Security Advisor
Vista SP1 Support Ending, OS Problems Coming
Tuesday marked the end of Microsoft providing mainstream support for its highly popular and highly lucrative Vista OS. That means if you want free design changes, incident support or warranty claims for Vista in the future, you're going to have to look elsewhere for them. Microsoft is cutting you off. Unless you pony up the money for a "Premiere Support" contract, then you get all the help you want -- as long as your money is green.
The OS will live out the next five years of its life in the assisted living community known as Microsoft's extended support phase. While many of the support features will now be gone, security updates will still continue. But be forewarnd, after April 2017, your Vista machines (if still functional) will not receive patches to take care of new security issues.
Vista joins XP in the support retirement home, with XP's security updates drying up on April 8, 2014.