Calm down, Windows 8 haters: You may not have to rush out to scoop up Windows 7 after all. Microsoft caused a stir last week when it announced that it had already stopped selling box copies of Windows 7 and that it had instructed its manufacturing partners to stop using Windows 7 on new PCs by October 30th, 2014. Now Network World has noticed that Microsoft has backtracked on its Windows life cycle page and now says that sales of both Windows 7 and new Windows 7 PCs will only end at a date “to be determined.” Windows 7 extended support is still scheduled to last through January 14th, 2020.
Windows 8 has had a bumpy ride over its first year as its growth has seemingly stalled and Windows 7 adoption is still growing at a faster pace than Windows 8 adoption. Although Microsoft hasn’t given a reason yet for changing the cutoff dates for Windows 7 sales, it wouldn’t be surprising if the company got some intense push-back from corporate customers who don’t yet feel comfortable making the upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 8 and would prefer for now to stick with the more familiar-feeling Windows 7.
