Microsoft Windows Vista was your full name. Internally you identified yourself as windows 6.0. Most would call you simply Vista. You were never liked all that much. In part this was due to your security inspired nanny attitude. Despite that, you carried a lot of essential and long overdue security improvements. Improvement which allowed e.g. the practical removal of administrator rights without impacting the users of software written under the false presumption that users should have administrative rights.

The market has rejected you and killed you off. Your last copies went over the counter in October 2011 according to your maker. And finally, today that same maker buries you too: Microsoft is stopping support for Windows Vista today.

There is some hope that consumer rights groups will fight such a short lifespan of support and patches (e.g. in Europe there 's a mandatory 2 year warranty requirement for products sold to consumers), but overall and for all practical purposes, you're about to be forgotten by all but a handful who'll send significant donations to your maker.

So you will nonetheless live on for a while -for a maximum of 5 more years- through extended support as well as through your technically very closely related sibling Windows 7 (which identifies itself internally as windows 6.1 in a sort of tribute to you), and which was given a bit better of an education on how to interact with the public by the maker's marketing department.

Still those that have you will now have to decide to bury you in the trashcan or pay for extended support.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/products/lifecycle

P.S.:
- Hat Tip: Rene
- I hope this doesn't offend any of our readers. it's only meant to be a bit sarcastic and to lighten up the rainy day a bit.

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Swa Frantzen -- Section 66