Hasta la Vista, baby!

Right now, you are probably repeating that world-famous catchphrase under your breath in your best Arnold Schwarzenegger, aka, The Terminator, voice. No worries. We all have been guilty of it. Acting aside, the Vista I’m referring to is Microsoft Windows Vista. For some of you, Windows Vista invokes the, “Oh, yeah. I remember that name”, response. For others, you may be left scratching your head wondering what Windows Vista is. Windows Vista, codenamed Longhorn, is a Microsoft desktop operating system released to the public on January 30^th, 2007. The release of Windows Vista came more than five years after the introduction of the highly successful Windows XP operating system, which is the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft desktop operating systems. Two prominent features of Vista is the graphical user interface named Aero and an instant search component called Windows Search. Microsoft’s chief objective with Windows Vista was to improve the state of security in the operating system, and rooted in that was the development of an authorization tool named User Account Control (UAC).

Although Windows Vista received lukewarm reviews by both business and home users, by 2009, it had approximately 400 million Internet users. It was the second most widely used operating system on the Internet with an approximately 19% market share, the most widely used being Windows XP with an approximately 63% market share.^[1] Vista never gained the adoption rate of its predecessor, Windows XP, because the operating system had high system requirements, was resource-intensive, long boot times, and frankly, people were happy with Windows XP and saw no need to change.

On April 11^th, Microsoft officially ended support for the Windows Vista operating system. What does this mean? It means that if any new security vulnerabilities are discovered, then they will remain unpatched by Microsoft, leaving Windows Vista potentially open to new attacks. With Microsoft ending support of the product, it should also be assumed that manufacturers will end their support of Windows Vista compatible software, utilities and drivers. If you still use Windows Vista on any home or business computer, now is the time to upgrade.

References:

1. “W3Counter Global Web Stats:August 2009”. W3Counter.