[Brazelton] Windows 7 SP1 ...and now Windows 8/8.1, too.

PatrThom

PatrThom

So if you haven't seen all the notices, today (Tue, Jan 14, 2020) is the date that Windows 7 SP1 finally goes out of extended service. IF you are a volume license customer, you have the "opportunity" to fork over a few (hundred) extra bucks per machine to keep it on life support until 2023, but unless you have a fleet of machines (and some deep pockets!), this is it. Steam says that fully 1/3 of their users are still running Win7 SP1, but Statcounter says that Win7SP1's Internet-wide share has fallen from 35% in Jan2019 to just about 26% in Jan2020, and it's only a matter of time before the pressure mounts and you're forced to move to WinX whether you want to or not because Win8 is all but abandoned.

A moment of silence, then, for the last (and arguably greatest) "true" version of Windows that Microsoft ever released.
gatzbye.gif


--Patrick
 
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PatrThom

PatrThom

And now that other shoe has finally dropped:

AMD Moves GCN 1, 2, & 3-based GPUs and APUs To Legacy; Also Drops Win7* Support
Adrenalin 21.5.2 will be the last release which supports the Radeon HD 7xxx through Radeon R5/R7/R9 3xx cards.
(*AMD officially discontinued their Win8/8.1 driver branch in July 2017. Driver v17.7.1 was the last version to offer official, named support for Win8/8.1 but DOES NOT support the RX 5xx cards on 8/8.1, AMD unofficially allowed installation of the Win7SP1 drivers onto Win8/8.1 systems in order to support Radeon RX 5xx through Radeon RX 6xxx cards)

NVIDIA Kepler GPU Architecture (GeForce 600 / 700*) Series Driver Support Officially Ends on 31st of August 30th of September, [All] Windows 7/8/8.1 Drivers Also To Be Discontinued
R470 will be the last driver version which supports the GeForce GTX 4xx through GeForce GTX 7xx* cards.
(*GeForce GTX 745/750/750Ti cards are instead based on the Maxwell architecture, and so those specific models will probably survive this round)

That's it, then. That's the end.

Without support from the two major GPU mfrs, even die-hards like myself and @GasBandit (and according to the Steam survey, the 4-7% of people still using pre-DX12 GPUs, any version of Win7/8, or even Win10 32-bit) will soon very likely be FORCED to move to Windows 10 x64, because once Steam follows suit and makes Win10 a requirement (which I expect they will announce sooner rather than later), that will be enough pressure to finally push everyone to Win10.

That said, Windows 10 is itself scheduled to go end-of-life in just 4 more years, at which point I suppose we can hope that all the bugs are finally worked out of Windows 11.

--Patrick
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
I can't remember when I last updated my Nvidia drivers. But I have been working under the assumption that my next computer will have to be Windows 10, And I'm already dual booting this one. But the upgrades on this motherboard have gone about as far as they can go, so when it no longer cuts the mustard it's time for a new box. Maybe it will be a Windows 11 box, at this rate.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

I was already resigned to having to build myself a new system as of last Fall, but then when the component market decided to unmoor itself from reality, I was left with the very real worry my system might age out before I could build a new one. I have another system I was going to load with Win8.1 to let me get by until things calmed down (since Win8.1 is supposed to be supported by MS until 2023), but since the vendors are using this to abandon both 7&8 together, that worry is right back again.

--Patrick
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

...aaaand updated the title of the thread now that today (well, yesterday technically where I live) is/was the official end for everything Win7/8/8.1-related.

--Patrick
 
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