While it's come as no surprises, today marks the end of the dreaded and hated Windows 8 just after three years of its release of October 30, 2012 Microsoft is ending all of its update support starting January 12,2016. As Microsoft continues its push for total dominance with Windows 10, what does this mean for Windows 8 users, if there are any left is they will have to upgrade to Windows 8.1 or later within 24 months if they wish to continue to stay secure and up to date.

The affected products are Windows 8, Windows 8 Enterprise, Windows 8 Enterprise N, Windows 8 N, Windows 8 Pro, and Windows 8 Pro N so pretty much everything Windows 8 is going bye-bye. But Windows 8.1 Not quite just yet, it will remain under the windows 8 support lifecycle policy till 1/10/ 2023 as stated on their site:Announcing Windows 8.1 Support Lifecycle Policy

Quote:
"The lifecycle of Windows 8.1 will remain under the same lifecycle policy as Windows 8 with support ending 1/10/2023. Windows 8 customers now have two years to move to Windows 8.1 after its General Availability to continue to remain supported under the Windows 8 lifecycle. With the availability of Windows 8.1, it is time to start planning your deployment, and there are deployment tools and guidance available to help make these updates seamless for customers."

If Windows 8 is killed off what about older versions of Windows?

• Windows 7 end lifecycle is in January 14, 2020 yes the year of flying cars and hover boards hopefully.
• Windows Vista if your parents are still using this they will be fine till April 11, 2017 when the lifecycle ends.

check out: Windows lifecycle fact sheet for more info when support ends for your operating system.

If you are still using Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, the option to upgrade to Windows 10 is still available. But since Microsoft is enforcing Windows 10 trying to do a Windows Update on either of operating system will have Windows 10 come up as a recommended update.

Well, if you’re wondering why Windows 8 is being sent to the grave so quickly, it’s because Microsoft poor branding of the operating system. Angering its users with removal of the infamous start button, which was replaced with a full screen metro system that made the operating system so tedious and slow to get around leading to its own demise with user reverting back to Windows 7. Windows 8 was specifically targeted to the rise of tablets but it failed on all accounts. Then came Windows 8.1 came along which made Windows 8 a bit better but the damage it had done was irreversible, thus created the existence of Windows 10.Windows 8 surely lived a short life and will surely be forgotten. But what do you think? Will be it missed? Are you still using it? What are you going to upgrade to?

Source- Microsoft Support Lifecycle
Tags:Microsoft, Microsoft Windows, Windows, Windows 8