Pour one out for Windows 7, the decade-old operating system that today reached the end of the security line. Some three years after Microsoft called time on mainstream support of Windows 7, the technology giant will no longer provide security updates, leaving the remaining users the option to upgrade to a newer operating system or remain vulnerable to ongoing security threats.
Windows 7 was sunset in January 2020 after more than a decade in service, but Microsoft allowed customers to pay for extended security support to help maintain legacy or older equipment that isn’t easy to upgrade, like hospital scanning equipment and production line systems.
Those extended security updates came to an end today. It’s not known exactly how many Windows 7 machines are still running (or connected to the internet, which increases their risk), but some market share data puts the number as high as about one in 10 desktop computers.
Without extended security updates, Windows 7 will continue to run, but will no longer receive patches for new and existing security vulnerabilities.
Windows 8.1, the operating system version that succeeded Windows 7, also hit its end-of-support milestone on Tuesday, almost 10 years after it was released. Microsoft said it’s not offering extended security updates for Windows 8.1, which may be because of its historical low usage, given that many skipped the operating system and updated directly to Windows 10.
Meanwhile, the latest version of Microsoft Edge (version 109), scheduled for release on Thursday, is the latest version to support the no-longer-supported Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.
https://techcrunch.com/
WhatsApp is rolling out a picture-in-picture feature for its iOS app with its latest update. This allows users to access WhatsApp or other apps without shutting out the video feed on the call. The company rolled out this feature with the 23.3.77 version of its iOS app. Until now, if you switched to another app […]
The hackers who reportedly hit more than 130 organizations last year and stole the credentials of almost 10,000 employees are still targeting several tech and video game companies, according to a report obtained by TechCrunch. The report, prepared by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, calls the hackers “Scattered Spider.” In a previous publicly available report, the company said […]
zince its debut in November, ChatGPT has become the internet’s new favorite plaything. The AI-driven natural language processing tool rapidly amassed more than 1 million users, who have used the web-based chatbot for everything from generating wedding speeches and hip-hop lyrics to crafting academic essays and writing computer code. Not only have ChatGPT’s human-like abilities […]
Leave a Reply