Microsoft discontinues then resumes Windows 7 retail sales

by Mark Tyson on 9 December 2013, 09:15

Tags: Windows 7, Windows 8

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We've seen reports during the weekend of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system being discontinued from retail and then having its shelf life quietly extended. On Saturday several sources including ComputerWorld and WinBeta were discussing a notice on Microsoft's site which listed the "retail end of sales" of Windows 7 as 30th Oct 2013, just over a month ago. The shipping of Windows 7 pre-installed on PCs was also to cease a year later on 30th Oct 2014. However, as of Sunday, both of these dates have been changed by Microsoft to "To be determined".

As mentioned by ComputerWorld it is (was) current Microsoft policy to end retail sales of an OS one year after the launch of its successor, with the OEM version for systems builders being withdrawn a year after that. The dates were marked as such up until Saturday. The dates have never been that meaningful though, as retailers often have plenty of stock of older versions of Windows to keep supplying long after such 'end of sales' dates. For instance you can still buy Windows XP and Vista from Amazon if you feel like it.

It looks like Microsoft has woken up to the reports on Saturday, of Windows 7's retail demise, then on Sunday the 'End of sales' dates were changed to "To be determined". It might even end up being available for longer than Windows 8 which currently has an end of sales for retail dated at 31 Oct 2014. However Windows 8.1 shares Windows 7's status of a pair of indeterminate retail/OEM withdrawal dates.

Windows 7 on the up

Last week we reported, as a sidenote on a piece about Microsoft's next version of Windows, codenamed 'Threshold', that Windows 7 gained more new users than Windows 8.X during the last month. Perhaps it is this popularity, despite no promotion, that has lead Microsoft to extend the Windows 7 shelf life. It might be wise for Microsoft to wait until after the 8th of April next year, when Windows XP hits its end of extended support date, before the end of sales dates for Windows 7 are reassessed.



HEXUS Forums :: 26 Comments

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Given the HORRIBLE interface on Win8 i sure as hell wont be upgrading. Roll on Win9?

When I eventually upgrade my laptop (nice little Hp 8510p) to something abit more fierce (Where the hell are all the decent AMD APU laptops? I have ZERO desire to have a intel gfx solution nor do i want N****ia in my laptop. Learnt my lesson after NV burned (hah epic pun) anyone who had a santa rosa laptop with NV onboard.)
Still maintain that if Microsoft want to push Windows7 refuseniks then offering some kind up trade-in deal would be the way to go. Yes, I know there's an “upgrade” pack - but that looks like Windows 8, not 8.1, plus if I was doing a Windows 8.1 install/upgrade then I'd really want to do some kind of Transfer-My-Account type setup. So do some backup of the user account, erase the machine, put windows8 on then put apps plus my user account back.

Kids keep telling me that I really should “upgrade” because 8's easier once you get into it. If there's notable performance benefits then perhaps I will in the new year. I'm certainly not going to switch if there isn't a benefit to make up for being shackled with MUI/Metro.

And as to the Windows7 on/off issue in the article - nice to see Microsoft are still at it!
I'll certainly not be upgrading my main system from windows 7 to windows 8 or 8.1. I put windows 8 on my htpc because all it had was win xp and the early windows 8 upgrade made sense in that I could add an SSD to the system in the future and have working garbage collection all for €30.

Windows 8 is a horrible flawed OS and MS reinstating the start button only(without the menu), to me just seemed to be them giving a big middle finger to all the people who asked for it to be reinstated.

I'm not sure how it stands now but gaming performance was less on windows 8 than on windows 7, I did read somewhere a few weeks ago that windows 8 or 8.1 was better now. If it is, that's one small thing win 8 has going for it, but for me thats not enough of a reason to “upgrade” from windows 7 on my main PC to an OS that's trying to dumb down the consumer.
I've just rolled back to Windows 7 on my Wintendo gaming rig. That said, I'm still having horrible problems with nVidia drivers and Black Screens of Death. (I'm running two GTX 670s in SLI.)

I was using 8.1 but, despite being marketed to the contrary, I've found Windows 8 to be very unstable and unrepairable when it goes wrong. Too many ‘the drive where windows is installed is locked’ and ‘media inserted is not valid’ messages when I've tried to repair or refresh the installation.

I'm quite out of love with Microsoft at the moment.
I'll upgrade to 8.1 When I upgrade my desktop significantly, and by that I mean a motherboard upgrade. Until then I'll continue to enjoy 7 on a desktop and 8.1 on everything else.