Windows 10 victory as latest update offers very good news for Microsoft

When Windows 10 first launched in 2015 Microsoft had very high hopes for its latest and greatest software.

The US firm famously declared that it wanted to have one billion people using it within two to three years but their big dreams for this operating system didn’t come true.

By November 2017 it was installed on around 600 million devices with that figure increasing to 800 million earlier this year.

However, things seem to be improving at a rapid rate for Microsoft with latest reports from NetMarlketShare suggesting Windows 10 now has a whopping 50 per cent share of the Microsoft market.

Meanwhile, Windows 7 adoption is falling fast with it now installed on 30 per cent of all Microsoft-powered machines.

The past year has seen Windows 10 overtaking Windows 7 and continue to grow its lead over this older OS with huge month-on-month gains.

This partly due to all the upgrades and new features that are regularly released by Microsoft but there’s also another big reason why so many people are making the switch.

From January 2020, Microsoft will no longer push out updates to this ageing operating system which could leave users open to issues and more attacks from hackers.

After the January 14 date, Windows 7 will continue to work but Microsoft has warned that PCs will become more vulnerable to security risks as users will stop receiving security and feature updates.

Explaining more about the end of Windows 7, the US firm said: “Microsoft made a commitment to provide 10 years of product support for Windows 7 when it was released on October 22, 2009. When this 10-year period ends, Microsoft will discontinue Windows 7 support so that we can focus our investment on supporting newer technologies and great new experiences.

“The specific end of support day for Windows 7 will be January 14, 2020. After that, technical assistance and software updates from Windows Update that help protect your PC will no longer be available for the product.

“Microsoft strongly recommends that you move to Windows 10 sometime before January 2020 to avoid a situation where you need service or support that is no longer available.

“You can continue to use Windows 7, but after support has ended, your PC will become more vulnerable to security risks and viruses.

“Windows will continue to start and run, but you will no longer receive software updates, including security updates, from Microsoft.”