Windows 7 – End of Life – What does it mean to me?

So you still have Windows 7 on your PC or laptop and it works well, you really like it but you’ve heard support ends in January 2020. What does that mean for you?

Some time ago Microsoft announced Windows 7 will come to  “End of Life” on January 14th 2020.  What this means is Microsoft will no longer provide support or important security updates for the operating system after that date.

While Windows 7 is now fairly old (it was launched on July 22nd 2009!), it still remains very popular, with a recent report suggesting Windows 7 is still being use on 36% of PCs.

With so many PC’s still running Windows 7 its time to take a look at your business and weigh up the risks of continuing to run an unsupported system or look at the alternatives – upgrade you current PC’s to Windows 10 or replace them with new PC’s.

Windows 7 – End of Life – What happens next?

On the 14th January 2020 Microsoft will disband its teams of software developers and security experts and move them onto new and existing products within the Microsoft range of products.  At this point Windows 7 will no longer be supported and (within reason) no new updates, security patches and tweaks will take place with it ever again.

What this means to you is your operating system will still continue to operate; it will run, connect to the internet, run your Office applications. However as time goes on you will notice messages from your applications, for example Google Chrome will start saying it will stop supporting Windows 7 in X number of months. Your Account systems might tell you they will not function with the current version of Windows in X months, or your Anti-Virus system will start telling you it is currently holding vulnerabilities on your system at bay, but will not be able to continue for much longer as Microsoft will not be patching them, and so on. We saw this same scenario with the demise of Windows XP.

Assuming the Windows 7 PC (or Laptop) is ‘completely’ stand-alone, as in does not connect to a network (wired or wireless), and/or does not connect to the internet and it does not have data devices connected to is via things like USB Key, CD, or any other means of data transfer, it will be safe. The problem is almost every PC does now connect to a network, to the internet, and this is where the problem comes as it gives hackers the opportunity to exploit the security flaws on the computer and you can then lose everything. So there is only one choice now, to upgrade.

What to do with your Windows 7 PC’s

Windows 10 will be more demanding on the computers that currently run Windows 7. You should expect things to slow down a little, but in our experience most older machines can not handle the demands on them and slow down considerably when you try to do something a little more complex on it. If you or your staff are not very demanding on your PC’s then it should not be an issue. Upgrading the memory and hard disk can help, but it might be time to seriously consider upgrading your PC or Laptop to something new and capable of running the latest software.  You could even consider buying a Mac!?

We have written a couple of Blog posts on new PC’s and Laptops, along with upgrading your hard disk, so by all means follow the links below and see if they could be helpful to you…

Windows 7 Important Notice

We understand that Microsoft is planning to push notifications to Windows 7 users warning them of the upcoming end of support. This notification will include links to encourage users to upgrade to Windows 10 via Microsoft’s website.

There are more cost effective ways to upgrade your Windows 7 machine.  Upgrading the operating system might not be the right for you, and it could cause significant disruption in your business.  You could be better off either upgrading some of the hardware within the machine, or replacing it with a new PC or Laptop.

We are here to help

If you need help in deciding what the best course of action is, or just need to have a conversation to reassure yourself you have the right plan in place, we would like to help.  Our experienced advisors can help you consider the options and also help you do what’s necessary to upgrade or replace your Windows 7 machines, or our technicians can attend site and carry out the work for you.

We are just a phone call away.

Call us with confidence on 01603 488434

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