Product support forum changes on Microsoft Community - July 2018

[pyf]

(quoting)

"Please be advised that effective July 2018, the forum topics for products that reached end of support will no longer receive technical support from Microsoft agents. There will be no proactive reviews, monitoring, answering or answer marking of questions. The forums will still have Microsoft moderation to ensure participants can engage in a safe and positive environment.

Microsoft Community participants are welcome and encouraged to continue to use the forum to ask questions and post answers with each other."


Affected products / software:

• Surface RT
  
  
• Surface 2
  
  
• Surface Pro
  
  
• Surface Pro 2

• Microsoft Lumia and Nokia Lumia
  
  
• Asha and Nokia Series 30/Series 40
  
  
• Symbian, Nokia X, and MeeGo
  
  
• Accessories

• Microsoft Security Essentials

• Office 2010
  
  
• Office 2013

• Any version of Internet Explorer < v11

• Windows version 7
  
  
• Windows 8.1, 8.1 RT

Sources:

- Product support forum changes on Microsoft Community (Surface / Surface Pro)
- Product support forum changes on Microsoft Community (Lumia / Nokia / MeeGo)
- Product support forum changes on Microsoft Community (Security Essentials)
- Product support forum changes on Microsoft Community (Office)
- Product support forum changes on Microsoft Community (Internet Explorer)
- Product support forum changes on Microsoft Community (Windows)

 

[Deleted member 238589]

They dropped win 8? Had no idea.

 

[pyf]

They are in the process of doing so.

End of mainstream support for Windows 8.1: January 9, 2018
End of extended support for Windows 8.1: January 10, 2023

Maybe I should point out that support for Windows 8.0 was dropped a few years ago.


Source:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13853/windows-lifecycle-fact-sheet

 

[chobibo]

Wow, thanks for the information.

 

[Shar Dundred]

Good news: I can use 8.1 instead of 10 for five more years.
Bad news: Win10 or 11 in five years.

 

[pyf]

Afaik, nothing should prevent you from using Windows 8.1 after it reaches its end of extended support on January 10, 2023.
...
... unless you experience a critical hardware failure, that is.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Afaik, nothing should prevent you from using Windows 8.1 after it reaches its end of extended support on January 10, 2023.

Next to the fact that as good as no software created around that time will run on it...

 

[Chaosy]

Hail remotely modern OS.
Aka windows 10.

 

[pyf]

They dropped win 8? Had no idea.

[...] Maybe I should point out that support for Windows 8.0 was dropped a few years ago. [...]

Oops, I had forgotten the official security updates from last year.

Microsoft security advisory 4025685: Guidance for older platforms: June 13, 2017


** Update **

Next to the fact that as good as no software created around that time will run on it...

I would say this will depend on the popularity of Windows 7 at that time.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I would say this will depend on the popularity of Windows 7 at that time.

All modern Intel and AMD processors do not even support Windows 7 or 8 officially right now. By 2023 there will be a whole lot more of these processors that do not support Windows 7.

 

[pyf]

Quoting myself, with emphasis added:

"Afaik, nothing should prevent you from using Windows 8.1 after it reaches its end of extended support on January 10, 2023.
...
... unless you experience a critical hardware failure, that is."

 

[pyf]

All modern Intel and AMD processors do not even support Windows 7 or 8 officially right now. [...]

I am mentioning this for the record only:
zeffy/wufuc

"Wufuc disables the "Unsupported Hardware" message in Windows Update, and allows you to continue installing updates on Windows 7 and 8.1 systems with Intel Kaby Lake, AMD Ryzen, or other unsupported processors."

More quoting:

"The release notes for Windows updates KB4012218 and KB4012219 [...] marked the implementation of a policy change [Microsoft] announced some time ago, where [they] stated that they would not be supporting Windows 7 or 8.1 on next-gen Intel, AMD and Qualcomm processors.

[...] it is especially unfortunate considering the extended support periods for Windows 7 and 8.1 won't be ending until January 4, 2020 and January 10, 2023 respectively.

Some people with older Intel and AMD processors are also affected! [...]"

Use at your own risk, and be ready to eventually reinstall your OS. You have been warned.

Also please read the release notes carefully, to understand the potential risks implied by using that kind of software.