As of tomorrow, January 12, Windows 8.0 support comes to a close. Those who exam the Windows Product Lifecycle table might be inclined to think they have longer, based on this snapshot from that resource:

Dude! Table sez “Mainstream Support End Date is 1/9/2018?!?

There is, however, some applicable “fine print” that actually supersedes the date information shown in the table. The Windows 8.1 Support Lifecycle Policy FAQ includes this unambiguous counter-claim in its first paragraph: “With the General Availability of Windows 8.1, customers on Windows 8 have 2 years, until January 12, 2016, to move to Windows 8.1 in order to remain supported.” As you can see from the “Notes” field in the Windows 8 entries above, MS is pretty clear about warning users on the need to move onto Windows 8.1 by 1/12/2016.

Yep, that’s tomorrow, as Paul Thurrott stated in the recent article that reminded me of this little gotcha. What surprised me most in his story is that “over 41 million people [are] still using Windows 8.0 for some reason, as it’s installed on about 2.75 percent of all PCs currently in use” (based on stats from a familiar source: NetMarketShare.com). Thus, those who haven’t moved some of their users from 8.0 to 8.1 (or 10) should probably get going on that process, so as to minimize the window during which support is absent and security risks escalated thereby. Time to get a move on!

Note:

The article was originally published by Ed Tittel @ TechTarget: IT Knowledge Exchange on January 11th, 2016. It is reproduced on this blog with an author’s permission.