Today is Patch Tuesday, and as usual, all supported versions of Windows got their updates. However, support for some versions of the OS is coming to an end soon. Specifically, Windows 8.1 will get its final update on January 10, 2023. Microsoft previously announced that users on Windows 8.1 would eventually start getting notified of the impending change, and with today’s update, those notifications are live.
The notification, which can be seen above, gives users three options. You can choose to learn more, be reminded later, or be reminded when support ends. This isn’t as aggressive of a tactic as we’ve seen from Microsoft in the past; indeed, you might not have expected an option to not be reminded until January 10. If you choose the more generic option to be reminded later, you’ll see that notification about once a month. Once the end of support date arrives, you can choose to never see it again.
Presumably, this push isn’t super-aggressive because there are so few users on Windows 8.1. When support for Windows XP and Windows 7 ended, it was a really big deal because so many people were still using those operating systems. Windows 8, with all respect to the people that worked on it, was a disastrous flop. It radically designed an interface that was familiar to users for decades, and it didn’t do so in an intuitive way. When Windows 10 came out as a free upgrade, people moved on pretty quickly.
Now the current version is Windows 11, but interestingly enough, while Microsoft only publicized the free upgrade for a year, you can still use any Windows 7, 8.1, or 10 key to activate Windows 11. And yes, that means that you can still use your Windows 7 or 8.1 key to activate Windows 10. Being that Windows 11 only supports a subset of Windows 10 hardware, and Windows 8.1 hardware is going to be eligible for Windows 10 only. However, with Windows 10, you’ll still be supported until 2025, getting a few extra years out of your PC.
Once the end of support date arrives on January 10, 2023, that means that you won’t get updates anymore. Everything on your PC will remain to be usable, including the ability to just do the things you do. The Store, however, will shut down in July 2023.
In order to recieve updates for your computer, we recommend that you either upgrade to Windows 10 here and Windows 11 here.
