The kitchen is closed for Windows 7, as decade-old OS reaches end of life

No more software updates. No more technical support. No more patches. You have been warned.

COMMENT Being a chef for a popular kitchen is no small task. I’ve known many chefs over the years at various restaurants, and I’ve witnessed their dedication to their profession. Each one takes their craft very seriously. If they were lax in their endeavors, then the outcome could be unfortunate in many ways.

Imagine, if you will: A chef runs a restaurant for 11 years. The restaurant had their grand opening day on October 22, 2009. Things were going great. The restaurant was productive, and the customers were happy. But then after six years the restaurant started to show its age. Customers started to drift away from the establishment to move on to new, fresher eateries.

Support faded and layoffs left only a skeleton kitchen staff from January 13, 2015. Food quality dropped off. Hygiene standards declined.

After 11 years in business, the restaurant had abandoned all semblance of decorum. Paint was peeling from the walls. Floors were sticky. Most of the customers had stopped coming altogether. They had moved on to eat at new establishments but the ones that still came, the stalwarts, had started to die off from various food-borne illnesses.

All of this sort of thing is preventable.

Now imagine you are that chef and your restaurant is your computer, or you support the computers for your organization, and your customers keep getting compromised. Your systems are grinding to a halt. All because you didn’t see the necessity of patching your system. Why? Would you want to eat in a dirty restaurant? No? Then why run a computer that is susceptible to security risks and systemic failures?

Well, that time is up. It’s not like no one warned you. The end of days has arrived for Windows 7 – today, January 14, 2020. No more software updates. No more technical support. No more patches. No more anything. The kitchen is closed.

There has been a lot of discussion about the cybersecurity risks of not updating old Windows 7 boxes, but a far simpler issue would be simple day-to-day operation. As software support is removed, so follows the support of applications that ride on top of the operating system.

To be clear, I’m not dismissing the security aspects. In fact, by the time you read this it may have sunk in why you need to upgrade your systems as soon as possible. Microsoft may have already announced a new security issue by now.

But why wait to read about it? Save time and upgrade your system instead.

Are you still here? Go! Upgrade.