Windows 7 Support – Is it Ending Soon?

There has been some confusion regarding the Windows 7 lifecycle that has likely been prompted by all of the warnings surrounding the Windows XP end-of-life that occurred in April, 2014. As you'll see in the Windows lifecycle fact sheet, the date that XP became truly obsolete is the End of extended support date in April of 2014. The corresponding date for Windows 7 is in January of 2020, so it will continue to be supported by Microsoft for quite a while. The primary change that occurred in January 2015 is that no further feature changes or service packs will be developed – but that is really not an issue because by that time any major issues will have been resolved by previous updates. Microsoft continues to provide free security related updates throughout the Extended Support phase. The difference between the support levels is specified in this article (in item #3)

I hope that helps clarify where Windows 7 stands in regard to future viability.