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Microsoft Prepares To Forget About Windows 8.1 With End of Support Notifications (theverge.com) 100

Posted by msmash from the end-of-road dept.
Microsoft is preparing to send reminders to Windows 8.1 users that support will end on January 10th 2023. The software giant will start sending notifications to existing Windows 8.1 devices next month, as a first reminder leading up to the January 2023 support cutoff. From a report: The notifications will be similar to ones Microsoft has used in the past to remind Windows 7 users about end of support dates. Microsoft originally sunset Windows 8 support in 2016, but the Windows 8.1 update will cease support fully in January 2023. Microsoft will not be offering an Extended Security Update (ESU) program for Windows 8.1, so businesses won't be able to pay for additional security patches and will have to upgrade or accept the risk of running software without security updates.
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Microsoft Prepares To Forget About Windows 8.1 With End of Support Notifications More

Microsoft Prepares To Forget About Windows 8.1 With End of Support Notifications

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  • ...to Windows 8.

    I've heard that you can these days eliminate most of the problems, and I would like access to the desktop duplication API. (And supposedly you can make DX12 work pretty well on it, too.) I am not considering an "upgrade" to Windows 10 at this time.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 )

      Upgrade to some Linux distribution and you're pretty much done. No need to do the whole "will my data survive the upgrade" dance every 3-5 years.

      • Re:This seems like a good time to consider upgradi (Score:5, Funny)

        by Merk42 ( 1906718 ) on Friday June 24, 2022 @08:17AM (#62647414)
        I upgraded to Linux and now none of my programs work!

        • That's weird, never had that problem myself.

        • Re:This seems like a good time to consider upgradi (Score:4, Insightful)

          by kurkosdr ( 2378710 ) on Friday June 24, 2022 @09:18AM (#62647602)
          Seriously though, when are linux zealots going to stop? Steve Jobs went on stage, declared victory (MacOS became the alternative to Windows, not some Desktop Linux distro), and then even went ahead to tell them how MacOS won (app ecosystem and vertical integration with hardware), and these people still can't understand what users want despite being told in clear terms.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Tablizer ( 95088 )

            We're gonna invade your capitol and overturn Windows market dominance. #MLGA!

          • If you have Windows 10 or 11, you also have Linux. Just set up WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). Microsoft supports it. Linux is ubiquitous enough that this was seen as essential to keep Windows competitive in the server/cloud market (where even Microsoft's own cloud service uses Linux). WSL1 is a bit slowish, but better than Cygwin, whereas WSL2 is quick quick and speedy. It's a lot like being on a Mac and having your Terminal running Bash, Tcsh, or whatever as your primary every day shell to get real

          • Steve Jobs also said he didnt want a sales team beyond account executives as the desktop wars were over. Windows won. Yes even Steve admitted his Mac was now a niche device.

            The time Linux had a chance was the 1980s before it's birth.

            Also Desktop UI wise it's peak was was 2005 before gnome 3 which is as bad as Windows 8 with it's cell phone interface. Compiz and fusion with accelerated desktop had a chance too if the graybeards didn't stick with Xorg over the superior Wayland. Linux is 20 years behind Window

            • Despite the desktop wars being over by the mid-90s, there was a window of opportunity for an alternative OS during the Summer of Worms era (aka the era when you would unbox a fresh computer with Windows XP and it would catch Blaster before the OS even had the chance to upgrade, especially if you were on PSTN/ISDN without a NAT firewall as most people were back then). The legendarily crap customer service of OEMs and system integrators truly shined during that period (ask me how I know). Then there was anoth

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Linux isn't necessarily better for OS updates. I have to keep a load of VMs around to build old software because it only compiles with specific versions of Ubuntu or Debian. They are at least LTS versions but in that respect they are no better than Windows; they get 10 years of support.

        My usual scheme is to skip one version of Windows so I always get about 10 years out of it, but Windows 11 won't run on any of my computers or work's Windows 10 machine.

        • So what you are saying is: "I never bothered to learn how to link and use the custom locations provided to me in the OS $PATH to only have the libraries and compiler binaries I need".
           
          /usr/local{lib,bin} exists for a reason you know, and it's not just because there are keys on a keyboard. Hell even chroots / jails would be more efficient than VMs...

        • Have you pondered using containers for something like this? It looks like the perfect solution for that problem.

        • Go into your bios and turn on TPM or trusted component and turn off csm and make sure secure boot is enabled? I bet your PC will then go to 11. FYI if it's a corporate laptop with bitlocker don't do this as you will be locked out

      • Upgrade to some Linux distribution and you're pretty much done. No need to do the whole "will my data survive the upgrade" dance every 3-5 years.

        Yeah, instead I get to do the whole "will my system boot and will all the hardware I had to use workarounds to get working now fail again" dance every distribution upgrade.

        Except guess what? I run both operating systems, because I want to run software that doesn't run on both. So I get to do both dances, and your advice is irrelevant.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rhipf ( 525263 )

        If your data is getting wiped out just from a Windows upgrade you are doing something horribly wrong. The upgrade may change settings of programs and even cause programs to be incompatible but if your data is corrupted I would look at your hardware before blaming Windows for the loss.

        It is always best practice to have a backup of your data before doing any upgrade though. This holds true for upgrading any OS (e.g. MacOS, Windows, Linux, etc.).

      • The upgrade to Linux isn't exactly pain free when it comes to regulatory issues in many industries. In order for things like paid maintenance and support. Your Linux installation will be a very specific build and configuration. If you touch it they often stop supporting it. Yes there are use cases but not as cut and dry for many people.

    • 8.1 was a big improvement over 8. 8.1 allowed you to boot directly to the desktop instead of having the gawdawful full screen start menu. It also made some positive improvements to the "start menu" (ie, right click it for convenient options, etc). 8.1 was essentially Microsoft saying "oops" over it's phone/tablet oriented OS being shoved onto a PC.

    • It is possible to use the trick to enable dedupe on Windows 10 like you could in Windows 8.1 but it has to be the editions of Windows 10 that match the build numbers of Server 2016 and Server 2019.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • I frankly wondered who used 8 in the first place. It was like the ME for a new generation.

      • Computer purchasers in the "bad times". The "bad times" being those times since Windows 8 was released and before Windows 10 came out. Those people who had Windows 8 licenses but not Windows 7 ones and were desperately waiting, pleading on the daily for MS to fix their shit.

        • Well, there's always Linux.

          • You mean the same Linux that has been a nightmare to get at least one piece of hardware working every time I've tried to switch to it, that Linux? The one I've spent the last few weeks fighting with to get accelerated video on a GPU?

            • This 6 (perhaps even 7) year old laptop, which I bought from a girl, came originally with Window 8. According to her that worked well enough. It was automatically upgraded to 8.1. According to her that worked well enough too.

              But then, an auto update to Windows 10. Which worked well enough for about 6 months. Then she brings the laptop to me for repair.

              It was terribly slow, you needed to wait almost 30 seconds for any click anywhere in the screen would register. The battery would barely charge. The 1080p tou

              • In case you wish to know, the laptop I discuss in this post is a Lenovo Yoga 500 2-in-1 model with 14 inch screen with built-in Intel graphics. And it works well for anything except gaming.
                [...]
                The only thing this post indicates is that experiences with the Linux desktop experience can vary...vastly. You apparently got to hold the muddy end of that stick.

                I too will vouch for desktop Linux running better on Lenovo hardware than on some other brands. Xubuntu has worked on a ThinkPad X61 Tablet, a ThinkCentre, and a ThinkPad T450 with no problem. Compare to a Dell Inspiron 11 3168 laptop, which generally works OK but has shown problems with Fn modifier keys and occasional problems with suspend failing to correctly shut down the USB controller.

            • No, I'm talking about a distribution that was released in this century.

              • I tried Linux again for the first time last summer. I tried getting my 3080TI with cuda to work with proprietary Nvidia drivers ending up being a nightmare. I tried Linux Mint and Fedora Cinnamon 35 and Ubuntu 20.4 lts which the later should be well suprted in corporate and academic environments. No bueno. All 3 had different bugs when they woke up with Mint not even recognizing my second display.

                Windows 11 supports pytorch and cuda Linux GPU access and gui apps via WSL/g and Hyper-v. Stuck with Windows.

                I h

                • Weird. Never had any problems myself, and that's on Debian, a distri notorious for not playing nicely with proprietary drivers.

                  Don't get me wrong, but are you sure the problem is the machine?

                  • The open source drivers were fine. The problem is I wanted to learn AI which required the proprietary one. With Fedora35 it would work but the fonts were garbled on Firefox and other apps when it woke up. Also the driver versions were outdated at 476 I recall. Windows already is at 512.

                    Yes you blame Nvidia on this which is shocking as all the pytorch and other fanboys of cuda swear by Linux but unlike 12 years ago they don't support their own developers. This forces us to use AWS and rent or use Windows. WS

          • No there's not. There are plenty of people who bought computers at the time which had either the complete inability to install Linux (e.g. Surface devices of the day), would have lost features switching to Linux (basically everyone who owns a device with a touchscreen, touchscreen support and UI interaction is trash in Linux), and (this is a big one so pay attention) don't think the minor inconvenience of Windows 8 is worth the major inconvenience of learning a completely different OS AND finding all new a

      • 8.1 was for me the best to date. clean, stable, all that. It did get an unfairly bad reputation for, who knows... But it's Fedora for me now.

        • I did like 8.1. 8 had good stuff, it was definitely faster than Windows 7 on the same hardware with less memory usage. 8.1 did away with the nasty full screen boxy UI, and allowed you to boot directly to the desktop. I am on Windows 10 at home, mostly I need to keep same OS as my mom so that I can support it, and I have it at work but most of what I do is either in the browser or on the Linux half of Windows.

    • People like me who use Windows 8.1 with Classic Shell Start Menu. It's basically Windows 7 with mainstream updates to 2023 (no need for ESU hacks) and substantially improved boot times.
    • Also, Windows 8.1 is the last Windows OS to have Windows Media Center (I bought Windows 8.1 ProPack from eBay). I will miss WMC when I have to move to Windows 10.
    • We all are. A few months ago I peeled back the "10" on my neighbour's Windows machine and there was a big "8" under it. Tried it on half-a-dozen other systems and it was the same everywhere, just a 10 painted over the top of the 8.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I'm on Windows 8.1 for my personal machines. The laptop came with it, the desktop I upgraded from 7 because I wanted BitLocker with eDrive/OPALv2 support. If you aren't familiar with it, it uses the SSD's built in encryption which works with zero performance loss, instead of software crypto. Also 8.1 supports 4k/high DPI a lot better.

      It's mostly fine. I replaced the start menu with a Windows 7 style one. Only ever go into the "Metro" UI to change a network adapter setting once in a blue moon. The UI is gene

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      At work we have devices on XP still.

    • Windows 8.1 on its own was nearly unusable. With a simple addition of ClassicShell -- Windows 7 style start menu and programs -- it is pretty much as good as Windows 10 with ClassicShell (now OpenShell). You'd never see the ridiculous tiles.

    • Since Microsoft never offered the free 8.1 on Windows update and just the store my answer is 0. No one uses the Microsoft store so they have no idea

  • Sad to see it go actually (Score:3)

    by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Friday June 24, 2022 @07:50AM (#62647336) Journal

    Windows 8.1 (not 8) is the only currently truly usable supported release. You get most of the good things in Windows 10 without it trying to do quite so much without asking all the time. At least with a little registry tweaking you can turn the nonsense off and it does not get miraculously turned back on...like on with every update like Win10.

    I like it for Windows VMs - and before anyone says but you are missing out of WSL - I am already running Windows in VM on GNU/Linux. There is very little reason I'd want to run a Linux binary in the Windows environment.

    • Yes. The only reason people still use it. It can be modified so the UI is usable, unlike the strange Windows 8.

    • I'm on "Windows 9" (which is 8.1 embedded industry pro with a Win 7 UI. See here: https://www.eastcoast.hosting/... [www.eastcoast.hosting])
      Which is even better than 8.1, as it only gets security updates, no live tiles or other UI nonsense, and is very quiet (according to wireshark)
      It's supported until July 11 2023 and will be the last Windows OS I use. Using Crunchbang plus plus on a laptop for testing and really digging it.
      But this leads me to another question, if your browser is properly locked down (full of ad-blockers and no-

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        if your browser is properly locked down (full of ad-blockers and no-scripts) and you have a good firewall, just how bad is it really, to run an OS that's no longer supported?

        I think the answer to that is 'it depends' if the software you use is repetitively static and you use the system in a relatively, task oriented way to do a list of specific things. I'll catch heat for saying so - but I'd say its very low risk.

        On the other hand if your general use desktop, you go visiting lest trust worthy sites, installing so and so you don't know all that wells random online meeting tool of the week, running new things obtained from the internet with elevated permissions (even just the in

      • Have you given Windows 10 LTSC a try? It's Windows 10 but without all the "monetization" nonsense and with the ability to defer updates. Aka, a semi-secret version of Windows 10 for businesses so they don't have to take the crap regular customers are forced to take. Also, the codebase is frozen in 2019, so no huge upgrades masquerading as updates either. I am moving there after Windows 8.1.

        • I have, we run it at work. I tossed it on a spare system, but the UI (settings vs the proper control panel) kinda pisses me off. It's an option sure, but I"m still on the fence about it.

          • ? even 11 still has the control panel. click - Start type - con 5 button pushes, because everything has to be awkward in 11 for no good reason.
      • The font exploit a while ago scared me from running unpatched Windows. It wasn't a script, so no-script won't help you.

        • Just turn the shoddy Microsoft font shit off. Microsoft has insisted in the same "font exploit" since about 1997. The solution is the same in the most recent exploit as it was in the first one 40 years ago: Disable the Microsoft ill-conceived shite.

          No matter what you do, as long as you leave the Microsoft security-hole enabled you will be fucked by it. You were told in 1997 how to plug the hole permanently. Why did you not do it?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by OzPeter ( 195038 )

        But this leads me to another question, if your browser is properly locked down (full of ad-blockers and no-scripts) and you have a good firewall, just how bad is it really, to run an OS that's no longer supported?

        I run Adblock on my browser, but that doesn't protect me from everything.

        I also run the Little Snitch firewall and require authorization of all outgoing connections. And that is an eye opening as, for example, macOS mail is preemptively trying to open connections embedded in emails that I haven't even looked at yet. I'm generally blocking 20-30 different domains per day. I have heard of AdGuard which supposedly does a system wide blocking of ads, but I haven't tried it.

        Little Snitch also allows me to blo

      • I'm on "Windows 9" (which is 8.1 embedded industry pro with a Win 7 UI.

        How does it do if you don't activate it?

    • Honest question: what are the good things in Windows 10 that you're getting in Windows 8.1? I run Windows 7 for gaming and Linux and I support Windows 10 machines for a living. I've never seen something I wish I had in either of my current OSes.

      • Native m.2 support to boot for starters.
        USB 3.0 native support (all this I"m talking about for 8.1 of course)

        • Is that all? I don't have an m.2 drive. Linux has native USB 3 support and I installed drivers for it in 7 so this doesn't really interest me so far.

        • Native m.2 support to boot for starters.

          This can be slipstreamed into the install media. Irritating, but possible.

      • Windows Subsystem for Linux. Essentially a hypervisor for Linux, which is faster and better integrated than a full VM (though Windows 11 improves is more with better usb/serial/gui integration out of the box than the roll-your-own needed for Windows 10). That's the biggest improvement. Also the new Terminal application (finally, even if you only use the command shell or PowerShell, it's a huge improvement over the original).

        There are some other things too, but nothing really big enough to make one want t

        • But I have real Linux. I run Windows in a VM for a single application (that I should be able to replace with a Linux-native app at the end of the year).

          I think you've both answered my question to the best of your ability. Thank you for cementing my belief that I made the right choice to stick with 7.

      • WSL, Windows Terminal, real cut and paste support in the command prompt, Windows package manager, nuget, Windows Store apps such as PowerBI, wifi g/n hotspots, security updates, Later more supported and up to date versions of Firefox and Chrome, and drivers for newer hardware.

        If you game obviously directx12 and newer GPU support and ray tracing with Vulcan.

        • I installed a 3rd party terminal long ago because cmd sucks shit. I have a package manager, it's called Steam. I don't want Windows Store apps, don't use wifi, Firefox runs just fine, my hardware is old. My GTX 1080 is supported just fine in 7. Security updates would be nice, but again all I'm doing is playing games so security has kind of gone out the window. After dealing with Windows 10 at work and seeing streamers get interrupted by Windows updates, I consider it a feature that I'm no longer getting the

    • It's about working in the enterprise. Companies require Windows so much of the time, or at least Microsoft applications. And some Office apps will only run on Windows (ie, Visio, Project), and the online versions of Office apps being complete crap. The workers rarely get a choice of what they can use. After being bought by the mothership the IT frowns deeply on rebel scum using MacOS. So I'm on Windows, but using WSL for most work. It's a bit better from old days when I had to have two computers and fas

  • Windows 8 hasn't been supported by anyone for years now. You are more likely to find drivers for windows 7 than 8 for any random piece of hardware. And if you do find a driver that is supposed to work for windows 8, there is a high chance it is extremely buggy, and won't be updated ever. Mainstream support for windows 8 ended basically the day windows 10 launched. Microsoft might be making it official now, but the general public doesn't care unlike windows xp or windows 7. 8 wasn't good, but it was the

    • You are more likely to find drivers for windows 7 than 8 for any random piece of hardware.

      The driver model didn't appreciably change between Windows 8 and 10. You can install Windows 10 drivers on 8 just fine.

      • Hell, you can install win 7 drivers on 10 for some things.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Unfortunately hardware manufacturers can't be bothered to test with Windows 8 in many cases. It might work, they might have just slapped "Windows 8" on the box and not actually tested it. AMD dropped support for 8 many years ago too, their GPUs supported 7 and 10.

        • Untested and unworking are not the same thing. I dare fucking say manufacturers haven't tested their drivers on any damn OS given the number of bugs we see creeping into drivers.

      • The driver model changed in Windows 10 within Windows 10. 1703 was stuck as the last unsupported 5 year old version of Windows 10 due to drivers not being compatible.

        This was why Microsoft made the cut off for Windows 11

        • No, the minimum requirements changed. The model didn't, Windows ran two compatible models for the best part of a decade now. You can run Windows 11 drivers on Windows 8. You can't run Windows 7 drivers on Windows 11.

          • My old dells from a previous employer state otherwise. We could upgrade beyond 1703 as the driver's were not supported for later revisions of Windows 10. I see why Microsoft wouldn't want that junk on 11

  • I've been using computers my whole life and Win8 was basically unusable for me. I was constantly like, WTF do they think they're doing with this hot mess, it was completely unlike Win7 or anything that had come before it.

  • Windows 8 came out in 2013, which was quite a long time ago. People really need to learn to upgrade when new things come up. You can't expect Microsoft to keep on supporting you forever. Compare this to Linux where with thing like Ubuntu, the "LTS" versions come out every 2 years, and they support them for 5 years. After that they just expect you to move on.

    • Why upgrade? It's expensive, time consuming, and generally not worth the effort.

  • Upgrade vs planned obsolescence. (Score:3)

    by Reiyuki ( 5800436 ) on Friday June 24, 2022 @08:47AM (#62647530)
    I have a hard time calling something it an upgrade when a lot of complexity is added and nothing is improved.

    Touting 'moare securities' is unlikely with a rapidly-expanded codebase and ever-more-frequent patches. "Our ships are safer because we patch holes in the hull three times as often as we used to"

    • I have a hard time calling something it an upgrade when a lot of complexity is added and nothing is improved.

      Functionality necessitates complexity. Whether you have a need for the functionality or not is completely irrelevant. There are many people who call the later versions of Windows "upgrades" for good reasons. Fuck man just the speed of starting the system alone is a win in the minds of the masses.

      • Functionality necessitates complexity.

        This is true, however most of the increased obfuscation/complexity appears to be arbitrary and incidental. When you use it and look around the file structure+registry, It feels more like they farmed the OS out to a thousand low-bid contracts that wasn't aware of what each-other was doing. A lot of identical, redundant, and arbitrary names+locations, particularly evident when you start building Group Policies.

    • Dude. Security is alot about architecture and design not day ng patches make attack surfaces bigger.

      Case in point secure boot and TPM with MFA authentication is a big improvement over passwords. Even if I root your Windows 11 machine and phone I won't be able to impersonate you or get your passwords because tokens in modular access to requests for certain lists (not root) stores on a chip is a great feature. Would you want some company to have your personal info unsecured or with tpm and MFA when you call t

      • The problem with complexity-increasing upgrades is that you're potentially introducing unexpected new modes-of-entry in the process. And since much of the raw code to such libraries is not accessible to you, you as an individual have no ability to audit their codebase to know how well-written or how secure it is.

        In practice, such changes tend to shift liability from your own company to an outside entity (which depending on the company might still be an improvement)

  • Over Windows 11, they've changed so many things over with Windows 11 I don't want to switch and I don't want the TPM support

  • I absolutely hated Windows 8 and 8.1! The last good version of Windows was XP. Possibly 7.

  • It is really too bad that Microsoft won't say, we are ending our support for this product, however if you still need support, here is a list of 3rd party companies who are certified to support your product for for an additional 10 years.

    While the big changes were from Windows 3.11 to Windows 95 (16 bit OS to a 32 bit Os), Windows 98 to XP (32 bit) (Moving from a DOS core, to an NT Core), XP (32 bit) to Windows 7+ (64 bit) (32bit with 16bit compatibility to 64bit with 32bit compatibility). And after the transition I haven't seen too many issue upgrading the OS From Windows 7, 8, 10, 11 with mostly the exception of the Change in UI, and Increasing dependence on an internet connection.

    However having a certified 3rd party company that can still support old OS's and on old hardware would be overall better for the public. But I am sure Microsoft will just get more money by forcing people to upgrade.

    • No it won't. Simply supporting an OS doesn't breed good security practices. Just because your OS is supported doesn't mean it is good as it misses out from security improvements that come through changes in the core of later products. That's before we even get into the discussion of software supporting the older OS.

      Nothing positive comes from an endlessly increasing clusterfuck of different operating system versions to support.

  • Windows 8 will finally be entering the period of stability where Microsoft will no longer be fiddle farting about with it, and as it works today, so will it works tomorrow, for all values of today and tomorrow.

  • Windows 8 killed part of my career...

    I moved up through the ranks and became the IT Director for a 1,500+ employee operation. I was being pushed/encouraged to make changes, modernize, take control.

    I went all-in on Windows 8.

    And...well, people hated every single bit of it. My previously stellar reputation was dragged down massively. Conference rooms that previously were rock solid, suddenly had lots of technical problems. Remote staff had tons of problems, and I had people driving around to fix things. I

    • I am not normally one to tell someone they did it wrong, but in this case... ...did you not run a select testbed group of people first?
      This is a common practice in any situation where a large-scale change is required.

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