Windows 10 Release Date News: Microsoft Ends Sales For Windows 7, 8
Microsoft officially took the Windows 7 and 8 off the market on Friday, Oct. 31, in line with their hopes for users to support the upcoming Windows 10 when it comes out next year.
Microsoft has ended retail sales for Windows 8. Computers with preinstalled Windows 7 Home Basic, Home Premium and Ultimate., while computers with preinstalled Windows 7 Professional and Windows 8 have yet to get an announced date on end of sales.
Windows 7 Professional remains available through Microsoft's Downgrade Rights. Microsoft has given a year's notice before sales for Windows 7 Professional officially ends. However, reports have been made concerning the end of Windows 7 Professional by January 2015. It is unclear if Microsoft will end up extending the date.
Due to the number of systems that have been stopped from selling and production, computer users are left to continue using Windows 7 Professional or the Windows 8.1, which is still out on retail, while waiting for Microsoft's Windows 10, which is set for release sometime mid-2015.
Microsoft has not set a specific date for Windows 10, but interested users can try out a test drive version through Microsoft's new Windows Insider Programme.
Users are offered a Technical Preview build of Windows 10 which they could then try out. The program gained more than a million active users and received over 200,000 pieces of feedback during its first week, called User Individual Feedback.
Microsoft has also revealed the RemoteIE, which is available for preview via Azure RemoteApp, according to their post on Nov. 3, Monday, on The Microsoft Developer Blog. The free service allows users to run the latest version of Internet Explorer on the Windows 10 Technical Preview from their Windows, Mac OS X, iOS or Android devices.
"We know that developers on Windows 7 want a way to test on the latest builds of IE and that the broader development community is eager to have the latest Internet Explorer available on other platforms," the post claimed. "Our goal is to make the latest IE widely available for testing to all Web developers, to help make the Web just work for everyone."
Microsoft has not set a specific date but reports stated that it could be released around the time of Microsoft's Build Developer Conference which will be on April 29, 2015 until May 1, 2015.