5 Important Facts About Microsoft End-of-Support Operating Systems

1) Microsoft has ended support for several older versions of its products in 2020, including the following:

• Windows 7 on January 14, 2020
• Windows Server 2008 and 2008
• R2 on January 14, 2020
• SQL Server 2008 on July 9, 2020
• Exchange Server 2010 on January 14, 2020
• Office 2010 on October 13, 2020

Of course, in this list, the most troublesome are Windows 7 and Office 2010, still often used by many people and businesses. Businesses using these operating systems and applications are left without support and security updates from Microsoft. Businesses not taking any action will risk increased IT infrastructure upkeep and are more vulnerable to ransomware attacks, malware, and data breaches. For example, the Windows 7 end of support date could mean having to change the entire operating system. Are you prepared for this?

2) Security Risks

Unsupported and unpatched environments are vulnerable to security risks and exploits. Attackers have an advantage over defenders who continue to run unsupported versions of Windows, Exchange, SQL and Office on their computer network. When Microsoft releases security updates for newer supported versions of their products, attackers will try and reverse engineer them to identify any vulnerabilities that also exist in the older unsupported versions of the products. If they succeed, attackers will have the capability to develop exploit code to take advantage of them. This is a huge security risk, and therefore a huge business risk. Over the past few years, we have seen malware distribution rates explode— more than doubling each year over the prior year. We saw what happened in 2014 when Microsoft ended support for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Exchange Server 2003 and Office 2003. The attacks against the older products significantly increased when each went out of support. If you’re still running on Windows 7, for example, you should take that into consideration as Windows 7 end of support date was in January 2020. If you are on Windows 10 however, you don’t have to worry about it too much as Windows 10 end of support is only in October 2025. However, do note that cyberattacks are still very frequent.

3) Compliance Risks

Unsupported and unpatched environments may also result in an officially recognized “control failure” by an internal or external auditing body, leading to suspension of certifications, and/or public notification of the organization’s inability to maintain its systems and customer information. If your company must comply with government regulations (such as HIPAA, HITECH and PCI-DDS), it is critical that you don’t run unsupported software.

4) Lack of Software Vendor and Hardware Manufacturer Support

Some Line of Business (LOB) software vendors have already stopped providing support for their applications running on the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 platforms. They simply won’t provide any help. When these products go out of support by Microsoft, many software vendors will stop supporting their products running on the older platforms and typically the next release of their applications won’t install on the older platforms.

5) Your Best Course of Action

• For businesses with desktops and laptops running the older Windows 7 operating system, the best course of action is to get new computers running Windows 10.
• For businesses with servers running Windows Server 2008 or SQL Server 2008, the best course of action is to deploy newer versions of these systems. They can be installed on new on-premises servers (physical or virtual) at your office, or you might consider migrating these servers to Microsoft Azure.
• For businesses running Exchange Server 2010, in most cases, the best course of action is to migrate email from an on-premises Exchange Server to Hosted Exchange via the Microsoft 365 platform. In this model, your email is hosted by Microsoft for a monthly fee per user and managed by Wolf Consulting. There are no upfront costs for server hardware or server software licenses.
• For businesses running Office 2010, in most cases, the best course of action is to implement an Office software option as part of a Microsoft 365 subscription. In this model, you have access to install the Office software and your desktops and laptops, and you simply pay a monthly fee per user. The upgrade to modern software has an upside well beyond keeping you supported. It offers more flexibility to empower employees to be more productive, while increasing operational efficiency through improved computer security and management.