Microsoft will soon end the Extended Security Update program for Windows 7 and finally put the beloved operating system to rest. The company also has no plans to offer paid security updates for Windows 8.1, which means both versions will bite the dust. Those sticking with good old Windows 7 and arguably not-so-good Windows 8.1 will now get more notifications asking them to upgrade to Windows 10 or Windows 11.
The recently released Google Chrome 108 now shows warnings about the upcoming end of support for Windows 7 and 8.1:
To receive future Google Chrome updates, you need Windows 10 or later. This computer uses Windows 7.
Google plans to stop updating its browser on the aforementioned operating systems alongside Microsoft, so that’s an added incentive to switch to Windows 10 or 11 if the hardware supports the latter (not to mention apps that will soon no longer work on Windows 7 will). Also, you can still activate Windows 11 (and 10) with keys from Windows 7.
To put it mildly, browsing the modern Internet with an unsupported operating system and browser is risky (like downloading music with Limewire). Despite this, some users will remain loyal to Windows 7, like your average Windows XP devotee. Such customers can mute the new Chrome notifications with a Windows registry value that suppresses the update prompts. That’s how it’s done:
- Press victory + R and type regedit.
- Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Google\Chrome and create a new DWORD 32-bit value.
- Rename the value to SuppressUnsupportedOSWarning.
- Open the value and change its data to 1.
Unlike Google and developers of other Chromium-based browsers, who have already pledged to end support for Windows 7 early next year, Mozilla has yet to decide when to pull the plug on Firefox for Windows 7. to-be-dead Windows versions more than six months of additional support in the ESR channel.
Source: Born City (via GHacks)
