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This is a warning to users of Windows 8.1.  If you didn’t get the huge update for 8.1 in April, you only have until June 10 to do so.  For business users, the deadline is in August.  Otherwise you’ll be cut off from getting security patches and other updates for 8.1.  You need to get your update or you won’t get anymore.

I don’t understand why Microsoft would want to deny access to updates by deadline.  This does not seem a way to win friends and reassure new and already wary users to appreciate Windows 8.1 or Microsoft in general, but there you have it.

Windows 8 was a vast and generally disliked or misunderstood departure from popular and well-received Windows 7. Many users were lost in the new operating system, spending what should have productive hours on a learning curve they seemed to resent.  The return of the start button in 8.1 was warmly received as a possible fix to the learning curve problem, yet adding a deadline with punitive consequences seems a bit draconian.  Especially since many users, in my experience as a tech and owner of Ducktoes, a computer repair company, don’t really understand what updates are for and why they need them and may miss the deadline out of lack of knowledge.  Banning them from future updates and from the very start button in 8.1 that these users want, doesn’t seem like an endearing promotion of Microsoft products.

Also I don’t know what happens to people who buy a Windows 8 machine after the deadline.  Will they be barred from getting the update too?

For more info, read this PC World article or this from Microsoft.

For help with your updates for 8.1, visit Ducktoes our computer repair website or shop in Calgary.