Next week specifically on Tuesday, January 10, will finish definitely Microsoft technical support for two of its operating systems: Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. In both cases, technical support officially ended three years ago, but the company decided to extend it through paid programs, exclusively for business users. But exclusively for a maximum period of three years, which is about to expire.
Microsoft has refused to further expand these programs, which it launched when support for both systems ended due to its high implementation in the business world at that time. From then until now, many companies have been updating their systems to newer versions of Windows. Or, if your computers were old enough and were not compatible with either Windows 10 or Windows 11, you have replaced them with more powerful computers. But those that haven’t will stop receiving critical updates and technical support starting next Tuesday.
In addition to updates for their systems, those still using Windows 7 and 8.1 will also stop receiving updates for other applications that still support both versions. This is the case of Google Chrome, which in November 2020 announced that it was expanding browser support for Windows 7 and 8.1 to business users. Back in October, Google announced that Chrome 109 would the last one that would have support for Windows 7 and 8.1.
This is not to say that the Chrome browser will not stop working when a later version is released. It will still work, but to download versions higher than 109 you will need to have Windows 10 u11.
The same is going to happen with Microsoft’s Edge browser. Last month Microsoft confirmed that the version 109 of Edge and the WebView2 runtime they were going to be the Latest with support for Windows 7 and 8.1. These two updates will be released on January 12, two days after the official end of support for both systems for business users who took advantage of the extended support program for them. Future versions of Edge will not be available to them.
