January 11, 2023, 02:07 PM EST

With Microsoft closing the guide on Windows 7 bug fixes, one resolution supplier says we’re unlikely to see historical past repeat itself with the shift from Windows 10 to 11.

At lengthy final, we’ve reached the tip of the road with Windows 7.

On Tuesday, Microsoft reduce the wire on safety updates for the long-persevering working system, which was massively well-liked with many companies in its day — and for some customers, up by way of the current day.

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While the official end of support date for Windows 7 arrived again in January 2020, Microsoft had consented to continue offering Windows 7 safety updates to companies keen to pay for them. (Microsoft understands that “everyone is at a different point in the upgrade process,” wrote Jared Spataro, company vp for Microsoft 365, in a weblog submit in 2019.)

Those “extended” Windows 7 safety updates, nevertheless, came to a close on Tuesday. That gave Windows 7, which launched within the fall of 2009, a greater than 13-year run.

Of the 98 patches rolled out by Microsoft on Tuesday as a part of its month-to-month safety replace launch, 42 utilized to Windows 7, according to a tally by Angela Gunn, a senior risk researcher at Sophos.

As a lot as many companies relied on Windows 7, “it’s about time” that the working system attain its finale, mentioned Luis Alvarez, president and CEO of Salinas, Calif.-based Alvarez Technology Group.

“In so many ways [the extended security updates] were a false sense of security for a number of people,” he informed CRN. “They believed they could keep their Windows 7 systems secure by paying an annual fee — but really, the underlying issues that caused those security vulnerabilities weren’t being patched.”

Alvarez mentioned that his agency can now get the “last stragglers” throughout the consumer base off of Windows 7, and onto Windows 10, the successor to Windows 7, or the most recent model of the working system, Windows 11.

Looking forward, Alvarez doesn’t imagine that we’ll encounter one of these problem once more with the inevitable transition from Windows 10 to Windows 11, nevertheless. For most companies that caught with Windows 7 for the lengthy haul, it was prompted by compatibility issues in Windows 10 for important software program that they depend upon.

But the shift from Windows 10 to 11 isn’t expected to return with main app compatibility threat. “None of the apps our clients use are incompatible,” Alvarez mentioned.

In phrases of compatibility, Microsoft has described Windows 11 as being “built on the same foundation as Windows 10.” The codebase of Windows 11 is “very similar” to that of Windows 10, a Forrester analyst beforehand informed CRN.

Now that a couple of years have elapsed following the foremost switch-over from Windows 7 to 10, the subsequent refresh cycle is prone to begin quickly. “We’re starting to enter a window where those [Windows 10] systems need to be aged out,” Alvarez mentioned.

Kyle Alspach

Kyle Alspach is a Senior Editor at CRN centered on cybersecurity. His protection spans information, evaluation and deep dives on the cybersecurity trade, with a give attention to fast-growing segments comparable to cloud safety, software safety and id safety.  He could be reached at kalspach@thechannelcompany.com.