Like Windows XP before, on January the 14th Microsoft ended its support for Windows 7. If you are still running a computer with Windows 7 I suspect you have been getting notifications on your screen like the one below for some time now.


Change is hard and many people have avoided making the leap to Windows 10. They have been put off by horror stories of upgrading and glitches from the early days back in 2015. Windows 10 is now nearly 5 years old and has matured past a lot of those initial glitches that everyone talked about. So, the change is not as risky as it once was.

Microsoft have also said there will be no Windows 11, just upgrades to Windows 10. Currently, there are 2 big updates to Windows 10 every year. These are called “Feature Updates” and are launched in April and October, and sensibly called 1903 or 1809, the year and month. Each of these feature updates are supported for 18 months, after which you must upgrade to a “newer” version of Windows 10. At the moment there is no cost associated with this and the process is all automated by Windows Updates. However, some older computers may have compatibility issues as more of these features are added and eventually you may find that your 7 year old laptop which happily ran Windows 10 a year ago, no longer works properly. If your machine is a laptop, you may have little choice but to buy a new one at this point.

If you are still running Windows 7, I would encourage you to upgrade to Windows 10. This way you will be protected from more modern threats (or exploits). Good Antivirus is essential but should not be used as an excuse to not update your operating system. Don’t hesitate to give me a call as upgrading need not be excessively expensive and is a much cheaper option than buying a new computer.

Happy ‘Putering

Caroline The ‘PuterTutor