Nestled between donuts and gingerbread creations lurks the Windows 7 EOS fairy The Easter Bunny has been and left us with a basket of bork in the form of Microsoft's Windows 7 End of Support (EOS) fairy. Readers might remember the excitement at the beginning of 2020 when, with a wave of a sparkly wand, great swathes of Windows 7 installations were suddenly deemed out of support and Microsoft switched the …
It always disappoints me when I see this sort of thing in business environment. For sure individual users can make the choice to carry on with Windows 7. But a business needs to be on top of this stuff, unfortunately quite often those up the top of the food chain are generally just dumb users and don't understand the consequences (thats why we have GDPR as massive financial penalties focuses their minds, be interesting to see if you have a databreach and it was because of having Windows 7 whether they would thow the book at you), and IT generally don't seem to be able to explain the reasons and needs.
My own company seems to think we can replace servers OSes at a rate of one server a day, the reality is we can do 1 every 3 days if we luck out and the business co-operates. When you have only 100 servers it isnt a big issue, when you have 450 that need to be replaced and support for the OS runs out in two years time you can see there is going to be a problem, it can take 2 years to just replace a SAP instance and do all the testing, but they will say there is no budget this year so you have to do al 450 next.....then pay MS for the on going support which is more than if you had started the project early.
LTSB versions of Windows 10 only last 3 years, so you need to get something in place to upgrade and a proper testing process to test all your 500 different peices of crappy software used through out the business (yes that is what happens when you give users local admin rights on their PCs, they install lots of unlicensed crap software, I know of one IT company that had to buy 30 Age of Empires licences after an MS audit) to see which on does not support the latest versions of Windows untill 2 years after it has been released.
I feel your pain.. The problem I have is users requiring out of date software, largely because it works, and they can't be bothered to test any updates (might seem a bit harsh, but I know their workload, and I find it hard to believe they can't find a couple of hours each week, out of the 36 they work, to do a little testing). This software often requires out of date versions of the OS, which are no longer receiving security updates. In fact, I suspect that if we hadn't threatened these users with removing internet access from their computers the last time we did a major update, they would not have done any testing.
Regarding users installing their own software, this isn't really a problem for us. We don't give users Administrative access by default, and have deliberately made the process for requesting it bureaucratic enough that it puts most users off, and have made a much more streamlined process where, if we don't own a particular bit of software, they can request it officially and end up with it being pushed to their machine(s).
I have a customer - tier 1 retailer - still running Windows Server 2003 and XP Embedded in large parts of their estate.
It is slowly being upgraded but years late. The thinking is they can aggressively partition their network separating Point of Sale from everything else.
Another T1 supermarket retailer still runs 15 year old Warehouse picking software on Windows CE.
Likely ease of management. While various devices are capable of doing this function (they could use a series of screens controlled by Pi Zeros, for instance), management may not be easy for thousands of these devices. The Windows 7 machines may be hooked up to a proper MDM solution, like System Center, which, for all it's many faults, does make managing thousands of machines relatively easy.
While System Center also makes it relatively easy to push out new versions of Windows in much the same way you can push out Applications, Greggs may have held back because of licencing, and certain versions of System Center require upgrades to push out Windows 10. These are both going to cost significant amounts of money (Windows 10 is free to users, not to commercial entities).
Not defending Greggs at all. They should have upgrade to Windows 10, IMO. Just giving possible reasons why they haven't.
If you buy a car, and the manufacturer decides it'll no longer supply spares for it, if you're happy with the performance of the drum brakes, then how would you feel if they decided to frig the radio, so it constantly poured out propaganda about how bad your car was?
When you've paid for your OS, it's your property, not Microsoft's, and any attempt to disable features (like the DVD drive, which was their parting shot) should be an offence.
Microsoft is spinning a fairy tale. Windows of any version is exactly as vulnerable to viruses the day or year after support ends as it was the day or year before. Software does not "wear out" with use like a pair of cheap shoes. Internet packets do not get more powerful to break through closed connections like K.I.T.T. crashing through a wall. Defects in design or production that allow malware exploits were inherent in this "professional" software from the moment it left the factory, and should be treated by regulators the same as safety defects in appliances and automobiles - by mandatory repair or refund regardless of warranty terms.
An End-Of-Support date is just an attempt to turn liability for defects into sales of new products with new defects adding to the legacy defects carried forward for compatibility. Microsoft's shifting "end-of" dates testifies to how arbitrary these paper lifetimes really are.
The cycle of "sell crap, pretend to care for a bit but disclaim all remedies in the license, sell new crap" will continue until lawmakers assign strict liability to software vendors that claim to offer support as a justification for the price. If the license limit on number or type of installation applies in perpetuity, then so must the full support period. Flaws present from Day One should be treated as if they were discovered on Day One and not allow the get-out-of-hell-free card of calling a product "too old to fix."
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