Microsoft Vista Support ending in less than a year

The extended support time frame for Windows Vista will expire one year from this week on 11 April 2017. That will mark the end of 10 years of total support for the operating system. Vista never really had a following but it did achieve 19% adoption at one time until Windows 7 came along.

There are still about 25 million computers running Vista still even though it has less than 2% adoption today. So what options do have? You can purchase a new computer or you can try to find an upgrade option to Windows 7. Looking at Amazon there are several options for around $75. However, I would suggest that you replace the hardware with a new system instead of upgrading just the operating system.

If you decide to take the software upgrade route, run Microsoft’s Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to make sure all of your hardware and software are compatible. Based on my experience Windows 7 ran very well on Vista era hardware and should be OK on many of those systems.

You should also consider the amount RAM in you system as well. Windows 7 will run on 4GB’s of RAM but does a much better job with 8GB’s.

While holding onto older hardware and upgrading to modern versions of Windows are not upgrades that are full of performance increases – it will at least get you onto an OS that has more support left than Windows Vista itself.

In today’s security landscape it is extremely important to be actively protected from security threats.

Bottom Line: The best option to choose that will result in the best performance for the money that you are spending is to purchase a new device to upgrade from Windows Vista. You will not only get current and better performing hardware but you will also be on a more modern operating system that is ready to handle the security threats that are out there.