News Microsoft doubles Windows 7, Vista lifespan

Microsoft has quietly doubled the support lifespan for Windows 7 and Windows Vista, ahead of Windows 8's launch.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2012/02/21/microsoft-doubles-windows-7-vista-support/1

 

Definitely sounds like MS are hedging their bets with Win8. There are still huge numbers of less involved users who are still with XP, the last thing MS want is Win8 scaring them off from ever upgrading.

 

But why Vista as well?!

 

This.

 

I think you'll find that as Vista and 7 are so much alike under the hood people would complain if they dropped Vista support when the updates are basically compatible between the two so it just makes sense to extend the support for both.

 

Personally I'll keep running my Win7 as I can't be bothered to completely set up a new system again so I will most likely partition my HDD (1.5TB) and dual boot with Win8 as well, and see how I get on with it.

 

Meanwhile Apple drops support for all Macs without a dedi GPU and pretty much all Macs over 4 years old.

 

I guess a patch for 7 is a Patch for Vista, so they might as well

 

^This.

 

Good, Not sure if I'll upgrade to 8 or not, I'm not keen on the Metro interface.

 

Exactly the same. I have no interest a touch screen GUI/Metro for my desktop PC, so have yet to come across any reason why i would want to 'upgrade' to Win 8. (Unless the upgrade path is about £20, which we all know it won't be.)

 

I will try the beta of Window's 8 just, as I did with Window's 7 and decided to get it because it was better than Vista.

I never had problems with Vista and to be honest it ran better for me than XP did but, at the time I did prefer XP.

This extra support time is only a good thing really if you don't upgrade your OS when a new one is released or don't need to upgrade it all the time.

All I can say though is it's about time they did it, but I wonder if it means that they will start expecting us to pay more for Window's when we buy it.

 

I have a feeling Win 8 is going to **** and so they realise many people will complain and stick with win 7. Rumour circulating that MS want to kill off desktop PC, I'd rather see MS dead before that happens.

Windows 8 metro interface is basically windows media center as a desktop yes? Well although I think media center is nice to look at, it is really more of an idiot interface. Something that would appeal to console users. I very rarely use media center for playing media so having it replace desktop is not appealing.

Apparently you can opt for win 7 interface from what I've read albeit with some limitations. I don't know, perhaps win 8 will work out ok but it wouldn't be the first time MS produced a failure (windows millenium?).

I liked Windows vista and for me it was such a relief after the unstable and unreliable windows xp.

Can't say I'm looking forward to win 8.

 

I like everything in Windows 8 except Metro and with rumors it cant even be disabled in Windows 8, I'm certain I wont buy Windows 8 unless it ships with a start menu. The Metro design just isnt designed well for mice and keyboard, its completely touch oriented.

 

Thank God!
I hated Windows 8 from the second I saw it, so this is a big relief for me, especially as I'm using OEM WIndows 7.

 

I don't want no blinkin metrosexual interface full of mardigras colouring.

 

It's not really that surprising, is it?

We had XP for around eight years and, personally, I'll be damned if I don't get six or more from Windows 7. I doubt I'm the only one who thinks that way.

 

Suits me. I plan to stick with Windows 7 for even longer than I stuck with XP (and that was a long time).

 

Vista SP2 (from the box installation not patched) is as good as W7.

Consider this, W7 seems going to be the OS that will run in 2 decades. (2001-2020).
If we think about it, is more than the official lifespan of any other MS OS. Second though to XP

 

good. i tried windows 8 and i found it to be terrible. even for a tablet, the metro interface is unsuitable. also, explorer does not need the ribbon bar.