Microsoft has ended the Mainstream Support for Windows Vista as of April 10th, 2012 and it now goes into “Extended Support”. “Extended Support” means that Microsoft will no longer offer free enhancements but instead will only offer security related patches.

Microsoft has updated their support pages with current end of support for Windows 7 even though we don’t have Windows 8 which has received a chilly reception with the readers of Majorgeeks rating it as high as 3.14 out of 5 and as low as 2.75 out of 5. You can download and try out Windows 8 here and decide for yourself.

The Microsoft support site lists the mainstream support end date as January 13th, 2015 and extended support date as January 14th, 2020. This seems a bit silly, we admit, but this is pretty standard for Windows support to have cycles and announce them well in advance. Ending support in 2020 is pretty typical when you consider the fact that Windows 7 is now almost 3 years old and to end support in 2020 means your Windows 7 will be just shy of 11 years old. Time flies when you’re having fun or something.

To put it into further perspective, Windows XP was released in 2001 making it just over 11 years old. As you might be aware Windows XP still has some users even with the end of support and I just worked on an XP box the other day.Windows XP support will end on April 8th, 2014.

Check out our Windows 8 Consumer Preview Review because you could be just years away from using it.