01/21/2020

Crossroads: What Windows 7 Laggards Should Do Next

Those impacted might need one of these four fixes

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A popular, long-running version of Windows is no longer being supported by Microsoft, and a significant chunk of the internet is still using it—even in the enterprise.

This is a problem that first cropped up six years ago, as Microsoft stopped supporting Windows XP, and now it’s here again, thanks to the wind-down of the Windows 7 support cycle last week. Despite not getting any major updates in nine years, the software remains hugely popular, with a 26.79 percent global market share, according to StatCounter—well above any other Windows version barring Windows 10, which has slightly more than 65 percent of the market. (In the U.S., the percentages are 17.91 percent and 75.42 percent, respectively.) The good news is that the market share is falling sharply, especially in developed countries in North America and Europe.

But if your users are still using outdated Windows-based machines at this point, your association likely fits into a handful of specific use cases. Read on for some thoughts on how to move forward if you have some Windows 7 machines hanging around, still in use.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Associations Now.