Microsoft is pulling the plug on Windows Vista next month

Shawn Knight

Posts: 15,256   +192
Staff member

If you’re one of the few unfortunate souls that still use Windows Vista, Microsoft will soon put your out of your misery (assuming of course that you care about having the latest updates… and that you’re a commercial customer).

In a support page on the matter, Microsoft said it has provided support for Windows Vista for the past 10 years but the time has come for them as well as their hardware and software partners to move on.

As such, Vista will no longer receive new security updates, non-security hotfixes, free or paid assisted support options or online technical content updates from Microsoft after April 11, 2017.

Originally announced in July 2005 and released worldwide on January 30, 2007, Windows Vista for most served as a temporary stopgap between Windows XP and the much more refined Windows 7. Vista was widely criticized as being a resource hog which, in some instances, made it run slower than its predecessor.

Microsoft terminated mainstream support for the dated operating system in 2012 but left extended support open as an option to commercial clients.

Although your Vista PC will continue to run after April 11, operating it without access to updates isn’t a wise move as it’ll only become more vulnerable to security risks and viruses over time.

The good news, however, is that very few computers these days still rely on Windows Vista. According to the latest data from NetMarketShare, Vista is currently installed on just 0.78 percent of desktop machines.

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As much as I hate Vista, it was a very necessary evil for Windows 7 to be as good as it was/still is.
 
Man, I can't even remember the last time I heard the name "Vista."

Be interesting to see who is still using it. They are either a hobbyist/masochist or an elderly person somewhere with no kids to help them out with IT support.
 
....and poor abandoned old Windows ME - left soulless and whimpering in the corner, can barely muster enough pride to lift it's head and gaze longingly, and with a hint of jealousy, at it's more successful siblings - Including Vista.
 
Vista paved the path to the still popular Windows 7. Windows 7's UI is based on it. Vista also has good following amongst Windows users. Too bad it came out at the cursed cycle of Microsoft's releases.
 
Knew this was coming so upgraded my media PC from Vista to Mint 18 last year. After the service packs and on suitable hardware Vista was a fine OS (same kernel as Win 7). Problem was when it was released a lot of "Vista ready" pcs (and especially laptops) were under powered and had insufficient memory (less then 2 GB was bad - 4GB was really the recommended) .
 
Knew this was coming so upgraded my media PC from Vista to Mint 18 last year. After the service packs and on suitable hardware Vista was a fine OS (same kernel as Win 7). Problem was when it was released a lot of "Vista ready" pcs (and especially laptops) were under powered and had insufficient memory (less then 2 GB was bad - 4GB was really the recommended) .

The vast majority of Vista hate was undeserved. It was just people with significantly underpowered computers complaining about poor performance. The jump from 2000 era hardware requirements to 2007 hardware requirements was huge. Vista is essentially a less glorified Windows 7.

Windows 7 came out with almost the same product and was hailed as good primarily because the low-end hardware had finally caught up. Without Vista the rate of adoption would have been much slower and, likely, Windows 7 would be thought of as Vista currently is.
 
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