Farewell, we hardly knew you Microsoft's official support for Windows 7 (opens in new tab), 8, and 8.1 (opens in new tab) ends today. If you must, you can continue to use these three operating systems, but you will not receive any technical support. Also, if security flaws are found, they will remain unpatched as well.

For PC gamers, this is not a huge loss. According to the latest Steam survey (opens in new tab), Windows 7 and Windows 8 users total only 2.18%.

Windows 7 is on final life support as its scheduled service ends in January 2020 and only critical security updates are now available under the Extended Security Update program. Microsoft says Windows 8 and 8.1 will not benefit from this extended coverage.

If your PC is not compatible with the new version of the OS, Microsoft advises you to Buy a new PC. Microsoft's official guidance (opens in new tab) states, "If your device does not meet the technical requirements to run the more recent release of Windows, we recommend that you replace it with a device that supports Windows 11."

As we said, few PC gamers will be affected by this move. However, there are still quite a few non-gaming PCs running these older operating systems; according to Statcounter (opens in new tab) (via El Reg (opens in new tab)), 11.2% of Windows PCs will still be running Windows 7 at the end of 2022 Windows 8.1 and 0.66% are using Windows 8.

This means that one out of every five PCs is using one of these three. Incidentally, 0.49% of PCs still use the old Windows XP. Probably all of them are nuclear submarines (opens in new tab) or critical health care platforms (opens in new tab).

Whatever the case, the main concern for the average PC user and perhaps the commander of a nuclear submarine is security if they continue to use Windows 7 or 8. Vulnerabilities discovered by hackers will continue to go unpatched.

If you have a non-gaming PC that cannot be updated to newer versions of Windows, perhaps your best bet would be to consider running one or other version of Linux. Or be extra careful when it comes up for air.

In any case, you won't miss Windows 7 much; Windows 8 is much more interesting, and its adoption of the Metro UI set the trend for subsequent Windows builds to have a cleaner, more geometric look.

It still looks crisp today and was an attractive alternative to the iOS and Android monopolies, at least visually, in the Windows Mobile format for cell phones. That did not prevent Microsoft's clumsy mismanagement from slowly eroding Windows Mobile's competitive edge.

But that's a story for another day, and, let's be honest, another website.