It’s the end of an era: Microsoft has stopped providing Windows 7 Professional and Windows 8.1 to PC makers.
Microsoft stopped retail software sales of Windows 7 Professional in 2013; sales of Windows 8.1 ended a year later. But as of Oct. 31, Microsoft stopped selling its aging operating systems to companies that make Windows-based gadgets.
Nostalgic tech fans who want older OSes can certainly find ways to get them. But it’s a passing of the baton to Microsoft’s more current OS: Windows 10, which arrived last year, and does not have an end-of-life schedule.