Windows 7 – “end of life”

Windows 7 – “end of life”

Those of you that are still using probably one of the most loved and popular operating systems in all time have been calling me over the past few months as you’ve been seeing scary messages about security and you want to know what you should do.

So, Windows 7 went “end of life” on the 14th January 2020. What does this really mean and how will it affect you. It means that Microsoft will no longer be releasing security updates for the system. This also means that many people who create software to run on Windows 10 (web browsers, antivirus, office software, printer driver manufacturers) will also legitimately stop supporting the operating system and it will become increasingly hard to update your software. Of course, because of all this it means that any vulnerabilities that are still there or are found moving forward will not be fixed leaving you more open to security compromises.

So what can you do?

For the large majority of people still using Windows 7, you have three simple options. Firstly you can decide to continue to use it but this is almost the “head in the sand option” – the fact is that the computer will get more and more out of date and unless you really do intend to replace it “soon” this isn’t a great option to take. Option two would be to replace the computer with a new one, however this could be quite an expensive solution and its best to get advice as there are lots of different types of computers out there and you want to ensure that you’re making the move for good reasons. If of course you’re perfectly happy with your computer, the way it is then you could simply upgrade to Windows 10. Many people don’t know that this is an option but it i. We would also recommend (at the same time) considering putting in a solid state drive to give your computer a good boost of performance to help it with Windows 10, it will feel like a new computer! If you’d like to know more about solid state drives, then have a look at this article…

Solid State Drives (SSDs)

…it will tell you much of what you need to know about them.

So, if you have an older computer running Windows 7 and want to keep it running but upgrade to a more up to date, secure operating system then contact your local computer guy and he can tell you what you need to do.