Are you still running Windows Vista? Then now is the time to start seriously considering an upgrade, because official support for the operating system is about to run out in just under a month’s time.
Microsoft will no longer support Vista after April 11, which is four weeks today.
That means no more security updates – or indeed patches of any kind for whatever problems may crop up with the OS – and no more technical support from Microsoft.
Going forward, when new vulnerabilities pop up in Vista, these holes will remain, ready to be exploited by malicious parties preying on users who continue to run unsupported software.
Speaking of all things malicious, also note that Microsoft will no longer provide Security Essentials (its antivirus app) for download on Windows Vista PCs, and for existing users, definition updates will only continue for a ‘limited’ time.
Step back in time
Windows Vista is now 10 years old, and wasn’t popular even back when it was released, being seen as rather sluggish and bloated, and a step back from its predecessor, Windows XP. Pretty much how Windows 8 was viewed as a disastrous follow-on to Windows 7, although for many different reasons in that case.
Speaking of Windows XP, support for that ended back in April 2014, and two years later, it still had a market share of 10.9%. And according to Netmarketshare, to this day XP has an 8.45% share of the desktop OS market, almost as much as Windows 8/8.1, rather incredibly.
Windows Vista, however, has already dwindled to 0.78%, so it won’t be the case that droves of users continue to plough forward with this particular OS.
At any rate, if you’re one of the few left running Windows Vista out there, you really should consider upgrading to a newer OS – and to make the process extra-easy for you, we’ve got a guide on how to install Windows 10 (also don’t forget, you can still upgrade to the newest OS for free from Windows 7/8.1).
Via: PC World
