Windows 7; Microsoft made two major announcements today on the Microsoft 365 blog. The company appears to be changing the support timelines for Windows 7 and Windows 10 operating systems under certain conditions.
Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President for Office and Windows Marketing, revealed that companies can extend the support period for the Windows 7 operating system by three years, and that Enterprise and Education editions of Windows 10 may change to extend support to 30 months.
Support for Windows 7 will end on January 14, 2020, which means that Microsoft will no longer release security updates after that date.
Enterprise customers can choose to extend the period for three additional years, to ensure support until January 2023.
This option will be available to all users of “Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise in Volume Licensing,” and customers with “Windows Software Assurance, Windows 10 Enterprise, or Windows 10 Education subscriptions” will get discounts on the extended support period that will be sold per device.
Spataro said that Office 365 ProPlus will continue to be supported on devices with Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESU) programs.
Users using devices with Windows 7 Home will not be able to get extended support.
The second change Spataro announced applies to customers of Microsoft’s Enterprise and Education editions of Windows 10.
The change extends the support period for certain editions of Windows 10 in some cases up to 30 months. The default support period was up to 18 months for all editions but for long-term servicing releases.
So:
- Windows 10 Enterprise and Education editions will be supported for 30 months if the target release is the second feature update of the year (September/October period).
- All currently supported Enterprise and Education editions will be extended to be supported for 30 months from their original release date.
- March releases will only continue to be supported for 18 months.
- Non-Enterprise and Non-Education editions of Windows 10 will continue to be supported for 18 months from the release date, regardless of whether the March or September release is installed.
The option to extend the support period for Windows 7 by 3 years gives companies three additional years of security updates. However, extended support comes at a cost and will only be available for Enterprise and Education editions. Microsoft will not extend the support period for Home edition users.
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- Which: Microsoft to fix Windows 10 Bugs for free
- Enable Libraries in Windows 10 Explorer
- Windows 10 is getting smaller updates (quality updates)
