Tom’s Tech Tip: Windows 7 End of Life Warning for Certified Legal Nurse Consultants

On January 14, 2020 mainstream support for Windows® 7 will end. This means that Microsoft® will consider Win 7 as End of Life (EOL) and discontinue all paid support, security updates, patches and other fixes. In other words any new vulnerabilities discovered after January 14, 2020 will not be fixed. If you’re lucky enough to be running Win 7 Professional (or an Enterprise edition) you will be able to purchase extended support – but everyone else will be out of luck.

After EOL you won’t see any differences on your legal nurse consulting computer and will still be able to use Win 7, but you’ll be doing so at your own risk. Your computer just won’t be as secure as it was prior to EOL. If you can, you should update to Windows 10 in advance of the EOL date and that will give you plenty of time to get your drivers updated and make sure everything works correctly. If your computer isn’t a candidate for an update to Win 10 you may need to buy a new computer with Win 10 already installed.

I’ve been using Win 7 Professional on one computer and Win 10 Professional on another and most of the differences I’ve seen are minor. Win 10 is easy to get used to and some tasks are even easier to handle, but you will end up on Microsoft Office 365 (subscription) or Office 2019 (single purchase).

I love Win 7 and have heavily customized my laptop and its programs. So what am I going to do? Probably suck it up, purchase a new computer between now and then, go through the customization and installation process (all while running my old laptop until I’m satisfied with the new laptop).

What will you do? It’s up to you. I’d start saving for a new computer today. If you have Win 7 you probably purchased your computer before October 2016 so it’s getting older and near EOL itself. Win 7 EOL is not the best reason to upgrade to a new computer, but it’s a good one.

Keep on Techin’,