Windows has morphed from something you get to something you use and is in a constant stage of change that justifies a continuing license, said Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies. And once a year you get a bigger update you have to take to be in the most supported phase of update,” he said. That means that updates with security patches. The message is, “Get used to this - we are on a much faster cadence of updates,” Cherry said. It means an aggressive upgrade cycle: he notes that there are already older versions of Windows 10 that are no longer supported. Up to Windows 7, Microsoft released monthly bug fixes and then two service packs over the life of the OS, which is where new features were introduced in addition to the bug fixes.Ĭherry said that Microsoft now operates under what it calls “the modern lifecycle,” measured in months, not years, and new features aren’t held for a service pack. The development lifecycle for Windows has changed considerably from Windows 7 to Windows 10. So not only does knowledge of the older versions get stale, the ability to fix them gets stale.” Changing upgrade lifecycle The majority of Microsoft’s focus now is on Windows 11, he said.

Windows 7 release day