Good riddance

Microsoft’s OS releases had a predictable pace: a really good release followed by a stinker of an OS. Nothing personifies this more than Windows Vista, the thoroughly lambasted version of Windows released in between the venerable XP and the truly awesome 7. Rushed to market by the Redmond firm, Windows Vista had its fair share of troubles when it was released despite having a new file system and snazzy user interface. Today marks the end of Microsoft’s official support for Vista, as the company is now yanking software updates for one of their worst OS releases ten years after it was released.

Vista marked the first appearance of the Aero user interface, which was integrated into Windows 7 released a few years later. Because of the snazzy new graphics interface, Vista became a resource hog, with many older machines not being able to run it well, which led to the adoption of “Vista Ready” stickers on desktops and notebooks sold in the market denoting their capability to run the OS’ graphically intense interface.

The move is not unheard of, considering the platform’s age, though there are still some commercial users hell-bent on using the aging OS for their equally antiquated machines and servers (software licenses are expensive, apparently). They’ll now have to migrate to something newer or risk having their machines exposed to unpatched vulnerabilities discovered by hackers.