Revising its initial plans to drop Chrome support for Windows 7 by July next year, Google has extended the deadline by 6 months. According to Google, Chrome will continue supporting Windows 7 at least until January 15, 2022.
The decision comes based on feedback from Chrome’s enterprise customers in light of the global pandemic. The company says it will continue to “evaluate the conditions our enterprise customers are facing, and communicate any additional changes in the future.”
Google points out that migrating to Windows 10 was part of the roadmap of many organizations this year. According to a Kantar study commissioned by Google Chrome Enterprise in the second quarter of this year, almost 21 percent of companies are in the process of migrating to Windows 10, while at least 1 percent have not even started the migration process.
“With this extension of support, enterprises with their upgrades still in progress can rest assured that their users remaining on Windows 7 will continue to benefit from Chrome’s security and productivity benefits,” says Max Christoff, Engineering Director, Chrome.
Coincidentally, Chrome’s new deadline makes it almost two years since Microsoft officially discontinued Windows 7. The Redmond giant stopped issuing security updates to Windows 7 on the 14th of January this year. Ever since Microsoft pulled the plug, enterprises and IT companies have been migrating to Windows 10 and other Linux distributions.
Google’s initiative to extend support for Windows 7 is a neat gesture towards the enterprise segment, which is already facing a lot of hurdles due to the coronavirus pandemic. This extension should provide more flexibility to ensure a seamless migration process.
