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On Tuesday Windows 8.1 Gets Its Final Security Patches (ghacks.net) 49

Posted by EditorDavid from the abandonment-issues dept.
"Windows 8.1 receives one more batch of security patches on the coming Tuesday," reports Ghacks, "before Microsoft lays the operating system to rest." Windows 8.1 does not get the same Extended Security Updates treatment that Windows 7 received for the past three years. Once the last patch has been released, it is game over for the operating system. Windows 8.1 users may continue using it, but the system's security issues will no longer be fixed by Microsoft or anyone else. Browsers and other programs will stop getting updates, and some websites will refuse to work as new technologies are no longer supported by the browsers.

Windows 7, which receives the last ESU patches on Tuesday as well, looks to be in a similar situation on first glance. Microsoft won't release updates for it anymore, even though there is still demand for that.
The article does note that 0patch, a third-party security platform from the Slovenia-based digital security lab ACROS Security, "will support Windows 7 with at least two additional years of critical security updates." (The cost: around $25 per year.)
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On Tuesday Windows 8.1 Gets Its Final Security Patches More

On Tuesday Windows 8.1 Gets Its Final Security Patches

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  • "other programs will stop getting updates"... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Saturday January 07, 2023 @07:40PM (#63188388)

    That is, of course, nonsense. Any software vendor is completely free to provide updates, either regardless of Windows version or specifically for Win7 and Win8.1. That some chose not to do so does not cause any general stop on such updates.

    • Yep, I still use Windows 7 and all my software still gets regular updates. Hell, even Microsoft Security Essentials gets daily updates from Microsoft. Windows 7 is my last M$ operating system. When it does eventually become unusable I have my Linux boxes standing at the ready. I've been learning Linux for the past few years now and finding alternatives to my Windows software. It's difficult but not impossible. I would much rather deal with Linux than the God-awful spyware shit that M$ has been puking out.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Indeed. The only reason I have Windows systems is a) gaming, which is possible on Linux, but somewhat limited and not that much of a risk on a dedicated gaming PC, i.e. no email, no calendar and web-browsing only in the context of gaming and b) my academic teaching activities often come with a need for PowerPoint when I am not the lead lecturer or I am required to archive the lecture in that format. I use LibreOffice otherwise and have done so for about 10 years now.

        • LibreOffice Impress has options for saving as PowerPoint. I've never tried that because I haven't used Windows in a long time, but you might want to give it a go. If it's successful you could author a presentation on Linux to avoid most of the aggro, then test on Windows and tweak if needed.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Naa, as the final step in Windows is needed, I can simplify and do the whole thing there. Power Point is pretty badly designed, but not badly enough that doing it in LibreOffice and then porting it over makes a lot of sense. For example, I do not use animations in presentations, I think they are stupid if you actually want to convey information and impressing the audience (such as in marketing) is not required.

      • Every day, my company runs tens of thousands of (mostly small) regression jobs on Windows 7 and a far smaller number on Windows 10, because throughput and reliability is much higher on Windows 7.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          It may be even higher now on Win7. Recently talked to somebody doing automation for some production machines. For some reason the front-end had to be windows, but the only way they could make that work reliably was to put that windows into a VM on Linux and let all the control parts run on Linux. Windows just broke too often on updates and stopped the machine completely.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by JeffTL ( 667728 )
      It's a statement of fact, not policy. They aren't saying that they will stop anyone from supporting software for EOL versions of Windows, but warning users that it sometimes happens in practice so they aren't taken by surprise.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        I classify it more as a "threat" to make people move to their worse newer Win10 thing. And win11 is even worse than Win10.

  • What should be done with old operating systems? Shoild they be extended with unofficial updates, official updates mandated by law, or should there be a scrappage scheme for computers with no possible upgrade path? 2025 will be interesting when Windows 10 ends support for all 32 bit processors, and processors before 2018. Open source to the rescue?

    • Re:The old operating system issue. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Saturday January 07, 2023 @10:39PM (#63188708)

      Having to support 32 bit CPUs sucks. That said, its ridiculous that 4 GIGAbytes isn't enough. I mean, I remember commodore had 64 KILObytes of ram. We've increased the RAM requirement by 62,000 but, looking at function, there's no way we are getting 62,000x experience improvement.

      • Wish I had mod points: +1 Insightful

      • its ridiculous that 4 GIGAbytes isn't enough.

        2022 was the first time I ever used a computer with more than 4 gigabytes of RAM. I don't see that it makes a difference.
        The things I've been reading aboutt this the last few years lead me to believe that what requires so much RAM is users keeping sagans of tabs open in their browsers.
        I've never done that; I'm still using bookmarks the way I have since 1996.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tepples ( 727027 )

          With the level of script bloat common among web sites in the 2020s, even three tabs can push Firefox on a 4 GB machine into thrashing swap.

      • All operating systems, even Windows, are more than happy with 4GB of RAM. My parents have laptops with 4GB of RAM and have no problems. And that's with modern OSes having a ton UI effects and helper processes running in the background. There is actually an enthusiast community out there stripping OSes like Windows 7 to fit in a two-digit amount of MB to show people how much of a modern OS is fluff intended to impress or optimise the loading of something and not really required.

        The reason most people need
    • Obsolete shit should be phased out, simple as that. When was last 32bit desktop CPU released, Pentium 4 in 2002? And why would anyone still run 32bit? Because 16bit binaries from 80ies. No, there is absolute no good reason to keep on supporting that. Emulate if you can't recompile your 16 bit binary or airgap your fossil and never update it again. Better yet, just rewrite the damn thing and this time don't lose the source.

  • Fuck it (Score:5, Funny)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Saturday January 07, 2023 @09:29PM (#63188608)

    Just use Windows XP as I do. It is the only version of windows that works. And btw IE6, all the later versions have been gimmicks. IE6 works great for everything.

    • Ha! I wish I had modpoints to mark this as funny.
      I shake my head every time one of the "I'm using Windows 7 forever and then moving to Linux although I haven't switched to Linux yet" guys post in these types of stories.
      Nice.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      Bah. W2K FTW. :P

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dwedit ( 232252 )

      You literally cannot use old web browsers anymore because the encryption standards of HTTPS changed.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by antdude ( 79039 )

        Also, many web sites don't work well even if supported. :(

      • Depends oh how old those browsers are. The latest release of Firefox works on Windows 8.1 and will be compatible with the general web for some more years.

        • Sure, but when will they stop providing updates for Firefox on Windows 8.1? You don't want your browser running around the web unpatched.

  • Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry will keep getting patches until July 11. It's readily available and there are no differences for the end user to worry about.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by bobby ( 109046 )

      Reminds me of the registry trick to get XP updates from the XP version of Embedded. Tried to find the same for 7 but haven't found it yet. Haven't tried real hard though.

      • There's no such loophole for 7 but you can hack your Windows 7 to install ESU updates for free. All the details are on forums.mydigitallife.net. Still, there's just one more final update left and then it will be an unsupported OS that you will use at your own risk.

        • There's no such loophole for 7 but you can hack your Windows 7 to install ESU updates for free. All the details are on forums.mydigitallife.net. Still, there's just one more final update left and then it will be an unsupported OS that you will use at your own risk.

          Unless you install 0patch, and then will be a "partially" supported OS for two years (similar to old versions of MacOS, which, while getting security patches from apple, do not get all security vulns patched).

          My os is MacOS Monterrey, by the way.

          • I have my doubts about 0patch. Starting with XP, Windows has had a service which controls that system executable files and libraries are digitally signed and it will bother you to death if they are modified. I don't quite understand how 0patch resolves this issue.

            Secondly, 0patch seemingly patches only publicly disclosed vulnerabilities which doesn't prevent Microsoft from fixing stuff silently which means your system could be wide open for exploitation.

            Lastly, from https://0patch.com/patches.htm... [0patch.com] : "

    • Wait, can you turn an ordinary Windows 8.1 installation to this one?

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