In March 2017, Microsoft also started blocking new security patches and updates for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users running the latest processors from Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and others. Microsoft stopped the mainstream support for Windows 7 in January 2015, but Windows users have continued to receive security updates and patches for known security issues as part of the company's extended support, which runs for at least five years.

Windows 7 was released in 2009 and, according to December 2018 stats from Netmarketshare, is currently running on about 37 percent of the world's PC fleet, which is far ahead of its radically redesigned successor Windows 8 and 8.1 combined. Want to know how popular Windows 7 is among users? Even after aggressively pushing Windows 10 installations since its release in 2015, its market share finally managed to overtake the user-favorite Windows 7 just by the end of last year. Millions of Users Are Still Using Windows 7 According to a 'Death of Windows 7' report from content delivery firm Kollective, as many as 43% of enterprises are still running the nine-year-old operating system, of which 17% didn't know when Microsoft's end of support deadline hit.

Windows 7 enterprise release date