October 2025 will be a support massacre for a bunch of Microsoft products

https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/18/2025_support_end_microsoft/

by praseodym • 2 years ago

58 90 2 years ago

saulpw• 2 years ago

It is interesting that Google gets a lot of flak for canceling products, while Microsoft effectively cancels products all the time through EOL, but it doesn't register the same because they will sell you the next version (which is NOT the same as the old version only better).

Would love to still run Windows XP.

infotainment• 2 years ago

Eh, I do think there’s a difference between “cancelling” a product because a newer version exists, versus cancelling one with no replacement at all.

SlavikCA• 2 years ago

The difference is that with Microsoft you often still can use unsupported product. You can use Windows XP today, even though it's not very useful.

But you can't use Google Reader or Google Wave in any shape or form.

brokenmachine2• 2 years ago

You can use Windows XP today, even though it's not very useful.

Will that be true for Win 10 or 11 though? Would they keep running forever without updates?

danpalmer• 2 years ago

Microsoft has good backwards compatibility in general, but saying "you can't use Google Wave in any shape or form" isn't really true in spirit.

Much of the advance of Wave went into other products. Wave itself did not take off, but we have better chat, better email, better docs, all because of things pioneered in Wave. This is often the case with Google products disappearing, it's often because they've served their purpose and the technology has become normalised in other places.

Google Play Music is a good example of this. It was a technically capable product, but missing the market (in my opinion), and was turned into YouTube Music, a much better fit (again, opinion). Many product "deaths" are actually just a migration, or a recognition that the product is no longer necessary, and are better for it.

Apart from Reader. RIP Reader.

userbinator• 2 years ago

The community has actually come up with some very useful mods to XP, like drivers for newer hardware and backported patches for APIs which originally were only present in newer versions of Windows.

ZainRiz• 2 years ago

With Microsoft they tell you years in advance when the product will reach EOL, so you have plenty of time to prepare

On top of that, most of their products are software running on your desktop and will still keep working after EOL

And if you're a government or enterprise with spectacularly big wallets, you can choose to pay Microsoft big $$ to keep shipping you additional security patches

Dalewyn• 2 years ago

And if you're a government or enterprise with spectacularly big wallets

Normal people also get to buy extended support if desired[1], and frankly it's not that expensive if you really need it.

[1] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/04/03/1757230/microsoft-r...

paulryanrogers• 2 years ago

For how much longer will this be true? Aren't they deprecating Office offline in favor of the online edition?

daveoc643• 2 years ago

It's not at all interesting.

Google closes services with no alternative, and as they are almost always cloud-based, you can't use them at all after the closure.

Microsoft is selling products that can be used indefinitely, albeit without continued software updates from Microsoft.

vel0city9• 2 years ago

It is interesting that Google gets a lot of flak for canceling products, while ~~Microsoft~~ Canoical effectively cancels products all the time through EOL, but it doesn't register the same because they will sell you the next version (which is NOT the same as the old version only better).

Would love to still run Dapper Drake.

pquki4• 2 years ago

That's really a stretch to equate cancelling products to product EOL. I don't think I need to explain it -- anyone who ever looked at the release cycle of Python, Ubuntu, Django, Node.js etc understands why it is common and makes sense to have a well-defined support timeline.

patmorgan23• 2 years ago

Microsoft tells you in 5-10 years this product will be unsupported, you almost always have the option to buy extended support and sometimes they push back the EOL date. And the solution to the EOL is to upgrade to the new release.

Google randomly kills products with 30-60 days notice, and no upgrade path to a different product.

Completely different.

dist-epoch• 2 years ago

Windows 10 has 67% market share, Windows 11 has 27%.

There is absolutely no chance Windows 10 gets killed next year.

Don't forget Microsoft backed down from removing Paint from Windows after some minor backlash.

dspillett• 2 years ago

Don't forget Microsoft backed down from removing Paint from Windows after some minor backlash.

A more relevant example might be that they extended the life of XP because there was demand for the netbooks of the time that there was no way Vista would run on acceptably. In that case, as with being forced off Win10, Linux was the main alternative.

hulitu• 2 years ago

Don't forget Microsoft backed down from removing Paint from Windows after some minor backlash.

They still removed it. The new Paint is a parody.

abhinavk3• 2 years ago

The new Paint is still the older Paint with a few new features. Back in the day, MS was trying to replace paint.exe with Paint3D app.

vel0city9• 2 years ago

The new paint is massively improved compared to the old paint. Layer support for PNG finally, if the only improvement, makes whatever tradeoffs are in the app (I haven't found any downsides personally) worth it.

AdamN• 2 years ago

Where's that data from?

SirMaster• 2 years ago

Well it's explicitly not getting killed. You can pay for updates after the date.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/5/23988896/microsoft-window...

elzbardico• 2 years ago

Large companies will be forced to milk for extended support agreements if they can't upgrade to Windows 10.

Domestic and small business users will be left in the dark, but not before Microsoft extends support for one more year or two just at the cusp of the deadline so they can show they were generous in case they are met in the future with some class action because windows 10 users were targeted with malware due to the lack of security updates.

post_break• 2 years ago

Don’t forget about these juicy dates. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/endofsupport/...

jmclnx• 2 years ago

Microsoft 365 Apps is probably the only thing keeping Windows Server on the Cloud Relevant.

greatgib• 2 years ago

   "In March 2021, we confronted a serious reality: state sponsored threat actors were targeting on-premises Exchange servers."

That totally joke excuse to just say that they think that they can milk their users more with a saas business instead of selling permanent licenses.

Also I find it very funny that Microsoft use the security of on-premise as an excuse when you see how insecure was their own IT with most of the public exchange was probably vulnerable to leak multiple times and for a long time...

lolinder2• 2 years ago

You cut the part of the paragraph that gives the actual context for the quote:

In 2022, Microsoft said the next version of the server would turn up in the second half of 2025. It was originally planned for 2021, but Microsoft said: "Unfortunately, 2021 had other plans for Exchange Server. In March 2021, we confronted a serious reality: state sponsored threat actors were targeting on-premises Exchange servers."

They're not trying to use the incident as an excuse to push people off of Exchange, all they're saying is that the 2021 release was delayed because of the security incidents.

Here's what Microsoft actually said in the blog post (emphasis theirs) [0]:

We will maintain the current support dates for Exchange Server 2013, Exchange Server 2016, and Exchange Server 2019; however, we plan to support the next version of Exchange Server beyond October 14, 2025. We are moving the next version of Exchange Server to our Modern Lifecycle Policy, which has no end of support dates. We plan on continuing to support Exchange Server as long as there is substantive market demand.

[0] https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/ex...

sofixa• 2 years ago

Also I find it very funny that Microsoft use the security of on-premise as an excuse when you see how insecure was their own IT with most of the public exchange was probably vulnerable to leak multiple times and for a long time...

Azure is by far the worst public cloud in terms of security. It was so bad, the Bing homepage could be edited by any logged in user, and that's just one example.

A random selection of other examples I've previously commented on here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39990768

Arcuru2• 2 years ago

Has anyone figured out how many devices are still running Windows that can't upgrade to 11?

The oldest Intel CPUs supported were released in 2017.

throwaway484762• 2 years ago

I am, for one.

r2_pilot• 2 years ago

I am, for two. I bought the flagship Intel cpu the generation before support for win 11, and when I get done with it, I will switch it to Linux and have an awesome computer.

ocdtrekkie2• 2 years ago

This really is a place any climate-concerned country should find a way to legally intervene. Speaking of my ten year old gaming PC which still runs modern games fine, forcing me to replace it is just straight carbon waste.

Ekaros• 2 years ago

Maybe there should be some sort of licensing. Single appliance like phone or laptop per person. You can not get new one until you have proven that you have tried to get device repaired. And accidental or intentional damage like dropping or water would result in permanently losing right to that device for some reasonable period like 10 to 15 years from purchase date...

vel0city9• 2 years ago

Are the same people making a stink about Microsoft doing this also making a stink about Apple doing practically the same every time they release a new MacOS version?

How long should hardware be supported? Indefinitely? Should Microsoft still target 286's? Pentium III's?

afavour• 2 years ago

Like it or not Microsoft has built a reputation for itself as supporting devices for a very long time. A reputation Apple definitely doesn’t have. So, no, I don’t think the same level of stink is warranted because people know what they’re getting with the Apple ecosystem when they sign up.

tivert• 2 years ago

Are the same people making a stink about Microsoft doing this also making a stink about Apple doing practically the same every time they release a new MacOS version?

Yes, some of them. Though of course there are people who make stink about Microsoft and not Apple because they don't use Apple products.

How long should hardware be supported? Indefinitely?

Yes. Or at least approximately as long as Linux does. Especially since it's no longer the 80s/90s and we're not seeing anywhere near the kind of rapid and significant hardware improvements the PC industry saw back then [1]. Microsoft is an extremely successful company with 221,000 full time employees, they have the capacity to do this.

[1] Over the last couple decades, I've declined scheduled PC refreshes a couple times after checking the specs, because the "refreshed" PC was literally almost the same as my current one (like a small CPU bump and a bit more memory). For completely selfish reasons it made more sense to just keep the old one and maybe buy some more RAM than go through the trouble of migrating my stuff.

doubled1122• 2 years ago

It is hard to know where to draw the line. I'm sure they used some telemetry to decide which machines were too much work.

The only shocker on my machines is my first gen Ryzen build. I guess 8c/16t and 32GB RAM isn't enough to run Windows anymore?

cesarb2• 2 years ago

How long should hardware be supported? Indefinitely? Should Microsoft still target 286's? Pentium III's?

One obvious cut-off point is support for 64-bit software (the AMD64 ISA). Another is a minimum speed and memory capacity.

People are complaining because, in many cases, these "no longer supported" CPU models are faster than the allowed CPU models, and they accept more than enough RAM.

toast03• 2 years ago

How long should hardware be supported?

IMHO, until there's a good reason to depend on a feature they don't have. For cpus, that's usually an instruction that makes things possible or much more efficient.

286s were obsoleted by the 386's 32-bit and virtual modes.

Pentium III was obsoleted by 64-bit mode, if not some version of SSE.

It looks like the 24H2 release of Windows 11 is going to require SSE 4.2, POPCNT is nice, and I guess they want to depend on it. Seems ok for an instruction that's been in processors for over a decade.

Personally, I don't find the TPM requirement essential, especially since windows seems to work fine without a tpm; whereas I'd bet the builds that rely on POPCNT won't work without it. One could hook the bad instruction exception and backfill with a software implementation to count bits, but I think it's ok to skip.

grujicd5• 2 years ago

Problem is mid-high end Windows PC from 10 years ago with SSD and enough RAM is indistinguishable from 2024 PC for many, many workloads. Btw. I'm alternating between 2012 i7 and 2023 i7 on a daily basis and wish difference would be larger for me but it's not. It's not like a situation with 286/386/486 at all. There are zero benefits in upgrading these machines for majority of users. Sure, if you do video encoding or something similar difference can be huge. But for general development, document editing, multimedia/browsing, it's all the same. That's why this forced upgrade stinks.

And Apple stinks too, but we're not arguing that here.

eviks3• 2 years ago

Yes

How many 286s are out there?

secondcoming• 2 years ago

I thought it's a motherboard thing rather than a CPU one?

Arcuru2• 2 years ago

The main blocker is the requirement for TPM 2.0. It requires a minimum chipset (motherboard) version, which is only compatible with a minimum CPU generation. I'm not sure how much is implemented on the CPU die vs the mobo chipset, but you effectively need both.

So I think you're right, saying it's a motherboard thing may be slightly more accurate :)

KoolKat23• 2 years ago

Well a silly sample, but in my household of 5 PC's (including work PC's).

Only 2 or 40% are supported.

_trampeltier• 2 years ago

It's not just the hardware. A lot of (industrial) software does not work on Windows 11.

TiredOfLife2• 2 years ago

In my household of 6 pc's only 1 can be upgraded. And it is not the fastest of them.

johnwheeler• 2 years ago

Massacre huh…

alyandon2• 2 years ago

I still wonder if Microsoft is going to blink with the whole Windows 11 requires TPM + modern(ish) CPU requirements vs the EOL of Windows 10.

I have a lot of hardware that will not run Windows 11 without hacking the installer to bypass the TPM/CPU checks and even then the end result is something that would be unsupported by Microsoft. If I move these machines to Windows 11 I'll be at risk of a future update hosing the install because it relies on newer CPU instructions or non-existent TPM.

I'm not going to retire those systems - I'll just migrate them to Linux instead.

aaomidi• 2 years ago

Why wait?

alyandon2• 2 years ago

Migrating will be a non-trivial amount of work per-system and I have no pressing need to do so until Windows 10 is actually close to its EOL date.

iamleppert2• 2 years ago

Businesses can turn to new AI powered features and applications, such as Microsoft Bing and ChatGPT to replace these legacy systems. AI powered Bing and Microsoft 365 provide engaging and immersive experiences, powered by generative AI and ChatGPT. These tools allow businesses to move at the speed of 365, and get more done, more securely and more efficiently than ever before with the help of AI.

dimgl• 2 years ago

This reads like spam.

iamleppert2• 2 years ago

Its exactly what was sent to us by our Microsoft Account Manager.

nix0n3• 2 years ago

What sort of third-party antivirus/firewall are people using these days?

Windows 10 is really the only viable option for my gaming PC (everything else is on Linux). So I'll run it as safely as I can.

jve2• 2 years ago

Why you need 3rd party vendors where some of them introduces vulnerabilities when you have built-in Windows Defender and Firewall?

Or you love those popups from 3rd party vendors?

nix0n3• 2 years ago

I'm assuming the drop of first-party support will force me onto a third-party.

I have had bad experiences in the past, so I'm trying to find out if there are any good ones.

I know my CPU will take a hit, but I have cycles to spare despite not having TPU support.

eviks3• 2 years ago

Windows introduces vulnerabilities all the time, how is that an argument?

Or do you love the ugly interface of Firewall?

andrewguenther• 2 years ago

None. Windows Defender is actually quite good and the third party options are so bad I'd argue in many cases you're worse off having them installed.

nix0n3• 2 years ago

I'm assuming Windows Defender support for Windows 10 will end when Micro$oft removes support for Windows 10.

Am I wrong? Will Defender keep getting its definition updates?

Conversely, if Defender keeps getting updates, what does it even mean for Windows 10 support to end?

abhinavk3• 2 years ago

If you are not doing much on that PC, Defender and Windows Firewall is enough. Of course, that's assuming Microsoft continues to provide Defender intelligence and engine updates after 2025.

rkagerer• 2 years ago

Workaround is to use products which are already out of support. Eg. I'm still rocking Word and Excel 2003, and prefer them in most cases over the subsequent Ribbony-versions (despite having both installed).

As a nice bonus I'm immune from random updates that overhaul the UX, break features or move my cheese. There are effective ways to mitigate the security concerns.

neilv2• 2 years ago

I sold your city a bridge that has an engineering flaw, such that it collapses when a purple van followed by an orange scooter drives over it.

It also has thousands of other serious engineering flaws, for other combinations of vehicle and foot traffic.

I keep the bridge blueprints secret, so that only I can make patches for the engineering flaws.

But I'll slowly trickle patches to some of the thousands of engineering flaws. (Mainly when they result in collapses to bridges I've built in other cities.)

Each time, I'll act like I'm doing you a favor, patching some of the bridge engineering flaws that I made negligently.

And I'll start bundling concessions and invasiveness with these patches.

The patch for the design flaw that makes the bridge collapse when green polka-dot truck drives over it-- comes with a garish billboard that I control.

The patch for the design flaw that makes the bridge collapse when a convertible with the windshield wipers on drives over it-- gratuitously requires that everyone driving over it lets me copy all their documents and photos.

It doesn't help that your city has some really jerky enemies, who like to make bridges collapse, and have lots of time on their hands. (Maybe you should've thought of that when selecting an engineering firm for your bridge.)

Somehow, I don't get jailed for shoddy bridge engineering, nor lose my bridge engineering license, nor even have to pay compensation for any of the collapses of bridges that I sold to other cities.

grujicd5• 2 years ago

This bridge is under 24/7 hacker attacks from all parts of the world. Some of them try to unscrew bolts, some dig around the foundation, some remove a brick or two here or there or cut suspension cables.

In absence of these hackers bridge could be used without any modifications for any number of pink or orange vehicles. It supports any kind of traffic requested in specification. So it's not really a problem with any kind of regular use, it's a problem with huge number of adversaries who try to find a weak point and then actively exploit it.

Flawled analogy aside, is there an example of an OS which is actively used on open internet and doesn't require security patches or bug fixes? Or any other significantly complex software? Why should we expect from Microsoft what was not achieved anywhere else in our industry? It could be that software development is more complex and more error prone than bridge building after all.

neilv2• 2 years ago

The analogy intentionally focused on the negligent engineering flaws that let anyone with a couple cans of spray paint trigger collapse.

I didn't get to the somewhat trickier question of which parts can fail (due to time, use, nature, or sabotage) before collapse. Though I guess that might also be answered by the engineering design, and traceable to requirements and applicable standards.

nerdjon• 2 years ago

I don't have any thoughts on any of the other stuff, but I am sticking with Windows 10 until the Windows 11 LTSC version comes out later this year. Especially with a lot of the crap that Microsoft keeps adding too Windows 11 recently.

I refuse to run a non stripped down version of Windows. Windows 10 LTSC has been amazing for gaming, particularly on my Steam Deck.

That being said, almost a year and a half away doesn't really seem like a time to start panicking unless I am missing something?

October 2025 will be a support massacre for a bunch of Microsoft products

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