Microsoft on Monday reminded customers running Windows 7 that they have just three years of support remaining, told them that the aged OS was “long outdated” and urged them to upgrade to Windows 10.
Windows 7 will exit what Microsoft calls Extended Support on Jan. 14, 2020; at that point, the company will stop all security updates.
Microsoft used the three-years-and-counting milestone to simultaneously denigrate Windows 7 and promote its successor. “Windows 7 is based on long-outdated security architectures,” said Markus Nitschke, the head of Microsoft Germany, in a post to a German-language company blog , adding that the OS “does not meet the requirements of modern technology, nor the high security requirements of IT departments.”
On the other hand, Nitschke continued, “with Windows 10, we offer our customers the highest level of security and functionality at the cutting edge.”
The praise-the-new-denounce-the-old technique is as old as software, and one Microsoft has regularly applied. Three years ago, the company used some of the same tactics when it disparaged Windows XP , whose retirement was then quickly approaching, and trumpeted Windows 7 as its replacement.
