End of the road: Microsoft terminates support for Windows Vista today

After a decade, Microsoft has finally cut off support for the Windows Vista operating system.

Mainstream support for Windows Vista ended back in April 10, 2012. However, its extended support for the second service pack lasted for five more years.

By April 11, which is today, Microsoft will no longer offer hotfixes, security patches, or any sort of update to its users around the globe. With this in consideration, anyone using Windows Vista past the support date could leave the OS vulnerable to security risks and viruses that could harm the computer. Internet Explorer 9 on Vista has also been discontinued, which could expose users to even more threats. In line with this, Microsoft will also cease providing technical support for computers running the OS.

While its predecessor, Windows XP, is still being used until today by at least 7.44% of users, according to NetMarketShare, Windows Vista is the complete opposite. The latest statistics show that it is now only used by 0.72% of users worldwide, with users jumping to more modern operating systems like Windows 7 and 8.1.

Windows Vista was introduced back in January 30, 2007, bringing with it a new and updated graphical user interface and visual style called Aero. Through Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing initiative, the company had given a great deal of work towards making Vista more secure than its predecessors. Also, to make the OS work from home users, business users, and power users, Microsoft unveiled six editions of Windows Vista: Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate.

Although it can easily be seen that Microsoft touted Windows Vista back then as a futuristic operating system for users, the OS was easily targeted with many criticisms. For one, Vista had a high hardware and software demand when it was launched, and current PCs were not able to easily adapt to this, leading to poor PC performance. Moreover, the User Account Control (UAC) feature was panned by users over the number of authorization prompts the OS pushed out to users. Windows Vista also prohibited the copying of protected digital media, among other things. These issues caused the low adoption of the operating system.

Former Microsoft executive Jim Allchin even presented Neowin's co-founder Steven Parker with a signed copy

Improvements were made for its users through the release of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 in 2009, which eventually led to the development of its successor, Windows 7.

Moving forward today, users can upgrade to Windows 10 in order to stay protected. You can purchase a copy of the latest OS, or opt to buy a new PC if your current one is not compatible.

To Windows Vista, we bid you farewell.

Neowin editor Timi Cantisano contributed to this report.