Grab your Windows 7 licenses while you can: End of sales begins October 31, 2014
If you are a Windows user who does not like Windows 8 for one reason or the other but decided to buy a new PC, it is likely that you picked Windows 7 as your operating system of choice for it.
But, if you have not picked up a license of Windows 7 yet, then you may want to consider doing so this year as Microsoft has updated its end of sales information page.
When a product reaches end of sales, it is "no longer shipped to retailers or Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs)".
While that does not mean that existing copies will get removed, it is likely that it gets difficult to get your hands on a copy as OEMs may not build new products using the operating system once it reaches end of sales.
Microsoft lists October 31, 2014 as the end of sales for Windows 7 Home Basic, Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Ultimate.
The version missing? Windows 7 Professional. No date has been given yet, but Microsoft noted on the page that it will give one year of notice prior to the end of sales date for that operation system. This means that Windows 7 Professional will continue to be distributed to OEMs and retailers until at least February 2015.
One month prior to that, that is January 13, 2015 to be precise, marks the end of mainstream support for the Windows 7 Service Pack. Extended support on the other hand will be given until January 14, 2020.
The core difference between mainstream and extended support is that Microsoft drops several support related services when mainstream support ends. This includes non-security hotfix support, warranty claims, or design changes and feature requests.
Sales of an older operating system are stopped in retail one year and to OEMs two years after a system's successor is launched. As you may know, Windows 8 was launched in October 2012 which coincides with those end of sales dates.
So what is the reason for Windows 7 Professional's extended end of sales date? The most likely explanation is that the company wants to keep it available to businesses that are preparing or have started to deploy Windows 7 on their infrastructure.
End of sales does not necessarily mean end of availability either. If you check out eBay or Amazon right now, you will notice that older versions of Windows, Windows XP for instance, are offered on those sites.
What it means though is that consumers cannot buy systems with the operating system anymore from OEMs such as Dell or HP, while businesses still can.
The operating systems will continue to be available even after Microsoft's end of sales proclamation. It will become difficult however to buy consumer PCs running Windows 7, so that downgrading from Windows 8.x to Windows 7 is the remaining option for users who do not want to run Windows 8 (besides buying a license on marketplaces such as eBay, Newegg or Amazon that is).
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What mental age of reader are you targeting with the first sentence? 10?
Why not write an article on how to *avoid* upgrading from W10 to W11. Analogous to those like me who avoided upgrading from 7 to 10 for as long as possible.
If your paymaster Microsoft permits it, of course.
5. Rufus
6. Ventoy
PS. I hate reading these “SEO optimized” articles.
I used Rufus to create an installer for a 6th gen intel i5 that had MBR. It upgraded using Setup. No issues except for Win 11 always prompting me to replace my local account. Still using Win 10 Pro on all my other PCs to avoid the bullying.
bit pointless to upgrade for the sake of upgrading as you never know when you’ll get locked out because ms might suddenly not provide updates to unsupported systems.
ps…. time travelling?
written. Jan 15, 2023
Updated • Jan 13, 2023
This happens when you schedule a post in WordPress and update it before setting the publication date.
Anyone willing to downgrade to this awful OS must like inflicting themselves with harm.
I have become convinced now that anybody who has no qualms with using Windows 11/10 must fit into one of the following brackets:
1) Too young to remember a time before W10 and W11 (doesn’t know better)
2) Wants to play the latest games on their PC above anything else (or deeply needs some software which already dropped W7 support)
3) Doesn’t know too much about how computers work, worried that they’d be absolutely lost and in trouble without the “”latest security””
4) Microsoft apologist that tries to justify that the latest “features” and “changes” are actually a good thing, that improve Windows
5) Uses their computer to do a bare minimum of like 3 different things, browse web, check emails, etc, so really doesn’t fuss
Obviously that doesn’t cover everyone, there’s also the category that:
6) Actually liked W7 more than 10, and held out as long as possible before switching, begrudgingly uses 10 now
Have I missed any group off this list?
You have missed in this group just about any professional user that uses business software like CAD programs or ERP Programs which are 99% of all professional users from this list.
Linux doesn’t help anyone who is not a linux kid and apple is just a fancy facebook machine.
Microsoft has removed KB5029351 update
only from windows update though
KB5029351 is still available from the ms update catalog site
1. This update is labaled as PREVIEW if it causes issues to unintelligent people, then they shouldn’t have allowed Preview updates ot install.
2. I have installed it in a 11 years old computer, and no problems at all.
3. Making a big drama over a bluescreen for an updated labeled as preview is ridiculous.
This is probably another BS internet drama where people ran programs and scripts that modified the registry until they broke Windows, just for removing stuff that they weren’t even using just for the sake of it.
Maybe people should stop playing geeks and actually either use Windows 10 or Windows 11, but don’t try to modify things just for the sake of it.
Sometimes removing or stopping things (like defender is a perfect example) only need intelligence, not scripts or 3rd party programs that might mess with windows.
Windows 11 was a pointless release, it was just created because some of the Windows team wanted to boost sales with some sort of new and improved Windows 10. Instead, Microsoft cannot support one version well let alone two.
Windows 11 is the worst ugly shame by Microsoft ever. They should release with every new W11 version a complete free version of Starallback inside just to make this sh** OS functionally again.
motherboard maker MSI has recently released a statement regarding the “unsupported processor” blue screen error for their boards using Intel 600/700 series chipsets & to avoid the KB5029351 Win11 update:
https://www.msi.com/news/detail/MSI-On–UNSUPPORTED-PROCESSOR–Error-Message-of-Windows-11-Update-KB5029351-Preview-142215
check out the following recent articles:
Neowin – Microsoft puts little blame on its Windows update after UNSUPPORTED PROCESSOR BSOD bug:
https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-puts-little-blame-on-its-windows-update-after-unsupported-processor-bsod-bug/
BleepingComputer – Microsoft blames ‘unsupported processor’ blue screens on OEM vendors:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-blames-unsupported-processor-blue-screens-on-oem-vendors/
While there may be changes or updates to the Windows 10 Store for Business and Education in the future, it is premature to conclude that it will be discontinued based solely on rumors.
My advice, I left win 15 years ago. Now I’m a happy linux user (linuxmint) but there is Centos, Fedora, Ubuntu depending on your needs.
motherboard maker MSI has recently released new BIOS/firmware updates for their Intel 600 & 700 series motherboards to fix the “UNSUPPORTED_PROCESSOR” problem (Sept. 6):
https://www.msi.com/news/detail/Updated-BIOS-fixes-Error-Message–UNSUPPORTED-PROCESSOR–caused-BSOD-on-MSI-s-Intel-700-and-600-Series-Motherboards-142277
I try to disable the Diagnostics Tracking Service (Connected Devices Platform User Services) but it wont let me disable it, any help will be greatly appreciated.
Tank you for your help