When will Microsoft pull the plug on your version of Windows or Office?

[This post was originally published April 2013. It was completely updated and republished in October 2013. Most recent update: October 11, 2013.]

The impending retirement of Windows XP and Office 2003 shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. As I’ve noted before, Microsoft has a well-established support lifecycle for its software products. It’s basically an agreement that the company makes with everyone who commits to Windows. The terms of that agreement don’t change often, which is an important assurance for business customers who tend to be conservative in their approach to upgrades.

For the next six months and counting, Microsoft will officially offer support for five versions of Windows for desktop and notebook PCs. Here’s the rundown, starting with the newest member of the family:

Windows 8.1

Microsoft’s official Windows 8.1 Support Lifecycle Policy treats this update as if it were a service pack for Windows 8. That means the lifecycle calculations start when Windows 8 shipped, in 2012.

This version is currently available only for Microsoft’s volume licensing customers, MSDN and TechNet subscribers, and hardware OEM partners. It will be available to the public as a free update and in retail packages on October 18, 2013.

Mainstream support ends: January 9, 2018

Extended support ends: January 10, 2023

Windows 8

Windows 8 is fully supported today, but you need to update to Windows 8.1 to remain supported under the Windows 8 lifecycle. The deadline is “two years after the General Availability of the Windows 8.1 update,” or October 18, 2015.

The same policy applies to Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 (equivalent to Windows 8.1).

Mainstream support ends: see Windows 8.1

Extended support ends: see Windows 8.1

Windows 7 Service Pack 1

This is currently the most popular release of Windows, and promises to hold that top spot for a long, long time. The following support dates require that you install Service Pack 1 (Windows 7 RTM support ended in April 2009).

Note that these dates are identical for Windows Server 2008 R2.

Mainstream support ends: January 13, 2015

Extended support ends: January 14, 2020

Windows Vista Service Pack 2

Fun fact: As of October 2013 the much-reviled Windows Vista was still in use on more computers than any version of OS X. The mainstream support phase ended in 2012, but extended support will continue for a few more years.

Mainstream support ends: No longer supported

Extended support ends: April 11, 2017

Windows XP Service Pack 3

Windows XP is more than 12 years old. It’s midway through a year-long farewell tour , counting down to April 8, 2014, when Microsoft officially ends its support. XP lived longer than any version of Windows ever, getting multiple extensions on its retirement date to placate customers who said no to Vista. But April 2014 is the end of the road. XP will not get a last-minute reprieve.

Mainstream support ends: No longer supported

Extended support ends: April 8, 2014

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How To Disable Windows 8 App Store

Integrated app store is one of the pronounced feature of windows 8 customer Preview. It offers various types of apps both free and paid. This fun pack can turn out to be a headache for some users who shares their laptop with their kids or other people if they love the windows 8 apps and games. Installing so many apps and games can increase the windows size and can also mess the starting environment. To prevent such a situation, now you can disable the windows 8 app store very efficiently. After following this procedure, whenever any one tries to access the app store, they would be prompted with the error “Windows store is not available on this PC, Contact your system administrator for more information”.

Let’s start the guide before anyone around you spend a notable time in windows 8 app store.

STEP 1:  First of all open “Run” by pressing Ctrl+R, type “gpedit.msc” and hit enter.

STEP 2: It will open the group policy editor, here go to the Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Store.

STEP 3: Now you must be able to see the “Turn off the Store Application” on the right side of this interface, simply double click on it, select the enabled option and click on apply and then OK. Now you can close it.

That’s it. Now restart your PC, click on windows 8 app store and you’re done.

Final version of windows 8 is rumored to be launched in October 2011. This guide will also be helpful for network administrators if they want to use windows 8. We are sure that they will never want to keep the app store remain turned on for the users. What do you think? Share your opinion and any further ideas in the comment section below.

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How To Retrieve Windows 8 Product Key from Installations

You might require the windows 8 product key for installation purposes, refresh/ reset your windows 8 PC. Usually the product key can be found along with the windows 8 installation DVD or in the mail that you’ve received while you purchased Windows 8. But if you no longer have access to either of this, then here’s how you could retrieve the windows 8 product key from any windows 8 installation. This includes your pc or any other, which have windows 8 installation in it.

ProduKey, is a nifty utility from NirSoft that lets you retrieve the product keys from various packages like Microsoft Office, Exchange Server, Windows 7, Vista etc. installed on your PC. While there are many products similar to ProduKey, this stands apart by being a portable and groovy little utility. You don’t have to go through the hassle of installing this software on your pc. Just run it and you’re done.

Using ProduKey To Get Back Windows 8 Product Key

You need to download and extract the software to a suitable location first.

Download ProduKey (scroll towards the end of the downloads page)

Now, just open up the program by double clicking the ProduKey.exe file.

The program window would show up the supported microsoft products which are installed on your system along with its product id, product keys, installation path, modified time & other parameters.

Double clicking a specific item would open up its properties window, which shows the same parameters that you would see in the main window.

Right clicking an item would give you the option to save the selection as a text file or copy its product key, product id etc.

You could also use this program to recover product keys from any disks with windows installations in them which are connected to your pc.

To do this, Press F9 to select the source for the program to retrieve the product key from or Its available under the File Menu.

The Select Source window has additional options to recover /get back product keys from remote computers, external windows installation directory, computers in a specified domain, get back product keys from all computers in your network and load the product keys from computers in specific IP address range.

Produkey has support for Microsoft Operating systems from windows 98 onward (with the exception of some versions of Windows 7) and works with Windows 8 too.

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