, you had to pay for prior ESU years too.

To conclude, since the Redmond-based tech company is ending support for Windows 7 ESU tomorrow, please consider updating to a newer, supported version of the OS.

Taking into consideration the huge amount of cyberattacks happening lately, you should not take this advice lightly at all.

What version of Windows have yhou decided to migrate to from Windows 7? Share your opinions with us in the comments section below.