One year left for consumers to buy Windows 7 PCs
Some say all good things must come to an end, and by this time next year, according to
Microsoft Windows lifecycle support page, PCs will no longer ship with Windows 7 preinstalled, past the October 31st 2016 deadline.
According to the same document, the end of retail software sale entered in effect on October 31st 2013 for the Home Basic, Home Premium and Ultimate editions, while retail availability for Windows 7 Professional ended October 31st 2013.
With that said, in light of the poor reception on Windows 8 and 8.1, Microsoft made the decision to extend retail availability for Windows 7, to match Windows 8 and 8.1, for which Microsoft will officially retire support as previously mentioned on October 31st 2016.
Not the end of Windows 7, yet.
The end of retail availability on PCs doesn’t mean end of life, as a matter of fact, while the Mainstream Support End Date for Windows 7 has officially entered in effect January 1st of this year, Extended Support for all versions of Windows 7 will continue until 2020, as long as Windows 7 is up to date with the latest Service Packs.
By this token, consumers who want to downgrade to Windows 7 will still be able to do so, even when purchasing new PCs preinstalled with Windows 10.
From the point of view of PC makers
PC manufacturers like HP or Dell, are already planning to make the most of the next 12 months, to cater to consumers who are still comfortable using Windows 7, including the small number of users who are still hanging onto Windows Media Center.
By this token, the next 12 months will be crucial for PC makers, as past the deadline, all PCs must ship with Windows 10, and most laptops and tablet PCs will enter in direct competition with the Microsoft Surface lineup. With Microsoft refocusing its efforts on making PCs, manufacturers will have to pay closer attention to Microsoft, especially as new and improved versions of the Surface Book and Surface Pro are released.
This matters due to many new Windows 10 features designed to interact directly with hardware, including Windows Hello security features, such as fingerprint readers and RealSense 3D cameras. as well as Secure Boot and hardware-based Bitlocker encryption.