Out with the old and in with the new! That is the mantra of many software vendors who want to support a limited number of versions of their software- including Microsoft. Microsoft recently announced end of support for a few of its products. This means no further patching on these products and using these may result in a security risk for your organization.
The first is one that everyone uses or is aware of- Internet Explorer. If you are using Internet Explorer 10 or lower, it will not be supported in most cases after January 12, 2016. This is an important consideration as Internet Explorer is outward facing, meaning it is used to access the Internet. Please see the link here for details.
.Net Framework is a software package that most computers have but you may not be aware of it. It works in conjunction with other software and resides on most PCs. .Net Framework Version 4.5.1 and lower will no longer be receiving patches or hot fixes after January 12, 2016. The upgrade process here should be carefully considered. Often software vendors will couple .Net Framework with their software or rely on a certain version for their software to work as designed. Blindly upgrading may affect existing third party applications.
Finally, SQL Server 2005 is going off extended support on April 12, 2016. This is a database engine that powers certain applications. The upgrade process here is more involved but is recommended as there have been many improvements in the SQL engine since the 2005 version in areas such as security and performance.
If you are unsure if this affects you, please reach out to us and we can help you plan a migration onto newer, supported platforms for your applications.
On the “new” side of the equation is Windows 10. We informed our readers in a past blog post that although Microsoft dropped mainstream support for Windows 7 in 2015, it will remain under extended support (patched) through 2020. Microsoft is heavily committed to Windows 10 and is aggressively pushing it out to their customer base. According to a December 2015 study by NetmarketShare.com, Windows 10 has already matched Windows 8 and Windows XP in market share. Windows 7 remains the predominant operating system but Windows 10 is rapidly gaining momentum as Microsoft pushes it out (for free for a limited time).
There have been two recent announcements regarding Windows 10 that caught our eye here at Colden Company.
1) Resellers like Dell, HP and Lenovo will not be able to sell anything BUT Windows 10 after October 31, 2016. This means your business needs to be prepared; test your critical applications on Windows 10 before that date or you may find yourself in a situation where you need a new PC/laptop and only have Windows 10 as an option.
2) Microsoft announced that some new processors will only work with Windows 10.
It is clear that Microsoft is making a heavy investment into getting its user base onto Windows 10 as fast as possible.
Is your business still running insecure versions of Internet Explorer? Are all of your mission critical applications tested to run on Windows 10?
Call us at (888) 600-4560, email us, or see us on Facebook or Twitter and let our experts help your business.