It’s been with us for over four years now, but Windows 7 is just starting to bid us farewell. Microsoft announced in December 2013 that it’s no longer selling Windows 7 at retail. In other words, you can’t nip into a computer store and buy a boxed copy of Windows 7 to install.
The same announcement also included the news that Windows 7 would cease to be sold with new PCs after October 2014, but apparently that was a mistake. Microsoft is now saying that the date for this is ‘to be determined’.
Whatever the actual dates, the time has come for Windows 7 to bow out. However, like all Windows-related goodbyes, this one will take a long time. If you use Windows 7 and you can’t be tempted away from it by Windows 8, Microsoft is going to continue supporting it and supplying regular updates for it until 2020.
But perhaps that isn’t going to matter. Perhaps you could be tempted away from Windows 7 after all. You may not have been enticed by Windows 8, and you may have turned your nose up at the improvements brought by Windows 8.1, but the word is that Windows 8.2 is going to be a more attractive proposition. Two little snippets have just been leaked by Microsoft insiders:
?The new-style Windows 8 apps, which currently occupy your entire screen when you use them, will be able to run in ordinary windows on the desktop, just like all the other programs we’ve been using for donkey’s years.
?Having brought back the Start button in Windows 8.1, Microsoft will bring back the much-missed Start menu in Windows 8.2.
If these two rumours do turn out to be true, it will be hard to find any reason to stick with Windows 7. The implication is that Windows 8.2 could have everything we know and like about Windows 7, coupled with some clearer thinking about the newer elements of the system.
From PC Tips for Seniors www.pcforseniors.co.uk.
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