The larger concern for Home windows 8.1 customers would be the lack of continued safety patches to guard towards always new and rising threats.
“Whilst you might proceed to make use of a PC operating Home windows 8.1, with out continued software program and safety updates, your PC can be at higher danger for viruses and malware. We advocate upgrading to a model of Home windows that’s nonetheless supported. A brand new gadget that may run Home windows 11 makes for a simple transition and an amazing expertise,” Microsoft explains.
Most individuals have since upgraded to Home windows 7, Home windows 10, and/or Home windows 11 over the previous a number of years. Nevertheless, for anybody nonetheless operating Home windows 8.1, Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet says Microsoft will begin notifying Home windows 8.1 customers in July that point is operating out. As with earlier so-called nag screens, the pop-up notifications will give customers the choice to “Study extra,” “Remind me later,” or “Remind me after the end-of-support date.”
Based on StatCounter, Home windows 8.1 accounts for just a little over 3 p.c of all Home windows PCs, versus Home windows 11 at round 10 p.c. That does not sound like an entire lot, but it surely truly works out to tens of millions of units. You may verify the maths, however Microsoft says there are 1.4 billion month-to-month energetic units operating Home windows 10 and Home windows 11, and StatCounter’s knowledge has these two OSes accounting for 82.6 p.c of all Home windows PCs.
We’re making assumptions that each one these figures are correct, but when so, there are round 1.69 billion energetic Home windows PCs. That may put the variety of Home windows 8.1 units at over 5 million. That is greater than .the whole inhabitants of Eire, to place the determine into context.