On Tuesday, Microsoft officially ended support for Windows Vista, leaving a host of Windows shops without security updates, technical content, and more. The 10-year support cycle for Vista is up, so Microsoft is moving to invest “resources towards more recent technologies” so it can “continue to deliver great new experiences.”
Although Microsoft has been planning the move for a while, it officially announced the end of Vista support in a blog post on the company’s website. According to the post, Windows Vista users “will no longer receive new security updates, non-security hotfixes, free or paid assisted support options, or online technical content updates from Microsoft.”
The news means that organizations will have a more difficult time maintaining a strong security posture and could lose access to some apps, as updates could render them incompatible with Vista. Here are four options for Vista users looking to make an upgrade.