If you own a PC and still have Windows Vista installed, you may want to upgrade ASAP. As previously announced, Microsoft will end its mainstream support for Windows Vista on Tuesday, April 10th. This deadline covers all of the SKUs for Vista, including the Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Enterprise, Business and Ultimate, along with all the 64-bit versions of those ports.
Ending its mainstream support means that Microsoft will no longer offer any free support for Vista users after Tuesday. The OS will still get extended support until April 11th, 2017, where Microsoft will continue to release security patches for free. However, any other updates and customer service support will be subject to a fee after Tuesday.
Any hotfixes for Windows Vista that are not considered to be security patches must be handled via an extended hotfix agreement. Microsoft will let Vista users pay for that agreement up to 90 days after mainstream support ends.
Launched in January 2007, Windows Vista is considered to be one of the most poorly reviewed Windows versions that Microsoft has ever released, thanks in part to a number of post-release bugs as well as a lack of drivers from a number of PC hardware makers at launch. Net Applications claims that Vista was installed on just 7.64 percent of all PCs in March 2012, just over five years after its release.