Microsoft has made an announcement in order to warn that couple of its products will reach the end of mainstream support in six months, including the Windows 7 and the Windows Server 2008.


Microsoft's usual business model was to offer mainstream support for five years and provide free update for features, performance improvements and security update. After the five-year period Microsoft usually provided extended support with free security fixes.

According to the announcement, the mainstream support for all versions of the Windows 7 will end on 13th of January next year, but free security updates are expected until 2020. Of course, this date can be pushed back as Microsoft already did that with Windows XP. The same end of mainstream support for the Windows 8.x is set for 9th of January 2018, while the next Windows OS is expected in April next year.

The rest of the products that will reach end of mainstream support in January 2015 include Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2, Exchange Server 2010, Windows Storage Server 2008, Dynamics C5 2010, NAV 2009 and NAV 2009 R2, while the end of support for Windows Phone 7.8 ends on 9th of September this year.




Source: Znet
via Le Comptoir du Hardware.