Microsoft brings its Chromium Edge browser to Windows 7 and 8

Two months after Chromium Edge made its way to Windows 10, the browser is now available for testing on both Windows 7 and Windows 8. The company will be releasing daily Canary builds first with weekly Dev channel support coming soon. The installer is available over at Microsoft Edge’s Insider site. A lot of the features will stay the same. There will be support for Internet Explorer for enterprise customers coming as well as the new Collections feature to make it easier to collect information from the browser into a note. But there won’t be dark mode and support for AAD sign-in. Right now all iterations of it, including the macOS version, are still in testing. It isn’t clear yet when Microsoft plans to release this more broadly.

Source: The Verge

Microsoft is here to remind you that Windows 7 support is ending soon

Microsoft wanted to remind its users that Windows 7 support will be ending in less than a year. A newly deployed update will let users know that security updates will end after January 14, 2020. There’s even a not-so-subtle reminder that the OS has been around for 10 years and now is the time to consider what’s next. This update should start appearing on those Windows 7 machines starting April 18^th. It’ll be hard to miss the alert the first time it appears, but you will get an option to disable future reminders.

According to Engadget, a lot of people will be seeing this notice with Net Applications data suggesting Windows 7 is represented nearly 40.2 percent of desktop usage as of February. But we don’t know if these users will heed the warning. A lot of these are PC users that would struggle with the change, and others are using corporate machines where updating isn’t in their control. But Microsoft is hoping the alert will reach the holdouts. Once official support ends, only those who paid for extended support will get security updates (that is until 2023). Outside of a big issue, like the WannaCry ransomware outbreak, Microsoft won’t release anymore updates.

Windows 7 users will get notifications from Microsoft about end of support

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With Microsoft pulling support for Windows 7 on January 14, 2020, the company plans to remind send out push notifications to its users warning them about this development. End of support means Windows 7 and Office 2010 users will no longer get security updates for their machines. The company wants its users to upgrade to Windows 10 PCs and Office 365. While the push notification won't mention upgrading to Windows 10, it'll remind users that support ends in January and they will be linked to microsoft.com/windows7. The link will encourage users to upgrade or buy a newer PC.

According to Matt Barlow, CVP of Windows, “Beginning next month, if you are a Windows 7 customer, you can expect to see a notification appear on your Windows 7 PC. This is a courtesy reminder that you can expect to see a handful of times in 2019.” When they say handful, we don't exactly know how many times. But it'll only stop once Windows 7 support ends in January. We don't know what the notification will look like yet but it'll be similar to the Windows 10 upgrade notifications.

Source: The Verge

By Popular Demand - HP brings Windows 7 PCs back

Windows 8 has been around for almost two years now and while Microsoft has been pushing the tile-focused touch-enabled OS quite aggressively, it seems some of its partners think otherwise. HP is pushing Windows 7 as an default OS for their systems at least on their US website.  Checking ou the HP.ca site shows that they still "Recommend Windows" with visible Windows 8 branding. Does HP's renewed preference of Windows 7 reflect the rest of the PC industry? Hard to tell, but there are many users that greatly prefer the familiar look, feel and predictability of Windows 7.

Source: The Verge